The characters and story, forged by six different directors and many more writers over a six-year-production stint, leave little room for Tartakovsky tricks and tics.

Comedy gothic isn't exactly novel, and frankly there is a sense here of a movie coasting along on Halloween hype-marketing, without providing as many laughs and ideas as it really could have done.

No one does saccharine like Adam Sandler. The man can be sharp, angry and funny - but when he lays on the sweetness, it's like drowning in an avalanche of Tate & Lyle.

An animated feature with Adam Sandler providing the voice of Dracula sounds like strength-sapping kryptonite to anyone with a modicum of taste, but Hotel Transylvania turns out to be a fairly pleasant surprise.