Review: Monster High “Monster Movie/Earworm”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Monster Movie

Lagoona’s creative vision is ignored by the other monsters as they make a movie for the film festival.

Earworm

Frustrated at her classmates, Toralei and her band release earworms that control everyone’s thoughts.

Our Take:

The first episode, “Monster Movie”, sees Lagoona making her directorial debut as she seeks to create a movie based on her life. But, of course, she can’t make a movie by herself, so she enlists her friends to help bring her cinematic vision to life. Unfortunately, while Lagoona has her ideas set for her film, the other monsters have other plans that overshadow hers, leading to a conflict that could jeopardize Lagoona’s movie and her friendship.

“Monster Movie” is a Lagoona-focused episode that has her facing concerns about expressing her true feelings towards her friends. Even though she agrees with their ideas, including having explosions in a love story, she’s actually hiding her anger from them as her explosive behavior causes her to have the Chomps. Lagoona is worried that what happened to her family regarding the Chomps could happen to her and her friends. Fortunately, thanks to Twyla, Lagoona learns that speaking the truth helps their bond grow stronger, with them succeeding in creating the movie Lagoona wanted to make. 

Then, the second episode, “Earworm”, features another scenario involving Toralei being an ungrateful feline. After being ignored by the students, Toralei steals a bunch of earworms from Clawdeen’s Creepy Crawly Club and uses them and her new song from her band, The Hiss Fits, to mind-control them into worshipping her. However, her plan works a bit too well, as Torelai discovers that too much love can be as annoying as being ignored. As a result, Torelai seeks the help of Clawdeen to undo the spell.

I’ve seen enough episodes of Monster High to know that Torelai is a manipulative, heartless were-cat who only cares about herself. However, “Earworm” was able to showcase Torelai having a soft spot within her cold heart. She committed the earworm plot so she doesn’t feel lonely. Although, it resulted in her being more popular than her bandmates, Meowlody and Purrsephone, who are also Torelai’s true friends. While undoing the earworm spell, Torelai learns to share the credit with her friends, even though that results in them getting detention.  

Overall, both episodes are enjoyable for their movie-making shenanigans and infectious musical earworms. “Monster Movie” is a decent Lagoona-focused episode that sees her life story come to life on the big screen while someone from her past gets accepted into Monster High. It also showcases the importance of opening up to others, especially when one doesn’t approve of anyone’s ideas. “Earworm” represents a hint of character growth for Torelai, who learns to put her friends ahead of her desire to be popular.