Haunted Hotel Review: Netflix Series Continues Paranormal Hospitality Comedy Trend

Supernatural horror comedies set in hotels are all the rage these days. The live-action CBS sitcom Ghosts is about to begin its fifth season next month. Then the family-friendly Hotel Transylvania films are about to debut a Netflix series called Motel Transylvania later this year. Now Rick and Morty writer Matt Roller corners the adult animation market with Haunted Hotel, a bland horror series that feels more Fox primetime than Netflix. 

The series follows Katherine (Eliza Coupe), a recently-divorced single mom who is now in charge of running the Undervale Hotel with her two kids, awkward 13-year-old Ben (Skyler Gisondo) and anarchist Esther (Natalie Palamides), after her estranged, golly-gee brother Nathan (Will Forte) dies. But the Undervale is also a paranormal hotspot where ghosts, spirits, and demons roam—including Nathan, who is now a ghost. 

Katherine struggles to find the middle ground between “normal” visitors and the supernatural who wreak havoc within the hotel. Soon after, she and Nathan become co-runners of the joint: Katherine accommodating the living and Nathan the dead. Among the latter is Abaddon (Jimmi Simpson): a demon trapped in the form of an 18th century child who the family cares for as one of their own. Over the course of the first season’s 10 episodes, the family gets into all sorts of wild, horror-centric situations, blending slice-of-life sitcom stuff with the fantastical. 

Between Haunted Hotel and the recent Long Story Short, it appears that Netflix has had a recent awakening. In the realm of adult animated series, the streamer is moving away from TV-MA fare and striving for TV-14 with broad appeal for the sake of longevity, and that’s what works in Haunted Hotel‘s favor. The show evokes a familiar charm through the central family unit. While many of the characters are bland and simplistic, primarily Katherine, who is so suburban-mom coded all the way through; there’s a solid, pleasing camaraderie between them. Whenever the attention is on her either trying to raise her weird kids or her and Nathan being conflicting siblings of different literal realms, it’s moderately entertaining to see them try to come together to run this hotel. 

Much of the season is episodic, as each installment focuses on familiar sitcom plots—Katherine getting back into dating or one of the kids wanting to be popular in school—blending with the horror-villian-of-the-week format. It’s the same format that worked for Solar Opposites, another show from a Rick and Morty alum, but with fewer F-bombs yet a good amount of gore. The voice cast is often decent, trying to give life to the middling material given to them. Call me weak, but Will Forte playing an upbeat, nonchalant, lighthearted soul will always be endearing and funny, especially juxtaposed with the murderous spirits he’s surrounded by. The standout, however, is Jimmi Simpson as Abaddon as his dry deep-voiced line deliveries coming out of this tiny Victorian-era child are consistently funny. Whenever he yells in distress, all I hear is Liam McPoyle from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and it always warrants a laugh. 

The animation style of Haunted Hotel is a shortcoming. The thin, vectored, outlined character designs are as generic as many other forgotten adult animated toons in recent memory, like Mulligan or Chicago Party Aunt. The designs are limited in expression, lessening the comedic potential. It’s somewhat less than made up for in the action and art direction, where each episode has creative and exciting horror action scenes with strong camera angles and plenty of bright colors and lighting effects that catch the eye. 

There’s little to say about Haunted Hotel because it’s just there. It feels like background noise despite it being a refreshing offering for the streamer on paper. Honestly, Netflix might be the wrong place for the series even by its TV-14 rating and rather light family sitcom-ish tone, making it seem misplaced. It exudes the same tone and style as a Fox prime-time Animation Domination series – one that would last maybe a season or two, sandwiched between The Simpsons and Family Guy, before the slot is filled by another middle-of-the-road animated series that also lasts a season or two. Nevertheless, the series is fine for what it is but nothing thoroughly worth checking into.

All 10 episodes of Haunted Hotel are available to stream on Netflix now.