The Munsters (2022) Review

 

Initially revealed in 2021, Rob Zombie’s film adaptation of The Munsters just released on Netflix and on physical media via DVD & Blu-Ray on September 27^th.

 

Today, I’m going to be reviewing the film as I watched it over the weekend. So without any further ado, let’s get into the review.

 

The film is a prequel set before the events of the TV Show and like many prequels before it…this one isn’t good. But before I go into why that is, let’s talk about some things that the film does well.

 

The Positives

 

The film actually does some things really well. For instance the set design is amazing in the film. You can tell that Rob Zombie was definitely a Munsters fan because the sets in this film, especially the famous house on 1313 Mockingbird Lane, are beautiful and definitely capture the essence of what the show was.

 

Daniel Roebuck as Grandpa in this movie is the crown jewel of the performances. You can tell that Daniel really got into his role and played it to the best of his ability and I feel that he did it incredibly well.

 

Every time Grandpa was on screen, whether he was the focal point of a scene or not, I was immediately engaged and I wanted to see more of him because he filled Al Lewis’s shoes pretty well in my opinion.

 

The film was also shot really well and the effects in some scenes like when they showed Lily and Herman falling in love with each other, there were some effects that harkened backed to the olden days of film and it was a nice touch.

 

The film gives you this instant feeling of nostalgia because Rob nailed the feel of the show through his cinematography and set design so I have to give him credit for that.

 

Also there are some neat cameos by two of the original cast members: Pat Priest (who was the second actress to play Marilyn) and Butch Patrick (who played Eddie Munster) make voice cameos in the film. Butch plays The Tin Can Man and Pat plays the Transylvanian Airlines PA announcer.

 

That’s really the only two things that are good about this movie, so with that being said, let’s get into the bad.

 

The Negatives

 

Unlike his cinematography, Rob Zombie is an awful writer and once again, that bad writing shows through here in this film.

 

The comedy in the film falls flat because it’s filled to the brim with dad-joke levels of humor, and it’s not even the type of dad jokes you could get a chuckle out of either. It feels like Rob took the worst dad jokes ever and wrote them for this movie, because I only laughed one time throughout this entire movie and it was because of Grandpa.

 

The TV show told its humor through the Munster family just trying to live in this typical 1960s suburban neighborhood like your typical 1960s American family, and not having Eddie Munster or Marilyn Munster there to add to that dynamic really makes the comedy fall flat in that department.

 

The pacing for the film drags on and on and on and it makes the film feel longer than it is. This movie is 110 minutes or an hour and fifty minutes and it honestly felt like a three and a half hour movie. That’s how bad the pacing was so if you’re going to watch this film, keep that in mind.

 

Also other than Grandpa, I feel that the Munster family was horribly miscast. Sheri Moon Zombie (Rob’s wife) plays Lily Munster and while I will give her credit for at least trying in her role, it’s very clear that she can’t act at all. If you look at every single one of Rob’s movies, you’ll see just how bad she is and she hasn’t gotten any better over the years.

 

She talks with this slightly higher pitch that just doesn’t fit for Lily at all and to be honest with you, it’s extremely annoying. Yvonne De Carlo, who played Lily in the TV series, didn’t speak like that at all so if you’re trying to nail the accuracy of the characters as to how they are on the show, you shouldn’t be trying to play them in different ways.

 

Jeff  Daniel Phillips as Herman Munster is better than Sheri Moon Zombie is in this movie, but not by much. He has the imposing look to him due to his height and he does try to put in some effort, but his voice is what ruins it for me. Fred Gwynne, who played Herman in the TV Series, had this really deep and imposing voice to match his looks and it complimented the fact that people were scared of him really well.

Jeff’s voice doesn’t give Herman that intimidation factor and as a result when you see people getting scared of him, it doesn’t feel like it should be happening.

 

Also, the film just feels like it focuses on the wrong plotline throughout the film because there’s no sense of focus here. The main plotline we follow in this movie is the story of Lily and Herman getting together which is NOT the move here.

 

Instead, I feel that the film should’ve focused more on how the Munsters ended up at 1313 Mockingbird Lane which we don’t even get until 2/3rds of the way through the film and the whole plotline behind that was treated as a minor plotline, which was a stupid decision in my opinion.

 

Rob Zombie does a great job with his cinematography due to his work in the music industry so next time he does a movie he REALLY needs to just let someone else handle the writing duties because he isn’t even a good writer when he’s outside out family-friendly stuff like this.

 

The ONLY way I can recommend that you watch this movie is if you’re genuinely curious about it and even then I’d still recommend that you stay as far away from it as possible. And Rob I know you probably won’t see this article but I still have one thing I have to say to you…LET SOMEONE ELSE WRITE YOUR SCRIPTS!!!

 

Those are my thoughts on The Munsters movie. What are your thoughts?? Do you agree with me?? Do you disagree?? Be sure to let me know in the comments below!

 

Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in the next issue.