"Monster Fest" is the Halloween special of the Nickelodeon CGI-animated series Monster High, based on the Mattel girl-orientated toyline of the same name.
Summary[]
As Head Haunter of the Monster Fest, Frankie frets over the best way to run the festival and considers handing the reins over to Hades. Monsters start to disappear, leading Frankie to investigate when Hades sponsors the festival. Frankie, Phoenix, and Heath search Hades' Underworld factory for their missing friends and discover a surprising culprit. The Boo Crew must weave their own webs and battle a foe to save the festival.
Plot[]
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The Monster Fest event has begun, with tents, trucks, stalls, and a massive stage all set on the Monster High campus. Frankie is chosen as "Head Haunter" in a vote hosted by Mrs. O' Shriek, meaning they are in charge of making sure Monster Fest is a great time for everyone and overseeing all the events, and is even gifted the Head Haunter badge. They announce an upcoming concert performance by a monster idol named "Phoenix", a famous musician who sings in many different genres, for later in the night. Frankie actually has their own song they want to sing at the festival, potentially with Phoenix, and could be the first Head Haunter to do so.
Clawd is leading the child events from the Babysitters' Crib tent and explains the origins of Monster Fest to the Boo Crew: it was founded by the twin spider brothers named Trick and Treat and their helpers, the Weblings. They're magic monsters, like Santa Claus. Trick gains powers by pranking monsters and wants everyone to be the same, whereas Treat gains power by giving treats and making monsters happy; the two live by their respective mottos, "don't wiggle the web" and "weave your own web". However, no one has seen them for centuries.
Frankie quickly finds themselves struggling trying to make every monster happy at the event, until Hades approaches them. Hades has a new business partner who is quite interested in Monster Fest, and offers Frankie a sponsorship from his company Underworld Inc.; he is so passionate about it that he ignore his son Heath's climate science leaders invention. Frankie vents out their frustrations to guest Scarecrow Von Twolegs, who is selling Scaramell Apples from his truck, who tells them that everyone has different ideas about what is and isn't a treat, and it's important to "weave your own web". Scarecrow also tells Frankie to listen to the one who knows best, and after some convincing from Lagoona, Frankie decides to agree to Hades' proposal.
As the festival permits anyone with the choice to wear fun outfits for the night, Clawdeen and Draculaura make and wear their own outfits, and Lagoona even wore hers early to eat as much of the festival food as possible. Cleo also wears her own attire, and makes one for Frankie as a gift while they're doing Head Haunter duties. Upon signing the contract, Frankie approves of Hades to sponsor the entire Monster Fest. Phoenix finally arrives, and as Head Haunter, Frankie shows her around the school. As a Monster High alumni, Phoenix reveals that the school is where she found her love for music and its various genres. She is also interested in monster mythology, stating that "weaving your own webs" can summon treats. Mrs O' Shriek gets Pheonix to sign her copy of her autobiography, specifically in the passage about how Pheonix became transgender - when she was younger, Pheonix disliked having to be the monster others expected of her; with her pheonix powers, she regenerated into a new form that was true to her real self, and states that everyone gets to personally determine what makes them happy.
After Cleo gifts Frankie their own Monster Fest outfit, she immediately heads to her room to search for the perfect finishing piece. Suddenly, she disappears into thin air in her closet, only a purple spider web left behind. After Frankie wears their outfit, they quickly realize that Cleo is missing; they search around asking their friends and teachers but nobody knows where she is. Hades gets the students to chant and support the Underworld Inc. sponsorship, which Scarecrow does not think is in the Monster Fest spirit. Frankie tells Clawdeen and Draculaura that they won't be doing their duet with Phoenix as Hades suggested it would not be a good idea, but their boos encourage them to do what makes them happy. Hades begins to forcefully shut down Monster Fest's activity spots, such as Scarecrow's food truck and Clawd's babysitting tent, as they do not have the approval of his corporation; he sells his poorly produced Underworld Inc. consumer products everywhere, such as Sticky Icky Tricky Pops as a substitute to Scarecrow's apples and chairs and tables for the babysitting tent that keep breaking, much to the attendees dismay. Heath, feeling ignored by his own father, tells Frankie that he's upset with their partnership with Hades as he knows what he's like when talking business.
