I’m not terribly familiar with the classic The Munsters TV show, but after watching Rob Zombie’s film, I wish to be.
When Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang (Richard Brake, also playing Orlock) unveils his creation, Herman Munster (Jeff Daniel Phillips), to the world, he does so on television. Unbeknownst to the good doctor, the brain in Herman’s head is not that of the smartest man alive, but that of a hack comedian. Instead of unrivaled wisdom, Herman grunts and spits out punny humor. Rather than beautifully playing a piano, he decimates it. The phalanges Wolfgang extracted from the world’s greatest pianist are wasted. Wolfgang is humiliated, thinking his creation a failure, an absolute waste.
Seeing this occur live on television, The Count (Daniel Roebuck) agrees, but for his daughter Lily (Sheri Moon Zombie), it’s love at first sight. She gets a delightfully absurd close-up with a background consisting of spinning hearts, and when Herman sees her for the first time, he’s granted the same close-up and background.
One can imagine the same spinning hearts behind Rob Zombie when his film was greenlit. The underrated filmmaker may have made a name for himself with his visceral, crass, and surreal R-rated horror films, but for the last 20 years, his heart has been set on making a Munsters film. This love is seen in every PG-rated frame. After seeing the actors walking around in their costumes, Zombie and DP Zoran Popovic shot the film with a heightened color scheme to compliment their cartoonish looks. The only black and white footage is in a (hilarious) montage of Herman and Lily’s honeymoon in Paris. Gone is the grainy handheld of his other films, and in its place are delightful dutch angles and absurd zoom-ins. The film is shot and edited with the energy of a ’90s Capri Sun commercial—and that is not an insult. The set design is also spectacular, with the Transylvanian streets at night reminiscent of a big budget haunted house you and your friends might visit.
Zombie’s adoration for the kind of catskill silly humor is both charming and utterly self-aware. During Herman’s first TV appearance, one of the jokes he makes is, “a horse walks into a bar, bartender says, why the long face?” Everyone knows this joke. People only laugh at it because of how trite it is at this point. And yet the characters shriek with absurd laughter. It’s not the quality of the puns that makes the movie funny, it’s the belief of the cast and crew. They have a passionate insanity that fits this world like a glove. Even The Count, who hates Herman’s jokes, expresses his disdain absurdly. Everyone’s in on the joke, even the characters who are meant to hate the joke.
There have been criticisms that the plot is lacking in conflict. Personally, I thought this was refreshingly optimistic, and it’s complemented by Lily’s dynamic and her father. They’re essentially good cop bad/cop for Herman: if he ever does something stupid, The Count chastises him, while Lily tries to make the best of the situation. For instance, when Herman foolishly signs the deed of their Transylvanian home over to The Count’s bitter ex, I thought I could anticipate where the story was going. I thought a heartbroken Lily would leave Herman and he’d have to prove himself and get the family home back. While Lily is not happy with Herman’s mistake, she doesn’t leave him over it. She gets over it and responds, “whatever are we going to do?”
This optimism is in keeping with Zombie making the film. After defining his filmography with horror that fearlessly showed the darkest depths of our souls, he has made cinematic comfort food for the whole family, highlighting silly domestic squabbles under the lens of goofy spookiness. Provided you’re able to go for the ride, The Munsters is the perfect way to kick off the Halloween season.
