Holistic favorite. Performance counts. But so do designer expectations. For all of Monsters’ quality, it’s also fairly routine. It doesn’t really present anything new. The scares are things we’ve seen before, in almost a cookie-cutter fashion. I have a theory about why, but basically I don’t think it will have a strong advocate for HotY.
Ghostbusters, for better or worse, attempts a lot more. It’s design is more creative the cast has higher expectations on them—which they generally meet. I also think there’s outside incentive for GB to win.
It’s an unusual year, though. Based on response and what I’ve seen of the houses, there’s four houses that all could have “legitimate” claims (at least, as legitimate as this can be) to HotY: Ghostbusters, Monsters, Yeti, and Graveyard Games. Three of them display that extra umph of passion from the designers though, and Monsters isn’t one of them. Monsters is on the list because the fans are excited about the Monsters. In this scenario, the IP gets the nod.