REVIEW: ‘Hazbin Hotel’ Offers Something New To Adult Animated Comedy

Adult animation comedy has long been a boys’ club. That doesn’t mean I don’t love Futurama and Family Guy. Nor does it mean that I don’t acknowledge that while the jokes were written with men in mind, there are plenty of quotes I still use in my everyday life. It means that I have been waiting for an irreverent adult animated comedy from a woman’s perspective. With A24 and Prime Video’s Hazbin Hotel, you get that.

With an animation style reminiscent of Cartoon Network’s heyday and jokes that strike with shock and irreverent cultural takes akin to Seth McFarlane’s works, Hazbin Hotel is hilarious, gross, and actively pushes the audience into uncomfortable spaces. And it works.

The series’ premise is unique. Hazbin Hotel Season 1 isn’t just an adult animated comedy but also a musical. Created by Vivienne Medrano, the series takes place in Hell within a mythology inspired by Catholic eschatology. The series is based on Medrano’s popular animated pilot, which was released on YouTube in 2019. Only Adam is a vile angel, and Lucifer and Lilith have a daughter named Charlie Morningstar (Erika Henningsen). In this story, we follow Charlie, the princess of Hell, as she attempts to save the souls of Hell from a yearly smiting by taking on the impossible goal of rehabilitating demons. Sinners deserve redemption too.

After the yearly extermination imposed by angels to quell overpopulation, Charlie opens a hotel in the hopes that patrons will be “checking out” into Heaven. While most of Hell mocks her goal, her devoted girlfriend Vaggie (Stephanie Beatriz), and their first test subject, adult film star Angel Dust (Blake Roman), stick by her side. When a powerful entity known as Alastor (Amir Talai), the “Radio Demon,” reaches out to assist Charlie in her endeavors, her crazy dream is given a chance to become a reality.

Each episode progresses with a demon of the week structure. However, it doesn’t fall into complete sitcom territory, as the story’s main narrative is always the driving factor. This means that we see new demons every episode but we also see the impending angelic extermination unravel as we learn more about the politics of Hell and the complete unhinged power trip that Heaven is on.

Vivienne Medrano’s Hazbin Hotel is lewd, crude, hysterical, and a special kind of self-aware too. The series is filled with a lot of dark fantasy about demons and their dealings. Simultaneously, every choice is also set to reimagine religious figures and iconography too. When both the fantastical and the blasphemous get together, it makes something special.

The stellar character designs and personalities all embrace fairly standard adult comedy archetypes and are better off for it. Additionally, for those with even a little bit of knowledge of Catholic eschatology, Medrano’s twists on mythic religious figures are excellent. Each character succeeds because Medrano is focused on what elements they represent. She understands what in traditional mythologies she wants to subvert and then doesn’t hold back.

Charlie, Vaggie, and Alastor are fantastic, Husk (Keith David), Angel, and Niffty (Kimiko Glenn) are all unforgettable in their own ways. Hazbin Hotel doesn’t just craft dynamic main characters but also ensures its ensembles are hits on their own. One of the best is Angel.

Selfish, sexy, and always focused on using his adult film talents when he can, Angel is hilarious. He offers a crude balance to Charlie’s optimistic and caring attitude. His standout is in Episode 4, which is one of the season’s best. While the series is extremely crude at times, it’s also deeply sincere in how it tackles Angel. He is broken, but he wants to be. Valentino, the Demon lord in charge of adult entertainment in Hell, owns Angel. And as Valentino’s favorite toy, Angel wants to break. Because being broken means maybe he won’t be wanted anymore. It’s a complex take on identity and circumstance that ultimately pays off.

Additionally, Amir Talai’s voice performance as Alastor is the top of the top. The choice to add the subtle radio distortion on top of his vocals turns an already great performance into one of the best I’ve seen on tV. This is even more impressive when Keith David also gives a standout performance as Husk.

From an animation perspective, Medrano’s thick line work and use of shapes call back to an art style many millennials remember from Cartoon Network blocks. This adds an element of surprise when the show gets raunchy. The color palette choices and clear visions for classes of demons and angels are immediately recognizable and hold Hazbin Hotel’s world together.

If there is one critique for the series, it’s that it needs more songs. While the musical concept of the series is excellent when presented with catchy songs and scores, there just needs to be more of it. Each episode has one to two songs per its 23-minute runtime. The space between them makes it hard at times to remember that the series is, in fact, a musical. At the same time, this does make some songs a pleasant surprise since you’re not entirely sure when they’ll begin. The strength of the musical writing in the series left me wanting more with the episode runtime, leaving much of the songs as a tease to a main course that never really arrived.

Ultimately, Hazbin Hotel scratches an itch I’ve been trying to scratch. It’s a unique take on the adult comedy genre and nails worldbuilding in a weird and quirky way. The series is fantastic, funny, and absolutely chaotic in some of the best, raunchy ways. The way that the series approaches its more edgy subjects stands starkly against how others in the genre tackle them. This helps solidify why the series effortlessly becomes worth going to hell for.

Hazbin Hotel Season 1 is streaming January 18, 2024, exclusively on Prime Video.