WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Sony’s Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, in theaters now.


The Hotel Transylvania franchise has always found a way to bring humor to its emotive stories. In the 2012 original, fans got their fill as Dracula (Adam Sandler) tried to stop his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) from falling for the human Johnny (Andy Samberg). The 2015 sequel took a more lighthearted approach as Dracula tried to determine whether his young grandson Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) was indeed a vampire, which led to laugh-out-loud encounters with his own father Vlad (Mel Brooks).

The third chapter, Summer Vacation, smartly blends the best of both movies, as Dracula embarks on a family cruise, where he does the unthinkable and finds true love once more.

What ensues is nothing short of comedic chaos, so let's take a look at Summer Vacation's funniest moments.

Abraham Van Helsing's Incompetence

Movie audiences are accustomed to seeing the Van Helsing family as ruthless, intimidating vampire hunters, but in Hotel Transylvania 3, they're, well, definitely not that. In the opening sequence, we're left in tears watching Abraham Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) try to kill Dracula, only to fail over and over again.

RELATED: Hotel Transylvania 3 Proves the Franchise Still Has a Lot of Life Left

Dracula comes off like the Road Runner, easily escaping Abraham's Wile E. Coyote in their showdowns. From car crashes to plane crashes to collapsing caves, Abraham has zero luck in slaying the vampire. That trait is passed along to his granddaughter Ericka (Kathryn Hahn). The bodily damage from these scenes are so brutal, they change Abraham into half-man, half-machine, which actually make him an even bigger joke.

Dracula's Dance of Death

As Ericka goes about her family's ambition of killing all monsters, she lures Dracula and his friends to the ocean cruise. With Dracula as her prime target, she fumbles her own attempts on his life, only to fall in love with him in the process. Fighting her feelings, she attempts to carry out her plan, and seeks a powerful relic from the lost city of Atlantis, only for Dracula to follow.

They meet in the ruins of the sunken city, where Dracula woos her with a Latin dance number as she finally embraces her emotions. As they navigate the "dance floor" -- a pyramid that leads to the relic -- each step sets off a booby trap that Dracula helps them to evade using his powers, while shielding Ericka from arrows, spikes and falling rocks.

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The Mysterious Bob

Dennis and his playmate Winnie the werewolf (Sadie Sandler), as excited as they are about the cruise, cannot bring themselves to leave behind Dennis' beloved oversized pup, Tinkles. And so, they sneak the animal onto the gremlin-driven airplane that takes the monsters to the vessel, and hatch an even more ridiculous plan smuggle Tinkles onboard. They disguise the pet in a trench coat and hat, and pass him off as a man named Bob.

RELATED: Hotel Transylvania 3: The Van Helsings Are Pretty Terrible Monster Hunters

It's funny as the ship's clearance officers trying to assess Bob, who knows just one line: "Hi, I'm Bob!" Despite the drool and canine features, apparently him standing on his hind legs is enough, not only to fool the crew, but Dennis' family and the other monsters as well. It's reminiscent of 1994's The Little Rascals, in which the kids tried to sneak into a bank to get a loan. However, this time the mission is successful, as Bob eludes discovery, and ends up sniffing out the Van Helsings' nefarious plot.

The Macarena Saves the Day

Eventually, Abraham Van Helsing disowns granddaughter Ericka, and takes the Atlantean relic from her to summon a squid-like leviathan from the depths of the Bermuda Triangle. He controls the creature with musical beats, and commands it to begin to kill the monsters. However, Johnny, an aspiring DJ, pulls out his own equipment and begins to fight back by using a series of jams to sway the leviathan back to the light.

Johnny is losing the battle until his trump card shows up in the playlist: Los del Río's 1993 hit "Macarena." All of the monsters, and even Ericka, are entranced by the catchy musical phenomenon, and as everyone -- the leviathan include -- begins to sway to the beat, the audience is left cracking up. It's the movie's most endearing moment, as everyone unites to save the day. Johnny leaves us with a heroic soundtrack as Abraham himself is forced to realize the world deserves to live in harmony -- and what better way to learn this lesson than through song and dance?


Directed by returning filmmaker Genndy Tartakovsky, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation stars returning cast members Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Molly Shannon, Fran Drescher and Mel Brooks.