Hazbin Hotel - TV Pilot Review

Ever since youtube became a thing back in 2005 we've had endless entertainment. From videos of cats to extreme stunts and everything in between, the internet has become one of the biggest sources of entertainment. This is especially true when it comes to animation. I continually see great concepts of animation that make me laugh, cry, and smile in joy and some of these concepts are very worthy of television, sometimes even being better than most TV shows I see advertised. Sadly though, because they're small, independent projects on the internet they're often ignored by the mass media. Or at least all those people in business suits who wouldn't know what entertainment is if it beat them to death. But something appeared last year that recently has taken a grand step for animation. That thing is Hazbin Hotel.

Hazbin Hotel was created, directed, written and produced by Vivienne "Vivziepop" Medrano, with the help of her creative team and supporters on Patreon. It's about the princess of Hell named Charlie who, with a few miscreants, decided to try for the impossible: Rehabilitate the sinners of Hell to prevent overpopulation and mass annual "cleanses" by the angels of Heaven. They make a hotel called the Happy Hotel for sinners to come in, find out if they can be better people, and maybe one day be redeemed and be sent out of Hell to live with the angels. Almost all the demons of Hell think the idea is a hilarious joke, but Charlie is determined to make her idea a success. This show is ABSOLUTELY NOT for children.

To be honest I've been sitting on making this review for months because I absolutely adore this idea, but was waiting for the right moment to talk about. I mean come on... it's very believable that Hell is overpopulate. Look at just America. This story though reminds me of Bojack Horseman and how Bojack eventually began a process of healing after realizing he needs to get better. Now you might be wondering, "What makes this animation concept so important? Why review something that obviously that big of a deal because it's on the internet?" Well at the time at which I am writing this review the pilot for Hazbin Hotel on Youtube has, after a full year since it was upload... 46,196,330 views. Including my own. When a youtube video has over a million views you think, "Huh, that looks pretty good." When it's between two and five million you go, "Woah, that's great." Five to ten million and you're all, "Damn, that's impressive." When you go beyond that though you know that whatever video you're watching is a big deal.

But that's not all my friends. Over two months ago the company A24 announced on Twitter that they picked up Hazbin Hotel and are planning to work with Vivziepop to turn it into a TV series. A24, for those who have been living under a rock, have made some incredible films including Ex Machina, Uncut Gems, Under the Skin, Moonlight, Lady Bird, The Lighthouse (my favorite film of last year), and one of my all-time favorite movies, Swiss Army Man. They are extremely good at creating fantastic, unique, and memorable content. So the fact they picked up Hazbin Hotel is both a surprise and not a surprise. They know what people want to see.

So how is the concept of Hazbin Hotel in the pilot? Is it truly worth to go onto TVs and stun the world with its charm? Absolutely! I was very entertained and pleased with a lot of it, with a great art style and characters, along with a strong setting and powerful themes. However I find the animation, while really good, could use some polishing in a few places and while there are some great songs in the pilot (from what I heard the show might possibly be part musical) some viewers might not like the songs as much as me. Saying that though, the songs are extremely catchy and very, very entertaining to listen to. All in all though I think this is a great start to this story and it's one I am very, very eager to learn more about.

Let's first talk about the art style: It's fantastic. Vivziepop seems to be extremely good at making characters match art styles while being instantly recognizable with their designs. Some might say it looks like something on Deviantart, but have you seen how static most adult animations are these days? It's because they're mass-produced and the animators have no creative talent and are worked like slaves to the system. I saw it before in her thesis film, Timber, along with her fan animation, Die Young (a music video for said song by Keisha) have really good style to them while making every character stand out. From Charlie's puppy dog face to Angel Dust's spider-like feminine, yet still male-like body to Alastor and his vintage, very 1920s appearance. And that's just three characters, there are so many different characters that fit the world, yet stand out immediately with their looks. More than that, the colors and designs of the world is amazing! Like god damn it I love it!

Now going through that Twitter announcement from A24 I was shocked to see so many people call the show "homophobic." Now one of the main characters of the show, Angel Dust, is gay. However I feel like people don't seem to realize what the hell (pun not intended) they just watched because either they didn't watch the pilot or forgotten one of the biggest parts of story: Character growth. Now I'm not saying being gay is a sin because it absolutely isn't and Angel Dust was not sent to hell for being gay. Apparently he died of drug addiction and his main goal (supposedly) at the hotel is to become independent of drugs and his traumatic past in hell and when he was alive.

