How was your weekend?
Mine was pretty quiet, but I did learn that I definitely do not have COVID, as my full test came back negative.
I also spruced the weekend up a bit by watching “The Munsters” movie reboot on Netflix this past Saturday evening.
“the Munsters” is a classic TV show from my youth, probably the first show I watched from the first episode to the last when it was originally on, not when it was rerun for the past nearly 60 years.
I guess I was drawn to the show as a fan of the monsters portrayed in the half-hour sitcom, but as I got older and watched each episode for the 500th time, I kind of got the drift of the show—that it was a clever goof on the All-American family sitcoms that were so much a part of that era, everything from “Father Knows Best” to “Leave It To Beaver” …
And since the show was created by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the same people who created “Beaver,” you can see that “The Munsters” was a direct homage to that show, but done in topsy-turvy fashion.
Heck, some of the sequences of “The Munsters” were directly taken from “Beaver,” including the opening sequence, and several actors from “Beaver” appeared on “The Munsters,” including Ken Osmond, the forever pain in the neck, Eddie Haskell, and Richard Deacon as the ultimate stick in the mud, Fred Rutherford.
Anyway, let me get directly to the new film … and you already know quite a bit about it, because I am sure writer/director Rob Zombie had more ambitious goals for the film, and did not foresee that it would be a streaming-only movie on Netflix, sort of like yesterday’s direct-to-video releases which were so because they were not deemed good enough for theatrical release.
So that is where the new “The Munsters” move sits, so although I could end my review right there, let me tell you some more about this film.
Zombie gets an “A” for effort but maybe a “C” for execution. This film is not nearly as much of a catastrophe as the “Dark Shadows” move was some years ago, but if you are looking at some revelation in this new “The Munsters” movie, sorry, you are not going to find it here.
Zombie also decided to forgo the satire on the All-American family that propelled the original sitcom, and he wastes too much time on the “origin” story about how Herman (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Lily (Sheri Moon Zombie … yes, Zombie’s wife) got together, with so much time wasted on something that really wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of things that it completely put the movie on snooze time for about two-thirds of its more than 90-minut length.
(And it does not help that the actors really, really try hard to channel Fred Gwynne, Yvonne DeCarlo and Al Lewis’ original portrayals of the Munster family, and if you think the originals were a bit over the top, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet until you see these new portrayals in this film.)
(His decision to spend so much time on the back story and so little time on the main crux of the charm of the sitcom also makes it very obvious that Zombie feels that another such movie is warranted, but more on that later.)
Anyway, if you can get through the first about an hour, the last 45 minutes or so makes the film watchable and palatable.
Mine was pretty quiet, but I did learn that I definitely do not have COVID, as my full test came back negative.
I also spruced the weekend up a bit by watching “The Munsters” movie reboot on Netflix this past Saturday evening.
“the Munsters” is a classic TV show from my youth, probably the first show I watched from the first episode to the last when it was originally on, not when it was rerun for the past nearly 60 years.
I guess I was drawn to the show as a fan of the monsters portrayed in the half-hour sitcom, but as I got older and watched each episode for the 500th time, I kind of got the drift of the show—that it was a clever goof on the All-American family sitcoms that were so much a part of that era, everything from “Father Knows Best” to “Leave It To Beaver” …
And since the show was created by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the same people who created “Beaver,” you can see that “The Munsters” was a direct homage to that show, but done in topsy-turvy fashion.
Heck, some of the sequences of “The Munsters” were directly taken from “Beaver,” including the opening sequence, and several actors from “Beaver” appeared on “The Munsters,” including Ken Osmond, the forever pain in the neck, Eddie Haskell, and Richard Deacon as the ultimate stick in the mud, Fred Rutherford.
Anyway, let me get directly to the new film … and you already know quite a bit about it, because I am sure writer/director Rob Zombie had more ambitious goals for the film, and did not foresee that it would be a streaming-only movie on Netflix, sort of like yesterday’s direct-to-video releases which were so because they were not deemed good enough for theatrical release.
So that is where the new “The Munsters” move sits, so although I could end my review right there, let me tell you some more about this film.
Zombie gets an “A” for effort but maybe a “C” for execution. This film is not nearly as much of a catastrophe as the “Dark Shadows” move was some years ago, but if you are looking at some revelation in this new “The Munsters” movie, sorry, you are not going to find it here.
Zombie also decided to forgo the satire on the All-American family that propelled the original sitcom, and he wastes too much time on the “origin” story about how Herman (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Lily (Sheri Moon Zombie … yes, Zombie’s wife) got together, with so much time wasted on something that really wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of things that it completely put the movie on snooze time for about two-thirds of its more than 90-minut length.
(And it does not help that the actors really, really try hard to channel Fred Gwynne, Yvonne DeCarlo and Al Lewis’ original portrayals of the Munster family, and if you think the originals were a bit over the top, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet until you see these new portrayals in this film.)
(His decision to spend so much time on the back story and so little time on the main crux of the charm of the sitcom also makes it very obvious that Zombie feels that another such movie is warranted, but more on that later.)
Anyway, if you can get through the first about an hour, the last 45 minutes or so makes the film watchable and palatable.
Lily and Herman are husband and wife and travel to
set up shop with Grandpa (Daniel Roebuck) in California, the perfect place for
them to go to set up shop since they are flat broke (?) after Herman signs away
their fortune to Lily’s no-good brother, the often-alluded to but barely seen werewolf
Lester (Thomas Boykin).
When they come to California and start looking for a home, the film finally picks up steam and lots of laughs, as the fish-out-of-water Munster family sets to put down rootsin a suburb of Los Angeles—yes, Mockingbird Heights, and yes, number 1313) by way of semi-sleazy real estate broker Barbara Carr (Cassandra Peterson … yes, Elvira herself).
