Sigh. Well, I did it. I watched The Munsters, Rob Zombie‘s latest vanity project that takes viewers on a long, long, looooooong ride through the early days of Herman and Lily’s romance.
Now, before I get started, I really went into this film trying to give it the benefit of the doubt. I was ready for a different kind of Munster household. I was ready for bad jokes and strange visuals and all the things that hideous trailer gave us. To be clear, I set this bar very, very low, and somehow Zombie & Co. didn’t manage to clear it.
Here’s the thing, no one and I mean no one is ever going to make a great film out of a terrible script. Meryl Streep cannot act her way out of a bad script. She-Devil anyone? Unfortunately, the writing here felt forced and unwieldy. Zombie seemed to be peeking out from behind a curtain constantly winking at and nudging the audience. There were a couple of instances where a big, red neon arrow pointed out the joke and it still didn’t land.
He just seemed unsure exactly what kind of story he wanted to tell.
The jokes were too heavy. The camp was too light. And the story was a disjointed mess bounding from plot point to plot point with all the finesse of Herman Munster walking through walls.
As the film opens, we find Herman’s creator collecting body parts to give his creation life. It just so happens that two famous brothers died on the same day. One was the most celebrated intellect of his time. The other was a low-brow, unfunny comedian. So, when the scientist sends his assistant to get the big-brained brother’s head, guess which one he gets instead?
For better or worse, the scientists decides to unveil his creation on live television. The debut is a flop, but Lily sees Herman and instantly falls in love. From there, well, it just spins out of control. Honestly, it felt like he made about five or six episodes of series and strung them into a film. There are so many stories going on in one film that by the end I didn’t know or care if we’d tied them all up.
Now, as a lifelong fan of the original series, when I first heard Zombie was directing a new movie, I was worried he couldn’t capture the whimsy that made the show so great. On this count, I was wrong. Toward the end of the film, he does manage to produce that feeling.
In plotline number 378, Cassandra Peters aka Elvira Mistress of the Dark–who gives possibly the best performance of the film–showed up as the realtor who ultimately sells the Munsters their home on Mockingbird Lane. This entire section of the film got it right. I never actually laughed, but it did tease a smile or two out of me as the family experienced the inevitable cultural clash between what is “normal” and what is definitely not.
If the director had managed to coalesce that humor and homage throughout the entire film, this would be a very different review.
As far as the rest of the cast is concerned, Daniel Roebuck (Final Destination, John Dies at the End) is quite good as Grampa aka The Count, carefully walking the line between imitation and homage. Jorge Garcia (Lost) also turns in a serviceable performance as Floop, the hunchbacked assistant to Herman’s creator. Tomas Boykin (3 from Hell), meanwhile, gives Lily’s oft-forgotten werewolf brother, Lester, a ton of charisma and style.
Jeff Daniel Phillips and Sheri Moon Zombie in The Munsters
But this is Lily and Herman’s story, right? Tragically, Sheri Moon Zombie and Jeff Daniel Phillips have zero chemistry. Phillips seemed far too interested in landing his jokes and Zombie…do I have to say it at this point? Look, everyone has a gift, but I just don’t think Sheri Moon Zombie’s is acting. At no point did I feel like these two people were in love with each other, and that’s okay because they didn’t seem convinced either.
The worst part about this whole mess is that it had good bones. The audience loves an origin story, and we’ve never really seen much of the pre-children part of Herman and Lily’s life together. That story could have been done well. Lester losing the house to one of The Count’s ex-wives? Comedic gold. Do that. Settling on Mockingbird Lane? We’re here for it.
That’s three episodes of one tv series or maybe two films. Unfortunately, because every Rob Zombie production is a Rob Zombie production from top to bottom, he crammed it all into one movie that runs almost two hours long and had me checking my watch at the 45-minute mark. If he’d had a decent editor anywhere in the process who put their foot down and said, “Rob, you’re going to have to make some more cuts,” this might have been salvaged.
Sadly, that was not the case.
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