Monster High: Monster Girls – Monster High: Ghoul’s Rule! (2012)

Directed by: Mike Fetterly, Steve Sacks | 68 minutes | animation, family | Original voice cast: Erin Fitzgerald, Salli Saffioti, Dee Dee Green, Kate Higgins, Laura Bailey, Hank Banks, Cam Clarke, Julie Maddalena, Mark Mercado, Audu Paden, Cindy Robinson

Monster High is an American high school located in the fictional town of New Salem in the real-life state of Oregon. The uniqueness of the school lies in the staffing of the students: they consist – the name says it all – only of monsters. There’s the friendly but clumsy girl Frankie Stein, Draculaura and her friend, the shy Clawdeen Wolf, the beautiful and popular Cleo de Nile and her boyfriend Deuce Gorgon, from whose head grows a good number of green snakes. The concept of Monster High was conceived by toy giant Mattel (the company behind Barbie). In 2010, Mattel launched a line of toys in which the characters based on monster movies and horror stories have been given a fashionable makeover. In addition to dolls, there is also other merchandise available for the enthusiast: from make-up to bags, from video games to games. ‘Monster High: Monster Girls’ (‘Monster High: Ghoul’s Rule’) is the first feature film about the creepy-looking misfits with teenage problems.

Monster High turns out not to be the only high school around. There is another educational institute, where only ‘normal’ people, that is, ordinary human adolescents, study. ‘Monster High: Monster Girls’ takes place around Halloween. The monsters have been taught that Halloween is a time for them to hide because they are extra hunted around that time. When Frankie investigates, she discovers that Halloween has traditionally been a celebration of monsters. Contrary to the wishes of the (very literal) headmaster, she tries to convince her friends and classmates that that is actually the way they should celebrate Halloween. But meanwhile, their school is attacked by normals, Cleo is incited by her father to act like a leader and therefore sees no other way out than to prove that she can do it by getting her friends to take revenge on the normals. But before they can carry out their plan, someone else is falsely accused of defaming the normal high school. Who is really behind the vandalism?

‘Monster High: Monster Girls’ is packed with characters, which makes the film – especially if this is the first encounter with the monstrous students – quite confusing. Although the characters show differences in appearance, they are nevertheless characterized by the same look. The girls have long legs, beautiful long hair, revealing clothes and a strange skin color. The boys are not always easy to tell apart. However, as soon as the division of roles is clear, the story is easy to follow, even for the youngest viewers. It doesn’t get scary or exciting anywhere and the message (that you have to be tolerant of others) can’t hurt. On the animation front, ‘Monster High: Monster Girls’ doesn’t excel very much, the short films that are included as extras on the DVD (‘Flowers for Slow Mo’, ‘The Boiling Point’ and ‘Forbidden for Girls’) are with their 2D animations are a lot more charming and detailed than the cheesy CGI of the main movie. For example, the Barbie films, also patented by Mattel, look a lot neater. But the target group will not care about that, it will be about the recognizable characters and the mutual relationships and they will get their money’s worth with that. If you want a quality movie, you don’t need to buy ‘Monster High: Monster Girls’, but for harmless entertainment (and the realization that this movie is little more than a stretched commercial for the toy line) this movie is doable .