I BELIEVE A MAJORITY OF SOCIETY, at one time or another, wanted to be someone else. The first time that thought would cross a person’s mind I am guessing would be during the early school years; hence, the popular kids were born. I know when I was in elementary school, part of me had wished I was more athletic. It seemed to me the boys who could run the fastest always had a lot of friends. It is funny to me because I am just realizing this fast-running skill never translated the same for the girls. My wishing to be someone else intensified through my high school years. Early on it became apparent to me that there were cliques throughout the student body. It did not take long to realize which students fit into which groups and we had a lot of groups. There were the popular kids, the athletic ones, the brainiacs, the dopers, the artsy ones and the nerds, to name a few. Very few students as far as I could tell could bridge across and fit into a 2^nd clique after they had already been identified as being a part of a particular group. If I tell you what group I was associated with, you must promise not to laugh. I was thrown into the “good kids” group. We did not fit into the upper echelon of the elite groups, and we were not part of the low-end groups; we were just average students who didn’t want to break any rules.      THROUGH MY COLLEGE YEARS I STARTED focusing on one major that I thought I wanted a career in, but after a couple of years transitioned to a different major. There were a couple of students in my class that I admired early on. One was a veteran who wrote about the horrors and the life of a soldier in a war zone and the other was an amazing descriptive wannabe writer, who tended to write scary stories. The thing I loved about the 2 of them was how they could capture an audience with their verbal story telling skills. I could see exactly what they were saying and get a sense of the emotions of their characters. Through the semester I was able to befriend them, and we would hang out together. Up until that time I guess I had them on a pedestal. Once I got to know them, I found out each one struggled with their own demons. Here, I wanted to be like them but find out that there was a price they were paying for their verbal/writing skills. This was not lost on me as I watched what happened in this latest installment of the animated, adventure comedy.      WHEN A MAD SCIENTIST’S INVENTION TURNS monsters into humans and humans into monsters, hotel owner Dracula, voiced by Brian Hull (Pup Star, My Babysitter Story-TV), would have to accompany his annoying son-in-law on a perilous trip to find a remedy. With Andy Samberg (Palm Springs, Brooklyn Nine-Nine-TV) voicing Jonathan, Selena Gomez (Spring Breakers, Getaway) voicing Mavis, Kathryn Hahn (Bad Moms franchise, Afternoon Delight) voicing Ericka and Jim Gaffigan (Away We Go, American Dreamer) voicing Van Helsing; this installment did not have Adam Sandler as Dracula which might be telling in itself. There was nothing new or major with the story and humor. I have to say watching this film was a “middle of the road” experience. There were no laugh out loud moments, the humor was exactly like the previous movies; essentially it was just okay. I did not feel any emotional pull from the story, nor did I feel any connection to the characters. I will say the animation was fine and there was a touch of creativity with the artwork. For me, this was one of those movies that I had familiarity with the characters already; so, I did not have to invest too much energy into watching the picture.

1 ¾ stars