Haunted Hotel — Season 2 proves genre-bending show is a keeper

Review by C.J. Bunce

A worthy successor to supernatural TV series like Grimm, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, The Dresden Files, and Scooby-Doo, and a nice pairing with the current series Ghosts, Haunted Hotel has made the case that this horror comedy is here to stay. Netflix Animation Studios’ Haunted Hotel arrived late last year with ten animated episodes leaning into all your favorite cartoon horror tropes. It follows Katherine Freeling and her two kids who take over management of the Undervale Hotel, last owned by her dead brother Nathan. It turns out she can see her brother as a ghost, and the entire hotel is inhabited with centuries of spirits of former residents and guests who haven’t concluded their “unfinished business”–all who can be seen by her family. Like the Scooby Gang, it’s primarily a laugh-out-loud comedy, with clever situations, filled with familiar genre actors voicing guest roles but without the laugh track. The next season is now streaming on Netflix and this season the family learns more backstory about the hotel, and we learn exactly how the family stepped in to manage the hotel. You won’t find a better current series to get you into the Halloween mood.

Katherine, voiced by Eliza Coupe, is the typical sitcom mom. More refined than Peggy Bundy, she’s trying to raise two kids in a house filled with spirit world dangers in a setting mixing Ghosts with Newhart. She gets the support of ghost brother Nathan, voiced by Will Forte, and the actor’s familiar easy-going boyish charm makes for an almost-perfect mentor to Katherine’s kids. That’s preteen Esther, voiced by Natalie Palamides, an eccentric kid with much in common with Scooby’s pal Velma. Her older brother is typical awkward teen Ben, voiced by Skyler Gisondo, who first gained fame playing young Shawn on Psych.

"Two animated children sit at a kitchen table with a bowl of macaroni and cheese, while cheese splatters cover the walls, table, and stove in the messy, cozy kitchen. One child looks happy, the other surprised."

Jimmi Simpson returns as the voice of Abaddon, an ancient demon who has found himself trapped inside the body of a small boy. This season the writers and Simpson lean even more into this strange kid who might remind you of several actual kids you went to school with. If you feared the first season was a one-season wonder, Simpson will clear that up for you every time Abaddon emerges to take over the screen. You may want to re-watch episodes just to see what Abaddon is doing in the background. The cast is joined this season by Natalie Morales as new hotel employee Shayna.

"Two animated women holding glasses look surprised in a vintage-style room as a knife is pointed at them from below, with a third person in the background."

After its first season Haunted Hotel has risen to become something more than just an animated version of the British series Ghosts, remade in the U.S. into a successful CBS series starring Rose McIver (see five years of our reviews of this great show here). I admit the animation’s style has me recalling those Colorforms pieces in the Haunted Mansion playset from the 1970s. The kooky mystery plots are practically screaming for a Clue/Cluedo edition. Viewers will meet a living person who has been in the house all along, as Esther learns you can’t change things around the hotel without getting something in return. Ben hosts a dinner party. A strange witch enters the fray. Nathan finds his true love, only she lives far away. Katherine tries to bring Esther back when she enters a spirit form as the guys encounter a lake full of mermaids. Ghosthunter Dante Crowe arrives as a Constantine and Dresden-inspired hero. An elder spirit entices Katherine to try an easy method for managing the hotel. The family revisits the days before Nathan’s death in a dramatic season finale. And Abaddon tries to make macaroni and cheese.

Its targeted audience is teens and adults–it’s not for young kids, although older kids going through their monster phase will be ready for it. The show carries with it one real element of drama–Katherine’s brother Nathan and his suicide that left him as a ghost at the hotel–an element that floats in but never directly addressed as the elephant in the room. But the show is mostly about the fun of a sitcom family and keeping up with all the elements you’d expect from a haunted house.

As with the first season, as soon as you realize the story is playing with one trope it switches to another, always keeping viewers on their toes. The fun is aided by recurring voice actors including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Wednesday, and The Wolf of Snow Hollow actress Riki Lindhome as Annabelle, a 1920s flapper girl who is Ben’s girlfriend. Spirited and Mr. Robot’s Sunita Mann provides the voice of Esther’s unfazed friend Heather. The first season brought in guest voice actors including Keith David, Randall Park, Sunita Mann, Kari Walhgren, Beth Grant, Jim Rash, Diedrich Bader, Angourie Rice, Gaten Matarazzo, Bobby Moynihan, Phil LaMarr, and Kumail Nanjiani. Many are back as spirit residents of the hotel, and Season 2 guests include Lou Diamond Phillips, Elf and New Girl’s Zooey Deschanel, Doctor Who and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s Michelle Gomez, How I Met Your Mother and Six Feet Under’s Frances Conroy, Raising Hope’s Kate Micucci, Galaxy Quest’s Justin Long, prolific voice actors Troy Baker and April Winchell, and Legion’s Dan Stevens.

Two seasons in and it’s holding it’s own as the best new animated series on Netflix, and one of the best sitcoms, period. Catch both seasons of Haunted Hotel, now streaming on Netflix. Creator Matt Roller has said scripts are ready for a 10-episode return if Season 3 is greenlit.