The Munsters

Well, that sucks. No, not the movie. I just wish it had.

I love 10/10 star movies as equally as I do 1/10 ones. For every The Silence of the Lambs there's The Room. The Birds to Birdemic. Since I had very little interest in this - so much so, I did NOT at all know this movie even being made until the trailer dropped in July, I watched the enormously hated trailer. My eyes even got big because I wanted to see the disaster unfold in front of me.

So, I guess you could say I was disappointed with how not bad it was. Great? NO. Good? Eh. Depends. How bad of a fan are you of the classic 1960s sitcom? On a scale of 1-10, are you a 100? You might be the target audience!

This is the prequel tale of Herman Munster's creation and meeting his soul mate, Lily with her grandfather in tow. Through some sitcomish hijinks, the Munsters are bankrupt and need to, well, just tell jokes and accident their way through to the end credits segment.

Right. Well, I didn't hate it. Sure, some scenes and a ton of jokes didn't work, but this was written, shot and acted like it was just an overlong episode from 1964. This, sadly was not modernized whatsoever. I would've loved if it took the route of The Brady Bunch from the 90s or even The Addams Family, same decade. So, you'll have to accept this humor and style is solely from the mid-60s.

Once that was established early on, I accepted it and admittedly, I chuckled throughout and even busted out laughing a couple of times. The first and one I remember the most was Herman's intro and the piano. Totally caught me off guard.

What's really missing is the children. But this sounds like it was Rob's advertisement for a sequel which would produce the children. Though, it still worked as the introduction of the leads.

I did love how Rob owned the bright colors, Dutch angles and other sitcom tricks of the past decades. Plus, a ton of the background props and signs totally cracked me up.

This is only recommended for those DIE-HARD OG 60s Munsters fans or people who can accept this basically is that series in a nutshell and not freakout on how un-modern it is.

***

Final Thoughts: The show was a favorite of mine in syndication as a child in the 80s. Used to watch this back-to-back with The Addams Family and loved both equally. I truly admired even though these were both sitcoms about fish-outta-water macabre families, they were truly different in tone. So, I appreciated both for their own styles.

The Munsters is a strange one. The first hour is completely abysmal and is verging on one star territory. The second half picks up and once they become a family and the movie more resembles the tv show, it is a lot better.

All the stuff with Dr. Wolfgang & Floop is played so over the top (like all the movie) it becomes a distraction and takes you out of it. Richard Brake's performance is definitely the worst in the film. The early scenes with 'Nosferatu' were also a bad choice.

The last half hour when the Munsters move into their new home is well done and is almost like a confined episode in itself. I wish the whole movie was like this and not the excruciating first hour we are treated to. It would have been good to see Eddie at least for a little bit or even hint at the idea of him towards the end.

The Munsters is ultimately a frustrating failure as Rob Zombie shows flashes of promise and clearly has a love for the project but the first hour of the movie really is unforgivable.

Okay so I understand the negative reviews. It was pretty cheesy and dumb and the script was lacking. If you compare it to the original you will be very disappointed. Still I was somewhat entertained and got a few laughs out of it. The acting wasn't great but I did think the lead actor who played Herman was pretty good. I got the most laughs from him. The actress who played Lily left a lot to be desired and Grandpa was meh. The sets were kind of cool and it got me in the Halloween spirit. I will agree that the use of green lighting was overkill. Would I see it again? No. But it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be based on all of the terrible reviews. So I am split down the middle on this. It could have been much better but it also could have been worse in my opinion.

The writing is awful, overall, but the plot line wouldn't matter much if the "jokes" were even slightly amusing.

It almost seems like the main goal was to make sure that no one wants more of this garbage!

The costumes were great and the sets were pretty cool, but there wasn't much else positive about this movie.

I do want to mention that Shari Moon Zombie obviously put in some time and research watching Yvonne Decarlo as Lily. It was great to see the same mannerisms and expressions, but most of the performances fall flat. This stands out even more with the over the top nonsense that simply isn't funny at all.

So, just to start off, I am a Rob Zombie fan. I don't like all his films, but I respect when he swings for the fences and gets a win. Some hits and some misses.

I went into this wanting Rob Zombie to pull a rabbit out of his hat and blow everyone away.

Pros: the sets are really cool. Whoever designed them and anyone that worked on it should feel proud. They look awesome. I'm kinda jealous. If I ever made a movie, I'd love to use them. The lighting was cool too. I know the garish green and purple highlighting will bother some people, but I kinda dig that sort of stuff. And the acting actually wasn't bad either. Everyone was trying really hard with their respective performances and trying to be campy.

Cons: there is something really off about the movie I can't put my finger on. The editing feels "slow" or "delayed" maybe? I can't explain it but maybe some tightening up was in order. The music (or sound effects rather) are trying to imitate the old 60's show. And it doesn't work. They could've hired someone to compose a memorable score and it would've been a lot better. And finally... the film is boring. It feels like it's three hours long. It's really not funny. Rob should have hired another writer to polish things up. Play to your strengths.

There are things that could've been enhanced and the movie would work soooo much better. I'm afraid to say, I think this one's a miss.