Haunted Hotel
Entry updated 17 November 2025. Tagged: TV.
US animated tv series (2025-current). Titmouse, Harmonius Claptrap, Magic Giraffe, Netflix Animation. Created by Matt Roller. Directors include Christopher Nance, Bob Suarez and Meg Waldow. Writers include Matt Roller. Voice cast includes Eliza Coupe, Will Forte, Skyler Gisondo, Natalie Palamides and Jimmi Simpson. Ten 25 minute episodes to date. Colour.
Katherine Freeling (Coupe) inherits the Undervale Hotel from her recently deceased brother Nathan (Forte), who won it in a card game. Moving in with her children Esther (Palamides) and Ben (Gisondo), she finds running the hotel problematic since it is infested with ghosts (see Supernatural Creatures), including Nathan. The hotel and environs are also home to assorted Monsters, both supernatural and cryptid (at least one suggesting the Cthulhu Mythos). Katherine is unhappy with the situation and Ben's feelings are mixed; Esther, who has an interest in Black Magic, is overjoyed and befriends Abaddon (Simpson), a demon (see Gods and Demons) who has been trapped in the body of a child since the beginning of the 1700s and effectively becomes a member of the family. Many of the ghosts are murderers or murder victims for whom the main virtue of the living is their ability to turn on the television. There is only a trickle of guests, of whom half leave in the middle of the night (Katherine: "I mean, I hope they left. Their rooms were empty").
Stories include Esther sharing some cute creatures she found with fellow pupils, who end up possessed; the parasites are eventually seen off and fly to the next town. Asked "What if they do the same thing to that town?", Esther replies: "That seems like a them problem." A wardrobe duplicates Ben, each copy showing different aspects of his personality (see Identity); Esther raises the dead (see Zombies); Katherine's and Nathan's aunt, learning of the hotel's properties, moves in to die there so she can become a ghost (see Eschatology); Esther finds a snow globe of the hotel which when dropped cracks, causing a rift in the actual sky from which (see Dimensions) the spawn of an Assyrian demon erupt and attack the hotel.
The season finale has Esther and Abaddon discovering a relic that dispatches items to the dawn of time. Then the Acolytes of Abaddon arrive, a cult who perform a ceremony to "bring Abaddon home". It is assumed this means to return him to Hell; in fact, it brings Hell to Earth and the Apocalypse begins (see End of the World). All the family dies; Abaddon – mainly due to his friendship with Esther – uses the relic, and is transported to the Big Bang (see Time Travel), then waits until he reaches the present and attempts to rectify the situation (see Time Abyss). This takes about a hundred attempts to get right (see Time Loops), partially because he also wants to keep his restored demonic powers; he eventually accepts he must lose them to save the others (see Time Paradoxes), despite his earlier dismissive remarks about how Esther's existence is just a "blip" in relation to his Immortality.
At present the series' main problem is the characters: Katherine is uninteresting whilst Nathan and Ben are often irritating (Ben being the traditional insecure early teen); Abaddon starts a little flat, but improves in the last couple of episodes; fortunately Esther is much more endearing, being the lively pre-teen character beloved of cartoons, whose intense temperament hides a good heart (see Clichés). In episode 9 we learn Nathan was a Suicide (something of which he was unaware), giving the potential for character development. Save for a dip in episodes 7 and 8, the show improves through the first season, and on the whole is a funny (see Humour) Horror series, but with lapses into mediocrity; however, the stronger final two episodes give hope for the already commissioned second season. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980) (based on Stephen King's The Shining (1977)) is presumably an influence, but there are numerous nods to other horror films; at one point we also see Esther reading a Junji Itō work. [SP]
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