While I was born too late to have watched them when they came out, even in syndication I was always more of an Addams Family fan than a Munsters fan, catchy theme song not withstanding. The reboot did seem interesting enough to catch my attention, but is it strong enough as a film without being able to draw on nostalgia?
Cast and Crew
Written and Directed by Rob Zombie
Cassandra Peterson as Barbara Carr
Sheri Moon Zombie as Lily / Donna Doomley
Jeff Daniel Phillips as Herman / Zombo / Shecky Von Rathbone
Richard Brake as Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang / Orlock
Daniel Roebuck as The Count / Ezra Mosher
Butch Patrick as Voice of Tin Can Man
Dee Wallace as Good Morning Transylvania Announcer
Sylvester McCoy as Igor
Pat Priest as Transylvania Airlines Announcer
Jorge Garcia as Floop
Catherine Schell as Zoya Krupp
Tomas Boykin as Lester
Katia Bokor as Transylvania Airlines Flight Attendant
Jeremy Wheeler as Mr. Gateman
Mark Murray as Alan Boothby (archive footage)
Fred Coury as The Raven / Voice of Pennywhacker
Premise
Reboot of “The Munsters”, that followed a family of monsters who moves from Transylvania to an American suburb. (From IMDB)
High Point
There’s a love story hiding in all of this camp. There was a story hiding in here. It was about as complex as you expect from the source material, but it was enjoyable and fun.
Low Point
The story seems to meander a bit, as though an outline for an entire miniseries had been written, and then edited down to a single movie.
The Scores:
Originality: 1/6 Rebooting a classic show in a slightly different genre isn’t even original. Even rebooting this one isn’t original.
Effects: 4/6 The effects look low budget. They are supposed to look low budget, and they do a great job of looking low budget, but does that mean they are good effects?
Acting: 5/6 The character are undeniably over the top. However, the characters seem honestly over the top, as though you could meet them in person and they’d be equally over the top in reality. Additionally, the stunt casting of The Seventh Doctor and Elvira seems to be minor side parts, which just makes for fun additions without detracting from the rest of the movie.
Emotional Response: 5/6 This movie was surprisingly enjoyable. Given a recent review for Hellraiser and Rob Zombie’s reputation, the movie was delightfully free from gore.
Story: 5/6 Even with all of the zaniness, once the premise is accepted the story plays out in a way that’s believable1. You can believe that Lily and Herman fall in love.
Production: 5/6 The movie looks more like a music video, but the effects and lower budget feel come off as being designed to give you the campy feel you expect from the love story of the daughter of a vampyric count and a man pierced together with the brain of schlocky comedian.
Overall: 5/6 Even without the nostalgia, the movie is a lot of fun.
In total, The Munsters (2022) receive 30/42
1I have no idea how I can justify saying that The Musters come off as believable.
Since we disagree on one or two points here, I have posted my take:
The thing with the original Munsters (and Addams Family) shows (apart from the catchy theme songs), they were silly excursions with exaggerated characters, but they had solid actors. This remake has Rob Zombie’s wife. Daniel Roebuck does reasonably well as the Count, channelling Al Lewis. Everyone else is pretty bad. The leads have less chemistry than Anakin and Padme. It has a script aimed at… I have no idea. It’s a kid’s movie with a Sonny and Cher impersonation that not even the kids’ parents will get. I’m old enough to get it. It’s not funny. This is a PG comedy created and directed by someone with a limited grasp of both concepts.
We finally have a family Halloween movie to equal Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.
Um…. the set design is pretty good, though it leads me to wonder if online rumours that the film was supposed to be in black and white are true.
Rob Zombie’s last couple movies have been crowdsourced. This movie wasn’t, but it makes a pretty good case for his next two following in their footsteps. Or maybe he could go back to just making music. He made decent Halloween-themed music.
I had low expectations for this movie. It failed to meet them. I would rather have root canal than watch a sequel to Rob Zombie’s The Munsters.
I put it on for my kids tonight as they were going through Halloween candy. I enjoyed it again the second time, although admittedly it’s a little bit long. Inara said it was good in a way that sounded like she was humoring me, and Majel stayed through to the end and says she loved it.