The Munsters Review: An Earnest, Authentic, Yet Entirely Unnecessary Revival

Throughout his career as both a musician and as a filmmaker, Rob Zombie has showcased his love for all corners of the history of horror. More specifically, one of his biggest hits is the song "Dragula," named after a hot rod built by Grandpa Munster in a 1965 episode of The Munsters. His latest project, a revival of The Munsters, marked new territory for the filmmaker, as it embraces the campy and comedic tone of the sitcom, as opposed to the more horrifying and grotesque adventures he's put to film. What this The Munsters proves is that Zombie, along with the film's cast, were entirely committed to honoring the source material, but even with this film coming from a place of love, it's not an adventure worthy of getting the feature-film treatment.

Serving as an origin story to the original sitcom, The Munsters sees Herman (Jeff Daniel Phillips) be resurrected in a bizarre science experiment in Transylvania, while Lily (Sheri Moon Zombie) is on a quest for romance. Her father "The Count" (Daniel Roebuck) only wants what's best for his daughter, and despite a chance encounter leading to Lily's infatuation with Herman, it's not a relationship he supports, knowing how much better she could do and testing everyone's patience in the process.

Something that still feels shocking to think about is how both sitcoms The Addams Family and The Munsters premiered a week apart back in 1964 and both ran for two seasons, leaving incredibly similar footprints on pop culture. They both featured a blend of punny and family-friendly humor with macabre monsters, while both also struggled to be revived for decades after their initial sitcom runs in any substantial way, despite both earning multiple made-for-TV movies. The last attempt to revive The Munsters came with the reimagining Mockingbird Lane back in 2012, and even with Hannibal's Bryan Fuller spearheading the project, only the pilot episode ever aired. 

One difference between the two is that The Addams Family earned a feature film in 1991, which saw the frightful family juxtaposed with the real world. That film was a major success, resulting in the franchise's cultural revival, with its significance causing a major challenge for this take on The Munsters: were the story to have similarly explored the contrast between the characters and the real world, it would have been decried as being derivative. By going in the complete opposite direction, this take on The Munsters sees the trio almost entirely in Transylvania alongside all manner of other beasts, so while assuredly not derivative, it also strips the experience of any real stakes, tension, or narrative momentum.

Rather than ever feeling like an actual movie, the entire run time of The Munsters feels like a collection of scenes. There are a number of compelling elements about the original The Munsters, with a main draw being the dynamic of the entire family. Absent from this dynamic in the movie are Eddie Munster and Marilyn Munster, which could be seen as the narrative decision to tell the story of Herman and Lily falling in love, but their absences are sorely missed and almost feel more like a budgetary constraint. Never getting to see the full family together just creates the vibe that this is merely an off-brand version of the source material, despite its many references to classic monsters in Munsters lore.

The lack of any real narrative momentum does create an unexpectedly bizarre and potentially beneficial experience, as the film itself almost offers its own serialized storytelling. Rather than one overall and engaging storytelling throughline, it feels like we're being given an episodic anthology. It even makes us wish that, rather than being a feature film, we could have instead been given a four-episode limited revival series so that we could alter our expectations. Other TV series have been able to make the jump to the big screen in more effective ways, with this narrative entirely missing the structural mark of a long-form adventure for the characters. It's teased early on in the film, for example, that The Count's cousin is hatching a scheme to sell their castle, though these elements take a full hour to ever be explored or have any major impact on the actual film. When these elements return, it's like an all-new movie is starting.

Despite the omission of Eddie and Marilyn feeling like a budgetary issue, that sense of a lo-fi production does actually work in favor of the film's aesthetic. The production design looks like sets as opposed to actual locations, and while this would feel like a drawback for other adaptations, it does work in this revival's favor, as it mirrors the tone of the original series. The film's vibrant color palette, however, feels a bit odd, especially with Herman's bright green skin and with how well the movie's brief black-and-white sequences look in comparison. 

Conceptual and storytelling challenges aside, the look, feel, and performances all surprisingly work together in a genuine way. Roebuck's The Count looks and feels just like the original version of the character, eerily feeling like he stepped right out of the 1960s TV screen. One benefit of setting the story before the original TV series is that Phillips and Moon get to offer slightly different takes on their characters than what was previously established, which also means we aren't holding them to specific archetypes. 

The film undoubtedly comes from creatives who have an immense passion for the source material, but that passion can only take us so far. We can't help but wonder who this movie is for, as the various updates and changes from the source material likely won't sit well with fans of the original series, while there isn't much that feels like it's attempting to appeal more towards younger audiences. Even though Zombie has a history of delivering deranged stories, he fully embraces the family-friendly tone of the franchise, without any winks or innuendoes that the project wanted to make off-color jokes but wasn't allowed to. 

The Munsters has its work cut out for it when it comes to expectations, and we doubt it will win over any naysayers. The movie surely has its heart in the right place, so we hope that the project finds its audience and helps introduced younger viewers to the beloved characters, but we're reminded of Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm when wondering if this film's cast and crew were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. Sadly, this is just the latest reminder of why we haven't gotten a successful revival of the concept, though we can still be relieved that those classic episodes aren't going away anytime soon.

Rating: 2 out of 5

The Munsters is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD.