Hotel Transylvania is back for round 2! Meet the man who cooked up these nutty creatures.

With help from his monster friends Wayne the werewolf, Frankenstein, and Murray the mummy, Drac puts his adorable grandson through monster bootcamp.
2014 Sony Pictures Animation

In Hotel Transylvania, Count Dracula opens his five-star resort where monsters get away from it all — especially humans. A creature calamity unfolds when his teenage daughter, Mavis, falls in love with Jonathan, a human who unknowingly stumbles into her father’s hotel.

In Hotel Transylvania 2, everything changes for the better at the resort, where doors are now open to humans. But behind closed coffins, Dracula worries that his half-human grandson, Dennis, isn’t acting the way a vampire should, so he puts him through a monster-in-training bootcamp.

Vampire stories have been around for hundreds of years. Hotel Transylvania’s award-winning film director Genndy Tartakovsky — the mastermind behind Dexter’s Laboratory and Star Wars: Clone Wars — shares how he breathed new life into some classic monsters.

J&J: Your first Hotel Transylvania film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Did you sense it’d be popular?

Genndy: I hoped people would have a lot of fun watching it, but I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was so immersed in the project that it was hard to look at it from a different perspective. Think about it like this: If you keep saying the same word over and over again, it loses its original meaning.

J&J: Like the word “awesome”?

Genndy: Exactly.

J&J: When did you view the finished movie?

Genndy: I watched it for the first time with an audience of 1,200 at the premiere in Toronto. I felt like I was on stage. It was exciting to see kids and adults laugh at the same scenes. It gave me fresh feedback on the movie.

J&J: What inspired you to create Hotel Transylvania?

Genndy: We wanted to reinvent classic old-school monsters by making them funny.

J&J: Any favorite characters?

Genndy: My favorite character is Quasimodo — he’s so silly. The most successful character has been Count Dracula, who is voiced by actor Adam Sandler.

J&J: What sparked your interest in cartoons and animation?

Genndy: Coming to the U.S. from Russia at 7, I grew up in Chicago, where there’s a lot of bad weather, so I was always inside watching TV. I instantly fell in love with cartoons, and I never grew out of it.

J&J: What cartoons did you watch?

Genndy: I loved Tex Avery and Chuck Jones’ cartoons, including Looney Toons (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner) as well as Popeye.

J&J: What will viewers like most about the sequel?

Genndy: I think they’ll like the silliness of it. Like the first movie, it has fun animation. I enjoyed working with the artists and bringing the film and characters to life.

J&J: Why are kids and grown-ups so fascinated with monsters?

Genndy: Monsters are like superheroes. Even though they have magical powers, they have a human side to them, so people can relate to them. This makes people wonder what they would do if they had these cool powers.

J&J: Can you explain what a film director does?

Genndy: I come up with an idea for a movie, then guide a team of artists, writers, and voice actors toward that vision. I’m very involved. I even help with drawing the animation.

J&J: Advice for kids interested in working in animation and directing films?

Genndy: Practice and experiment a lot. Work very hard!

Hotel Transylvania 2 is released September 25.