The Undervale Hotel Review: A Bland Addition to the Overflowing Humor Category

Animated comedies targeting grown-ups ought to serve as a boundless canvas for creative minds, but frequently they wind up as tasteless, hollow entertainment—unnecessary content left running in the backdrop while audiences scroll or putter around.

When considering whether to add the series to your queue, discard the giants of cartoon sitcoms: even with showrunner Matt Roller’s experience on Rick and Morty, Haunted Hotel lacks the sparkling creativity of that series, the honed humor of a classic, the lewd bite of another hit, or the profound substance of an acclaimed series.

Rather, it is, at best, somewhat amusing. A few lines fit the standard mold of punchlines. A number of brain cells linked to laughter may experience slight activation. Should a gag falls flat, one more arrives shortly, and even if it might not land, it will not irritate either.

Our backdrop is the Undervale hotel, which suffers from a poor location, terrible furnishings, and inexperienced staff—but that’s not why visitors steer clear of it. It’s spooked! Ghosts, ghouls, fiends, and supernatural phenomena are everywhere.

Initially, it feels like a copy of Ghosts, with spirits providing a blend of assistance and trouble, pleading for small favors like leaving the television on—a clear reference to eternal boredom.

The main cast includes a voice actor as the younger sister, Skyler Gisondo as Ben, Will Forte as Nathan, Jimmi Simpson as Abaddon, and a skilled actress as Katherine.

Managing the undead residents is a quite standard comedy household: smart, overwhelmed single mother Katherine, her hopeless sibling Nathan—who is a ghost who behaves like a regular person—and her two children: awkward teen Ben and little sister Esther, with a dark, megalomaniacal streak.

Rounding out the cast is Abaddon, trapped in the form of a young boy from the 1700s—in effect a replica of a famous animated villain from Family Guy.

Perhaps the pilot was considered too unoriginal, because later installments branch out into spoofs and homages: an episode references horror films, another involves a Body Snatchers scenario, and a further recounts the timeworn sitcom story of a date sabotaged by chaos at the hotel.

None of this stops Haunted Hotel from occasionally producing reasonable one-liners, but the writing often feels rushed, like it hadn’t been worked on enough.

Visual jokes abound thanks to the otherworldly environment, but they rarely hit the mark. Even, when a collection of animals race across a corridor, the explanation given—Falling—poor visibility!”—doesn’t work.

In the end, The Undervale feels like it makes little effort hard enough. As one character says to a potential visitor: “We know about the smell, and we’re trying.” A similar applies for the show itself.