While Frankie continues searching for Cleo (with Mr. Mothmanson disappearing the same way she did), Hades, seemingly due to urgency from his new partner, then begins a scavenger hunt for "Skullduggers", which cause every single one of the people attending Monster Fest to disappear as they spread out and find them; all but Heath who is not doing the hunt and is doing homework in the library, although encouraged to join the festivities by Abbey. The Boo Crew find themselves trapped in spider-webbed cocoons on a massive spider web in Hades' office in the Underworld. Cleo explains that the Skullduggers mean trickery; after teleporting victims onto the massive web, the Weblings, created by Trick, then web the victims' faces, causing them to transform into pink Weblings. Frankie, Heath, Phoenix, and Hades soon discover that everyone's been missing; Frankie quickly blames themselves, believing they failed as Head Haunter, while Heath quickly blames Hades. Heath is further irritated with his father when he leaves to take care of a situation in his factory after yet another call from his partner. Left all alone, the remaining three try to find everyone, oblivious to a weakened Scarecrow Von Twolegs begging Frankie to help. They then realize that magic spider webs have unexpectedly appeared everywhere in place of other monsters and suspect Trick and Treat, myth or not, are behind all of this. The three follow a trail of spider webs leading to an Underworld teleportation door. Determined to find their missing friends, Frankie turns the door knob and the three fall through a hole that opens in front of the door.
Frankie, Heath, and Pheonix end up inside one of the Underworld Inc factories, where the mechanisms are producing new products automatically. They open one of the crates, revealing that there are many filled with Skullduggers that trick those who open them - such as unleashing sneezing powder or sticking themselves onto people's hands - which befuddles them. It turns out that Weblings tied to webbed parachutes have been delivering and selling these crates of Skullduggers all across the monster world, such as Boo York. The three then spread out to find their friends. As they do, Pheonix tells Frankie that it's not so bad being alone sometimes as it can help one discover their real self; all her life, Pheonix was surrounded by people telling her to only sing one specific genre of music, each one differing each time as it's what they liked, and despite wanting to make them happy, it wasn't what made her happy. Pheonix helps Frankie discover that everyone wanted Monster Fest to be ran their way as they all voted for them to be Head Haunter, and that they should perform their original song as that's what would make them happy. Frankie calls Hades on their iCoffin to cancel the sponsorship agreement, but it goes to voice mail, which they leave regardless.
Heath and the others discover a room full of mirrors. Each one traps them in a dream-like trance in which they abandon their own personal happiness to please other people - Heath abandons his morality for climate activism to become his dad's business partner, Pheonix performs at a concert where she sings her number one hit over and over again, and Frankie sacrifices performing their original song for Monster Fest by allowing their ghoulfriends to shove them around make them watch their stuff. However, Frankie snaps out of the illusion by staying true to themselves, and convinces Heath and Pheonix to do the same. When they escape the mirror room, they are caught by Weblings and are identified as intruders. The trio battle against the Weblings, but their efforts are futile as they're resultingly trapped in webbed cocoons and teleported onto the web in Hades' office, reunited with the rest of the Boo Crew. It turns out that Hades is also imprisoned, as he reveals that he was tricked by his new business partner the whole time; he thought Heath would take a liking to him if he and his company participated in something cool like Monster Fest. This business partner, and the mastermind behind sabotaging Monster Fest, reveals himself: Trick. Trick is jealous of everyone always liking Treat more than him, so his goal is to rid the Monster World of all the treats and filled with nothing but tricks. He webs Clawd, Draculaura, Clawdeen, Lagoona, and Cleo's heads, thus transforming them into pink spiders that will help deliver his Skullduggers - with every trick unleashed, he grows stronger. Trick reveals that through Hades' partnership, he was able to strip all individuality through the broken chair tricks, making everyone wear badges instead of their own attires, and stopping everyone from eating the Scaramell Apples by offering the Pops instead. This causes Frankie to deduce that Scarecrow Von Twolegs is actually Treat in disguise, who attempted to regain his strength by spreading treats, so Trick had his Weblings transport everyone into Hades' office before the apples could be eaten.
