impy | 31 Days of October, Day 6

That is almost the entire storyline set-up for you, so no recap other than Halloween is not safe for Monsters and Frankie Stein attempts to rectify this while tensions between Normies and Monsters runs at an all-time high.

Let's get the bad over with, shall we?

The Bad:

While everyone else in the school (it seems like this is a literal thing) is freaking out about the Normies declaring war, Draculaura is obsessing over Clawdeen ducking out of yet another double date D has set up, even though Clawdeen's made it pretty clear she's not interested in going out on a date with her brother, his girlfriend, and some guy she doesn't even know. So Draculaura sets up that speed dating thing which plays exactly as shown in the clip above.
Why is Clawdeen avoiding Draculaura? The better question is why Clawdeen isn't taking part in the great Normie/Monster feud given that her siblings are. Instead she's relegated to a C or D plot that ultimately ends up with Draculaura realizing that Clawdeen has NEVER been on a date! Gasp!
All of this to push the moral that just because you haven't done something and you're afraid doesn't mean you should cheat yourself out of the opportunity. Also, dating isn't as scary as it would be if there were literal monsters out there? I dunno. I would've liked it better if Clawdeen just wasn't freakin' interested and she was avoiding Draculaura because when Ula D gets an idea in her head, she obsesses and it's just easier to avoid. Annnnnnnnnd the guy she lays eyes on and is ready to overcome this whole dating phobia is, of course, the same guy Draculaura's been trying to set her up with from the beginning. *facepalm*

Took me forever to realize that Draculaura's cousin here reminds me of Mr. Jay from ANTM. o_O

The other thing I wasn't all that fond of was the way Abbey looked in her GR get-up. It's just... not a look I enjoy, I guess. Petty and superficial but there it is.

The Rest!

This special seemed to try and give a lot of the main characters a chance to do something, or at least be in a lot of scenes and have a few lines thrown their way, which I appreciate. Sometimes they fixate a little too much on one or two characters and that's rarely fun for a full length movie, y'know?
Some characters got more love than others. If you're not particularly fond of Ghoulia being super!solve it all, fear not. She does her geek thing, but it's more early!MH tech-y stuff, while she leaves the carrying out of various plans to those who can move far more quickly. I still prefer her art in webisode form to her CGI look, but hey.
Nefera continues to be a right royal pain in the duff and it's implied that Daddy De Nile seems to favor her over Cleo. Gil continues to devolve at an alarming rate, but it's pretty much shown in the trailer so... *shrug* Venus is in full on ghostwritten!Dawn from the BSC mode. :/

But all is not lost. I'm the first to admit that Holt/Jackson get on my nerves more often than not, but it's interesting to see how Jackson deals with being the Normie at school and the way he feels like an outcast. It's also interesting to note that Jackson is smart enough to realize that he's better off as Holt while everyone's anti-normie but Holt doesn't do the same thing when he gets thrown in jail for being a monster. His transformation back to Jackson (which gets him out of jail) is an accident after the Sheriff takes away his headphones.
And then Jackson gets taken back to school, only this is the normie school. Where he panics and thinks he's about to get lynched only to realize that here, he fits right in. He's giddy over this revelation and goes out of his way to avoid turning back into Holt for as long as possible.
Holt gets one of my favorite visual gags in the entire thing when he races off to enjoy his limited time before the iCoffin runs out of juice and he turns back into Jackson. The way he runs off and is seen in the next scene cracks me up every time. I... may have rewatched it a few more times than is strictly necessary. ;)

On the Monster side, we've got Cleo getting a bit portion of the story. Not shown in the trailer is the fact that Daddy De Nile does not approve of Deuce. Daddy thinks he's holding Cleo back from greatness (and if Daddy sees Nefera as greatness then yes, yes Deuce is holding Cleo back because he makes Cleo retain her humanity and think about others, not just herself. He keeps her from being Nefera 2.0 ) He suggests that Cleo break up with the slacker whose every other word is Dude. (His character devolved so Nefera could say this and we cut to Deuce saying "dude" to everyone? REALLY?) Cleo refuses, though not to Daddy's face.
(Random, but Cleo's "my Mummy... my Daddy" line also cracks me up.)
Daddy also points out that in time of crisis, the Monsters will need a leader. Cleo is born royalty, so it makes sense for her to BE that leader. Cleo waffles on this until she sees how popular Holt is getting for all the pranks and things he's allegedly pulling on the normies (he's not, but you knew that) and then she decides to become his liaison... which works out quite nicely since it just involves her coming up with her own plans and pretending they came from Holt, so everyone leaps to attention. Cleo is thrilled... until Daddy makes her break up with Deuce for real. :/
I love the little glimpses into Cleo/Deuce's relationship, like the way he knows when she's merely parroting her father and Nefera's ideas.

Operetta is adorable in her scenes as she leads Frankie, Spectra, and Abbey down to the Hall of Halloween. (Spectra's got some cute moments as well.)

Abbey continues her streak of being awesome and I'm guessing she's definitely the new Ghoulia in how the writers throw her the best stuff. Which brings me to the reason you should watch this if nothing else has appealed to you at all.

HEATH. ABBEY. Heath is all over this thing and he's forever mucking things up because he's Heath and Abbey keeps saving him and it's adorable. I'm not sure if I 'ship them or not, but it's cute either way. Heath. HEATH.

Lagoona doesn't play a huge part, but she does show up enough to keep me happy. She figures out why Heath is acting so weird around Abbey and she's part of the group to go into New Salem.

I love Claire (the goth!Normie) and I love that at the end, she kisses Jackson. Which is confusing considering I... thought he and Frankie had a thing, but then she never seemed as concerned about him as she was about Holt and that's ignoring the whole she and Andy had a thing in the last special storyline. Still. Good moment!

If I'm really good, Mattel, can I have a Claire?

I also love that Lilith, the bad guy, bonds with Cleo over fashion as well as the burdens of being too awesome for words. It's amusing and sweet at the same time, especially the way Cleo's still hedging her bets til the end. ;)

Manny gets some fun gags involving red capes, mazes, and a china shop. The teachers continue to be awesome just by being themselves.

Basically if the main story doesn't do anything for you, there are a million little awesome things sprinkled throughout the movie that more than make up for it. It's as if all the little puns and gags and cute things that were originally in the webisodes (and seem to have wandered off for the specials) came back for this, only... better.

I loved everyone. Well. There was one thing...

The animatronic vampire skeleton in the Hall of Halloween.

Is somehow awesome and the single most terrifying thing to ever come out of MH all at once. If you don't believe me, look at the next picture and tell me that is not just a wee bit disturbing.

Clowns have got NOTHING on vampire skeletons, let me tell you.

Pics! Because my random thoughts probably got us all lost but pictures can be artfully manipulated, even if you don't like the CGI. ;)