Excuse me for a second, I am going to get quite vulgar. It's only one paragraph, but I got to let loose some anger.

You see, this isn't your normal show. This isn't your silly cotton candy rainbows and happy magical bullshit and everything is going to be nice and pretty. This is fucking Hell! Literally Hell, full of murderers, rapists, drug addicts, abusers, thieves, psychopaths, and everything in between. No fucking Family Guy bullshit, Hazbin Hotel is full of really damn dark comedy and ideas. If you pansy ass, thumb sucking little bitches can't understand that Hell is dark place full of evil people and that this show is trying to turn these evil people into better individuals through character growth and rehabilitation, then fuck off because you're just dumb, close-minded SJW brats.

Alright, that's my angry rant over with.

Angel Dust is not a bad person because he's gay or a porn star. It's because he can't resisting snorting Phencyclidine (Or PCP for short) whenever he sees a bag of it. Check out the Hazbin Hotel music video, Addict, for more story about him (plus the music in it is top tier). Even though he mostly treats the idea of Happy Hotel like most demons, but they still have something inside of them that makes them want to be a better being. It's like going to therapy in that it's difficult at first to get started, but as you begin to accept it you begin to heal and realize, "Wow, I've should have done this sooner!" I love this idea of creating a show all about become better people, especially when it comes to some really dark, traumatizing topics like addiction, rape, sexual assault, abuse, murder, etc. It might take a while for new characters to check in at the hotel, but having them realize there is a better path as time goes on and giving this a chance is... it just warms my heart so much.

I think all the characters in Hazbin Hotel are well-done and stand out beyond just their looks. They all have strong, unique personalities to them. Though I did find one of the main ones, Vagatha "Vaggie", kind of boring. I mean she's very bad tempered and she's protective of Charlie since they are in a relationship, but I feel we need see her open up more. If I have to pick a favorite character it would probably be Alastor. He's one of the big overlords of Hell and very quickly in his introduction he puts one of the scariest moments I've ever seen in media. I've been getting more into horror movies, including some pretty damn dark stuff, but I felt my blood turn to ice at that moment and I wanted to jumped under a blanket to hide. They all were just very fun in their owns and bounced off each other in well-written ways. I sense a lot of secrets, lies, and backstabbing from a lot of the characters, especially Alastor, which adds even more to the characters!~

The voicing I'm not fully keen on however. Charlie, Vaggie, Angel Dust, and Alastor's voice actors are keepers, but the rest of the cast I wasn't too keen on. Maybe it's because a Hazbin Hotel spinoff that was also made by Vivziepop, Helluva Boss, had more professional voice actors voicing the characters like Richard Steven Horvitz (the voice of Invader Zim) voicing the character of Moxxie. The lip syncing at times for Hazbin Hotel was also not matched perfectly because how wild the animation is. Everything sounded great, no bad mic troubles at all, it's just the voice acting for some characters (mostly smaller characters now that I think about it) could have been better. Also there might have possibly been a little too many sound effects scattered throughout the pilot.

With the tone of the show it might be hard for some people to laugh. I mean this dark comedy/ humor, making fun or light of subjects that are normally taboo is normal society. It takes place in Hell after all. This show is just so odd and different of a concept I can see a bit (just a bit) why some people are put off by the show. If I was to show a snippet of this to my parents (if they're reading this article, hello there) they'd probably look at me with expressions that said, "You enjoy this kind of stuff?!" And... I mean I did in a ways, but I was more interested in the characters than the attempts of comedy. There's a moment where Angel Dust is wrapped up tight in chains a snake demon and he says, "Oh harder daddy," and I started laughing so hard. Yeah, some people might find the humor weird.

Hazbin Hotel is an idea that has had a lot of heart and community feedback put into it and it shows. With a big studio budget we can polish up the animation and possibly have more voice actors we got ourselves a potentially massive hit. They already got a great art style, characters, and plot nailed down. I hope A24 isn't going to change a lot of what's already great about this pilot because I want to see some that messed up madness in animation. I've already mentioned there's more to the story than just the pilots, there's a lot of fanart, some other related animations, and a ton of supporters on Patreon. Some might call it edgy or crude, but I fucking love Hazbin Hotel.

Tentative Score: 8.5/10

Definitive Score: 8/10

If all goes well, this could lead to a whole new generation of content to the wide masses. More independent projects could get picked up and we could have channels full of amazing content, not just the one or two shows we watch once every week.