Clawdeen may be a werewolf, but she’s by no means a lone wolf.
When Clawdeen first arrived at Monster High, she had to hide who she was. You see, monsters don’t get along very well with humans, and Clawdeen’s half-human, half-werewolf. But, to make a long story short, after Clawdeen saved the student body from being turned to stone, the headmistress did away with such prejudices and allowed Clawdeen to stay.
“From now on, true monster heart will mean exactly that—who you are, on the inside,” Headmistress Bloodgood had said.
Since then, Clawdeen’s gotten quite popular (as heroes tend to do). So popular, in fact, that her name is put in the running for the school Prefect.
Her opponent, however, is Toralei Stripe, a werecat who’s just returned from a trip to France. And while there, “Tora” ran into a dangerous coven of human witches—ones using a special metal made from witchcraft capable of harming monsters. And if Tora wins, she’ll use the platform to “protect monsters” by banning witchcraft.
That would be a tragedy for Draculaura, one of Clawdeen’s closest friends, who only recently revealed to the public that she practices witchcraft herself (something previously shunned in monster society for its association with humans).
And unless they can win this election (or otherwise change Tora’s mind on the matter), life at Monster High might just become a little more, well … monstrous.
Characters risk their lives for one another, and they realize that working together is better than going at problems alone.
A father tries his best to protect his daughter.
The antagonists of the film stand against witchcraft, calling it a foul human art. And, to their point, every witch encountered in the film save for one is indeed villainous. Meanwhile, Clawdeen and her friends argue that those who practice witchcraft are merely misunderstood and have been historically oppressed. “Witchcraft can be beautiful,” someone says. There are many references to covens and the Salem Witch Trials, which one person describes as “the very heart of hate itself.”
One coven has tried to rebrand itself as a company that makes “health” beverages that increase the length of your life. The drink allegedly works, but the coven members don’t tell the public that they mix magical elixirs into the drink to cause the effect. Witches fly around as smoky apparitions.
People cast spells, and one spell is used on a girl to control her mind. Characters sing a birthday song referencing the “13 moons,” a term associated with Wicca. A scarab is named after an Egyptian goddess. Monster High’s school mascot is “The Demons.”
Someone speaks in Latin, saying, “Spirit of the house, share your wisdom.” A scrawl reads, “All knowledge comes from within.”
[Spoiler Warning] The Grim Reaper shows up to take someone into the afterlife, but he allows her to return back to the land of the living when she says she’d rather not go.
As in the previous movie, Frankie Stein (as a result of being an amalgamation of both male and female body parts) identifies as nonbinary.
The film appropriates phrases often associated with LGBT acceptance. For instance, when one character realizes that she’s being asked to hide her witchcraft, she compares it to being asked to “go back in the broom closet.”
Likewise, another student tells Clawdeen that her status as half-human, half-monster helped her to embrace who she truly is, and she passes out “human-monster pride buttons.” Clawdeen talks about finding “her truth.”
A man and woman kiss.
Someone dies. A couple of people reveal scars caused by a burning metal. Characters fight. Someone hopes to kill a population of vampires. One monster threatens a couple humans for their car. A snake bites a woman. We’re told about a spell that previously resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.
Nothing, unless you count Cleo de Nile’s repeated exclamations of, “Oh my Ra!”
None.
A fake clone of someone continuously flatulates. A man belches.
In Monster High 2, zombies aren’t the ones who groan. After hearing all of the monster-adjacent puns this film has to offer, you may be groaning, too.
To the credit of this Monster High: The Movie sequel, there’s little violence or crude language. Unfortunately, that mild bit of praise contrasts with how few positive messages there are here, too. After all, the plot does center around trying to convince people that witchcraft isn’t really all that bad (even as nearly every witch characters encounter, save for Draculaura, happens to be a villain).
On top of that—and likely of separate concern to parents—the embrace of witchcraft here is pretty clearly a thinly veiled embrace of the LGBT worldview as well.
So while Monster High 2 doesn’t come at viewers withs its claws and fangs out, it nevertheless still harbors significant worldview issues that may well keep many families away.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
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