REVIEW: Monster High “The Monstering”

Overview

Human girl, Clawdeen, (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green) follows her instincts and discovers Monster High; when she isn’t allowed into the school because she’s human, she devises other ways to get into Monster High.



Our Take

While the previous two episodes were a pilot, this time around we have a “Season Premiere” episode focused on Clawdeen, a newbie at the titular Monster High who instinctively is gravitated towards the school despite not fully comprehending her monster powers as a werewolf and being the “gateway character” introducing the audience into this world through her perspective.

Much of the humor is your by-the-numbers fish-out-of-water jokes of a newbie trying to get enrolled and of course, the Headmistress at first is against humans (and also magic), and given the fact that Nickelodeon felt the need to release two later episodes already revealing this twist about Clawdeen, it isn’t much of a spoiler for those who saw the episode, not to mention nearly every character’s name is a pun or a play on words to make them sound clever.

Overall a passable episode, but it works better if you don’t see the pilot first. Shea Fontana is hard at work devoting a full half hour to a two-part storyline that tells us everything we need to know about Clawdeen and her struggles & hardships to fit in and how that could change. But at least it wasn’t boring.