Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.0

Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores Blu-ray Movie Review

Even the most hideous monsters look better than this thing.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 28, 2014

Imagine Universal classic monsters meet Clueless meets King Kong and get an idea of what's in store with Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores, a 46-minute feature starring the Mattel teenage monster girls in a spring break adventure. It's about as ridiculous as it sounds, especially when one considers the bubble gum Pop music and the dreadful, eye gouging atrocity that is the animation style. A far cry not only in terms of audio/video content and delivery from the companion film Fright On but also a significantly more dull story, Escape from Skull Shores doesn't do the series any justice, even if it does incorporate the usual themes of inclusiveness, togetherness, and comfort in one's own skin.

Monstrous.

It's spring break, and a select group of students from Monster High decides to head to The Great Barrier Reef for a few days of fun and sun. The trip is especially important for Lagoona (voiced by Laura Bailey) who wants her boyfriend Gil (voiced by Evan Smith) to meet her parents. Unfortunately, a Kraken attacks their ship and leaves them stranded on a small, salvaged chunk of the hull. They are quickly rescued by a magician named Bartleby Farnum (voiced by Keith Silverstein) and his assistant, the hooded Kipling (voiced by Malcolm Danare). But instead of taking them to the Reef, he instead takes them to Skull Island. There, they discover statues that look just like Frankie (voiced by Kate Higgins) and begin to unravel a dangerous secret about the island and the man who brought them to it.

If applying makeup to wooden masks, a seemingly endless conversation between boyfriend and girlfriend about whether the girl's parents will accept the guy's saltwater origins, being beat over the head about themes on inclusiveness and self-worth, and characters so vain that they become upset when someone else is kidnapped by a rampaging monster rather than them, then Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores just might work. Admittedly, the series has never been about the subtle, and the message is hardly hidden in this film. Yet it's so blatant that even the mightiest magic from its slick antagonist couldn't make it any less obvious. The characters undergo no advancement because they only cover the same ground only situated across a different backdrop. The story lacks creativity and audiences, even younger viewers, will likely be left wondering how such a simple message can be delivered with so much blunt force by so many one-dimensional characters.

Oh, the animation. Have mercy on the eyes of the poor viewing audience. Monster High deserves better than this. With characters so externally colorful and well-defined -- even if they're one-shot message carriers on the inside and exist only to deliver that message under a sea of clever puns -- one can only imagine why, other than budgetary concerns and constraints, the filmmakers decided this was in some way preferable to the intoxicating colors and flow found in Fright On. Nothing -- not the characters, not the environments, not the drama, not the music -- benefits from the shoddy digital animation. Whatever qualities the film may have -- and it's rather vapid after the immediate message that's been conveyed 100 different ways before -- are sucked out of the film by this visual atrocity like a vampire chugging a pint of the red stuff.

Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores is more or less technically proficient -- only some occasional banding really mars the presentation -- but the animation gives the 1080p, 1.78:1-framed Blu-ray almost nothing with which to work. Details are flat and lightly fuzzy. There's no tangible texture on Kipling's hood, the island's terrain, the wooden masks, or the monsters' clothes or accessories. The image is flat and lifeless, which is also apparent in its coloring. The palette lacks any sort of vibrance whatsoever. Everything is dull, tired, and burdened with a heavy push towards a flat monotone. This is truly a striking example of the differences between more classic, lively animation, such as that found on Monster High: Fright On, and this, budget digital that does the material no visual favors.

Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Too loud. Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores washes up on Blu-ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack that's way too aggressive. It's ear-piercing and not in a good way. Music blares at the expense of refined clarity. The Pop-inspired notes never find any stage balance or tight, precision clarity in the delivery that seems to just throw it out there with a jetpack strapped to it, hoping for the best. The result are overly sharp notes and something that requires the listener scramble to turn the volume down from reference. There are precious few ambient support effects anywhere in the film. Dialogue suffers the same fate as music, coming across too sharply. Much like the video, this audio presentation is trounced by the more balanced and enjoyable track found with Fright On.

Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores contains no supplemental content.

Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Whereas Fright On was visually lively and only kinda-sort blunt about its message, Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores looks awful and makes its point so absurdly obvious that there's even one character forced to wear a bag over his head until all is well at the end when a girl who shares the same "hideous" characteristic as he proclaims that he's "cute." The message is nice, and it is aimed at younger viewers, but making it a little more subtle and paying a little more attention to filling in the story around it might have made the movie a little more tolerable. Better animation would be nice, too. Huge, really. Necessary, in reality. Universal's Blu-ray release of Monster High: Escape from Skull Shores delivers the flat, uninteresting video source material well enough. Audio is too aggressive. Supplements are nonexistent. Skip it.