Zombie is known for his love of old horror movies and horror themed shows like The Munsters, which riffed on the sitcom family like of the archetypal Universal Monsters like Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, the Wolfman and with Lily Munster being a mishmash of one of the Brides of Dracula and the Bride of Frankenstein appropriately. The humor of the show arises in a similar fashion to that of The Adams Family, put a bunch of ghoulish characters in the middle of normal America and enjoy the reactions of the neighborhood and community around them. This device was so successful and popular in fact that it even found its way into cartoon sitcoms like The Flintstones with the Gruesome family moving into the neighborhood for a time.
Zombie’s music, videos and films have always referenced and demonstrated his love for all things horror related, to as far back as the silent era with a nod to the Cabinet of Dr Caligari and one of his best songs is even named for the Munster’s coffin shaped race car, Dragula. So it was with some disappointment that I watched the trailer for this movie and was extremely underwhelmed. When it comes to Zombie’s jaunts into film I hold a firm conviction that he should only ever work on his own creations, as every time he works on an IP that is not his own the results are mixed at best. This film confirmed this for me yet again.
I understand his desire to put his own spin on things, and telling the tale of how Herman and Lily came together is not an unwelcome idea. Unfortunately, just as when Zombie took on Halloween, he misses the point of the premise. The acting is WAY over the top with the only character who feels connected to the original show being Grandpa. He feels like an actual adaptation that retains the spirit of the source material. All the other characters are hamming it up to a point so ridiculous that I can’t even criticize their acting because this was obviously the direction they were given. The thing about the Munsters in the show was they acted like ordinary people even though they were monsters, they were a bit more flamboyant in instances with Herman being the most exuberant but the acting wasn’t purposefully bad, It was actually quite good in fact. This feels like the worst possible version of a Disney show for tweens. It was painful to get through. The joke of normal people reacting to the Munsters is only used once during a honeymoon sequence and when they meet their realtor but in every other instance people don’t react to the Munsters at all. Its incredibly inconsistent.
One happy accident of The Munsters on tv was that they couldn’t afford to film it in color. It added to the Universal Monster aesthetic and made the show better. This is evident when films like Munster Go Home were released in color. The makeup used to create the Universal Monsters was pancaked on for the purposes of black and white film aesthetics, but when you saw bright green Herman or a Blue Grandpa it looked garish and silly. The same is true here. This is made worse by Zombie lighting the movie like a disco version of Suspira. Add to that cartoonish sound and background effects and this is no longer a clever take on a sitcom but a Saturday morning kids show in the style of the Banana Splits! There is even an animated road trip for no reason at all!
All is not lost however, the sets are quite nice for the 5 million budget, giving the show a Tim Burton flair. There are plenty of fun details to be seen in the backgrounds like a business advertising Live Dead Girls, a nod to both a Rob Zombie song and an urban strip club. Some jokes do work and Phillips’s performance as Herman references Fred Gwynne but is still his own. The antipathy between Grandpa and Herman is intact and works here as well, but it’s sadly just not enough to make the film enjoyable.
SCORE: 1.5 out of 5
Stars: Sheri Moon Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Daniel Roebuck, & more…
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