In the process, the player undertakes a globetrotting journey to locations like Transylvania and Egypt, while solving puzzles and interacting with characters such as Count Dracula, the Invisible Man and the Mummy.

The company sought to heavily improve its design practices, graphics production and engine technology over those of its first game, Igor: Objective Uikokahonia (1994).

At the request of Dinamic, the team worked with Spanish new wave group La Unión to create a theme song for Hollywood Monsters.

[4] As the game starts, reporter Sue Bergman of The Quill sets out to cover the Film Academy Awards Ceremony for Monster Actors, held in Hollywood.

[10] The event is a major gathering of Hollywood's monster talent at the residence of film producer Otto Hannover; Sue's goal is to interview the attendees.

[6] It is revealed that Frankie's body parts were hidden inside the trophies given to the previous night's winners: the Mummy, the Wolf Man and Count Dracula.

In a Swiss lab, Ron rebuilds Frankie, who reveals that he had overheard a plot by Hannover and his associate Dr. Karloff against Hollywood's monster actors.

Spanish developer Pendulo Studios began Hollywood Monsters in mid-1994,[7] directly after the launch of Igor: Objective Uikokahonia, the company's debut adventure game.

[9] Pendulo had announced plans for another adventure title before Igor's release;[11] art director Rafael Latiegui said that it was very clear to them that they were going to make more games in the genre.

[9] Because co-founder Miguel Angel Ramos had left the team after its first project,[12] the company's three remaining core members—Latiegui, Felipe Gómez Pinilla and Ramón Hernáez—gathered to brainstorm their second game.

[14] The central idea upon which Hernáez, Pinilla and Latiegui agreed was to make a "classic" adventure game, including a high level of interactivity, a visual look akin to animated films,[9] a comedic tone and a lack of player death.

[16] He, Pinilla and Hernáez also purposely increased the difficulty of Hollywood Monsters' puzzles compared to those in Igor: they saw their first title as overly short and easy, and hoped to remedy these issues in their next game.

[7] MeriStation's Jordi Espunya reported that Pendulo settled on a stylistic direction inspired by Spanish comics, in particular their use of esperpento and satirical imagery.

[7] As the art team worked on the backgrounds, it added unplanned visual red herrings for the game's puzzles; Rafael Latiegui noted that Pendulo was "amused by the idea of getting people a little dizzy with some false trail[s]".

[7] Dinamic subsequently secured a deal with La Unión's record label, Warner Music Group, on the condition that Hollywood Monsters advertised the band's next album.

[4] While there were doubts in Spain about the sales potential of graphic adventure titles at the time, Rafael Latiegui noted that his company believed Hollywood Monsters' low cost and "high quality" would spread the game via word of mouth.

[12] Although Igor: Objective Uikokahonia had failed to break into the international market,[33] Pendulo had intended Hollywood Monsters from the start to reach a global audience.

[39] Because Dinamic Multimedia had gone bankrupt since the debut of Hollywood Monsters,[40] Pendulo partnered with FX Interactive for the re-release, which came in a special case with a set of stickers.

Pendulo noted that fans had "for some time ... been insisting on the possibility of making a collector's edition of Hollywood Monsters";[38] the game had become difficult to find in Spain since the closure of its original publisher.

[48] Discussing the visuals in Hollywood Monsters, Bono and Melguizo offered praise,[10][1] while Garcia wrote that the game's "presentation is simply magnificent".

[2] The reviewer for Sólo Juegos similarly complimented the graphics in Hollywood Monsters—despite the "outdated", "neglected" interface—and echoed Garcia's and Melguizo's approval of the voice acting.

[44][10][2] Conversely, Jordi Espunya of MeriStation called the voices uneven and cited several "terrible" performances among the good ones; he also argued that the graphics, although above average, were inferior to those of foreign titles like The Curse of Monkey Island.

[49] While Garcia found Hollywood Monsters' puzzles logical,[2] and Melguizo praised their "tight difficulty",[10] Espunya called them frustrating and recommended the game primarily to genre veterans as a result.

[44] In 2003, Just Adventure's Michal Necasek sided with Espunya on the puzzles, and found Hollywood Monsters' visuals "adequate" but its sound quality low.

[60] In 2016, BuzzFeed Spain editor Guillermo del Palacio named the scene between Ron Ashman and the girl with the daisies one of "13 mythical moments" recognizable to adventure game fans.

[49] As a greater commercial and critical success than Igor: Objective Uikokahonia,[62] Hollywood Monsters marked a turning point for Pendulo Studios.

"[40] A writer for MeriStation named Hollywood Monsters the beginning of Pendulo's signature cartoon visual style, which it proceeded to carry throughout the rest of its work.

[12] Pendulo Studios soon began working on a second Hollywood Monsters, but the project changed shape to become Runaway: A Road Adventure,[67][68] which started to form as an idea in summer 1998.

[57] Later in the year, Pendulo encountered serious financial trouble due to the bankruptcy of publisher Dinamic Multimedia,[24][71] which hampered Runaway's initial launch in Spain.

[79] At the start, Pendulo conceived The Next Big Thing as a high-definition remake of Hollywood Monsters, but it increasingly drifted from this framework over time.