'Mad Monster Party' arrives on Blu-ray

Courtesy Lionsgate Home Entertainment

Even though Fall isn't quite in the air yet, there's no reason you can get psyched for Halloween. And thanks to Lionsgate Home Entertainment, the celebration began this week with the arrival of Mad Monster Party on a Blu-ray combo pack.

If you don't remember, MMP revolves around Baron Von Frankenstein (voice of Boris Karloff), who has decided to retire as the head of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters. But first, he must inform the other monsters about his plans. How to deliver the news? How else - through a Mad Monster Party! Von Frankenstein’s guests include a who’s who of Halloween favorites (although they never actually mention the Oct. 31 holiday), including the Werewolf, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Mummy, the Invisible Man and more. But who among them is fit to be the new head of the monsters?

From the Rankin/Bass team who created the stop-motion and animated holiday classics "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman," Mad Monster Party stars the voice talents of Boris Karloff (Frankenstein) and Phyllis Diller (Eight on the Lam). The Blu-ray Combo Pack bonus materials include a "making of" featurette, plus two featurettes that look at the animation and the music of the film, as well as two bonus sing-along tracks. The Mad Monster Party Blu-ray Combo Pack arrived on Sept. 4 for the suggested retail price of $14.99.

-Aaron Sagers

'Hotel Transylvania' trailer animates Adam Sandler

Welcome to Hotel Transylvania, a "five stake" resort where Dracula is the overprotective parent of daughter Mavis (who ages, apparently) and offers monsters a place to gather and be themselves away from the gaze of humans. One hitch, though: On the weekend of his daughter's 118th birthday, a human boy wanders into the party and develops a crush on her.

As you can guess, hijinks ensue in the animated movie when Drac and his buddies - Frankenstein, Murray the Mummy, the Invisible Man and Wayne the werewolf - attempt to hilariously keep the two young lovers apart. It's sort of like Romeo and Juliet, except Juliet starts the movie dead.

Directed by Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky, who also brought us the original Star Wars: Clone Wars series, Transylvania stars Adam Sandler as Dracula - as well as his usual crew of Kevin James, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade and Cee-Lo.

Overall, it looks ... cute. But hopefully the humor will be more Rankin/Bass Mad Monster Party and less That's My Boy. Hotel Transylvania opens Sept. 28, 2012.

(Final lingering note: Why would a hotel run by a vampire classify itself by "five stakes," a symbol that most assuredly means death for them? Yeah, I'm overthinking it.)

-Aaron Sagers