Frankie realizes that they can "weave their own web" to summon Treat. Singing an acoustic version of their song, they help Treat regain his strength, as he emerges from his Scarecrow Von Twolegs disguise and teleports into Hades' office to join in on the confrontation - in the meantime, the others weaken Trick by "weaving their own webs", with Pheonix admitting she's happier being the real her, Heath revealing he's embarassed about his flamed hair extinguishing, and Hades expressing how he unconditionally loves his son despite being an imperfect father. Frankie tells Trick that they recognised him as he stayed true to himself even if his actual physical form was hidden. Trick frees Frankie, Heath, Pheonix, and Hades, who all hide behind the office desk when Trick and Treat begin to battle each other. The quartet manage to escort the pink Weblings to safety back at Monster High by escaping through a hatch in the ceiling, with only Pheonix leaving and taking the transformed spiders as she's the only one who can fly through; Frankie and Heath stay behind with the Boo Crew, who are freed from their pink Webling states as Treat could turn them back, alongside Hades, who is determined to make things right. When Trick makes a brief escape, the whole crew band together to stop Trick once and for all.
The battle commences in the manufacturing and delivery room. Trick and Treat fight each other once more while everyone else fights the Weblings to prevent them from making more deliveries. They eventually direct all the Weblings to Draculaura, who traps them all in several pinkish-purple bubbles using her witchcraft, which they all capture in the crates. However, it was not enough to defeat Trick, who grows even stronger, and even though Lagoona manages to devour the remaining Skullduggers within this one factory, Underworld Inc's international factories have already sold and are selling countless Skullduggers all around the Monster World - the partnership between Trick and Underworld Inc. will never be severed under a contract Hades signed. Despite his profits being higher than they could ever imaginably be, Hades decides, with no other choice, and doing what is right to make Heath proud, to shut his own company down permanently, officially destroying the partnership with Trick. Hades uses his powers to literally dissolve Underworld Inc. for good; everything associated with it ceases to exist. When everyone is automatically teleported back to Monster High, Trick is turned back into a powerless little spider; Frankie and Treat trap him in a jar and he vows revenge.
And with that, the Monster Fest is back on, with every monster continuing to celebrate the night. Heath and Hades finally make amends, with Hades admitting he's not proud of his past but he's glad that his son has stayed true to himself and is honored to be his dad. Frankie finally gets to perform their original song, alongside Phoenix and the rest of the Boo Crew. Cleo embraces Frankie after the song, congratulating them on being a great Head Haunter. Frankie exclaims this is the best Monster Fest ever, but gets overly excited as they unleash electricity that short circuits all the lights, with them cursing nervously shortly after.
Cast[]
| Voices | Characters |
|---|---|
| Iris Menas | Frankie Stein Goobert |
| Gabrielle Nevaeh Green | Clawdeen Wolf |
| Courtney Lin | Draculaura Iris Clops Yap |
| Alexander Polinsky | Heath Burns |
| Dominique Jackson | Phoenix |
| John O'Hurley | Hades Burns |
| Paul F. Tompkins | Trick |
| John Waters | Treat Scarecrow Von Twolegs |
| Kausar Mohammed | Cleo de Nile |
| Valeria Rodriguez | Lagoona Blue Spectra Vondergeist |
| Jonathan Melo | Clawd Wolf |
| Alexa Kahn | Karen Kraken Fuzz |
| Salli Saffioti | Mrs. O'Shriek Pawla |
| Scott Menville | Romulus |
Note: appear without speaking parts.
Gallery[]
Videos[]