They decide to take over a run-down mansion as their new home—which Carr basically gives then because she can’t get rid of the property—and all his is done during a Halloween celebration where the Munster family fits right in … but soon discovers that their new neighbors are not as "good-looking" as they are, when all the masks come off and they see what the people really look like/
And with that, you can feel a sequel is in the air …
Look, I have no doubt that Zombie is a huge fan of the series. He puts in various things that tell you that like me, he has probably seen each show at least 500 times—such as the inclusion of the Lester character, Spot the pet dinosaur and the real cuckoo clock, as well as reference to “Car 54, Where Are You?”—but this movie deals too long with the origin, and too little with what made “”The Munsters” show such a special one, the most important aspect of the whole affair, way too late in the film.
And since Lily and Herman are newlyweds through this film, there is no mention of Eddie or Marilyn, although Butch Patrick and Pat Priest do appear in vocal-only roles as The Tin Man and the Transylvania Airline airport announcer, which is kind of insulting if you think about it.
Without the Eddie and Marilyn characters, there is really no goof aspect to the film, as much of the consternation of “The All-American Family” aspect of the sitcom was derived from Eddie trying to fit into the travails of a grammar school kid trying to fit into the crowd—a constant theme of “Leave It To Beaver,” in particular with Beaver trying to navigate those delicate years as compared with his totally All-American brother—and Marilyn’s inability to keep a boyfriend because she “isn’t as attractive” as the other Munsters are.
So you lose all of that in the new film, and again, it leads me to believe that Zombie had heftier goals with this film than just be a streaming film and that he had all sorts of ideas for a sequel while he was putting together the first film.
Does this film deserve a sequel?
I don’t know how the powers that be judge the success of a streaming-only film in the context of what “success” means, but even though this film kind of falls short, the last 45 minutes or so demonstrates to me that Zombie could do a better job with another film than with this movie, because he can fully delve into what made “The Munsters” one of the most memorable sitcoms of the mid-1960s—and have the time to explain some things that needed explanation from the original TV show, like why Marilyn ended up living with her aunt and uncle, and what happened to her parents.
(We already assume that Eddie is a wolf boy because he took after his Uncle Lester, although that was never fully explained in the TV series either.)
Anyway, just to sum this up, I give the movie two stars out of four; it is engaging at times, doesn’t come close to hitting the mark in most instances, but the film might be even better if a sequel is produced; the films can run as a two-part movie saga continuum, with one film leaning on the other for support.
Oh, and did I mention that this film is in color … there are no Standells in this film … no Leo Durocher …
But it did keep me somewhat engaged for its length, so when is the sequel coming out?
When they come to California and start looking for a home, the film finally picks up steam and lots of laughs, as the fish-out-of-water Munster family sets to put down rootsin a suburb of Los Angeles—yes, Mockingbird Heights, and yes, number 1313) by way of semi-sleazy real estate broker Barbara Carr (Cassandra Peterson … yes, Elvira herself).
They decide to take over a run-down mansion as their new home—which Carr basically gives then because she can’t get rid of the property—and all his is done during a Halloween celebration where the Munster family fits right in … but soon discovers that their new neighbors are not as "good-looking" as they are, when all the masks come off and they see what the people really look like/
And with that, you can feel a sequel is in the air …
Look, I have no doubt that Zombie is a huge fan of the series. He puts in various things that tell you that like me, he has probably seen each show at least 500 times—such as the inclusion of the Lester character, Spot the pet dinosaur and the real cuckoo clock, as well as reference to “Car 54, Where Are You?”—but this movie deals too long with the origin, and too little with what made “”The Munsters” show such a special one, the most important aspect of the whole affair, way too late in the film.
And since Lily and Herman are newlyweds through this film, there is no mention of Eddie or Marilyn, although Butch Patrick and Pat Priest do appear in vocal-only roles as The Tin Man and the Transylvania Airline airport announcer, which is kind of insulting if you think about it.
Without the Eddie and Marilyn characters, there is really no goof aspect to the film, as much of the consternation of “The All-American Family” aspect of the sitcom was derived from Eddie trying to fit into the travails of a grammar school kid trying to fit into the crowd—a constant theme of “Leave It To Beaver,” in particular with Beaver trying to navigate those delicate years as compared with his totally All-American brother—and Marilyn’s inability to keep a boyfriend because she “isn’t as attractive” as the other Munsters are.
So you lose all of that in the new film, and again, it leads me to believe that Zombie had heftier goals with this film than just be a streaming film and that he had all sorts of ideas for a sequel while he was putting together the first film.
Does this film deserve a sequel?
I don’t know how the powers that be judge the success of a streaming-only film in the context of what “success” means, but even though this film kind of falls short, the last 45 minutes or so demonstrates to me that Zombie could do a better job with another film than with this movie, because he can fully delve into what made “The Munsters” one of the most memorable sitcoms of the mid-1960s—and have the time to explain some things that needed explanation from the original TV show, like why Marilyn ended up living with her aunt and uncle, and what happened to her parents.
(We already assume that Eddie is a wolf boy because he took after his Uncle Lester, although that was never fully explained in the TV series either.)
Anyway, just to sum this up, I give the movie two stars out of four; it is engaging at times, doesn’t come close to hitting the mark in most instances, but the film might be even better if a sequel is produced; the films can run as a two-part movie saga continuum, with one film leaning on the other for support.
Oh, and did I mention that this film is in color … there are no Standells in this film … no Leo Durocher …
But it did keep me somewhat engaged for its length, so when is the sequel coming out?
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