The Munsters (By Phil Fasso)
I never thought when I chose to review a Rob Zombie flick that it wouldn’t be the most exploitative, violent and rapey trash Netflix would release this week. No, that title goes to “Blonde.” And while I won’t watch that one out of respect for women, the memory of Marilyn Monroe, and the human condition in general, I did watch Zombie’s newest, “The Munsters,” his love letter to the ’60s sitcom of the same name. And while Herman doesn’t sodomize Lily with a severed arm, there’s plenty that takes all the joy out of this one. It’s a ho-hum effort that could have been a romp if it weren’t so misguided.
My second paragraph in any review usually provides a quick plot summary. Alas, I can’t follow form here because there is no plot. Many reviewers are overlooking this exclusion, but I have to discuss. My two degrees in English taught me that any piece of fiction needs a narrative, and here there is none. It goes like this: Mad doctor collects body parts and builds a monster; he puts bad brain in said monster; monster becomes a standup comedian/musical act(???); Lily, daughter of the Count, falls in love with Herman, the coolly-named monster; the newlyweds parade around Paris; they and the Count lose his castle; they move to America and end up on Mockingbird Lane. The end. That synopsis probably sounds more plot heavy than it actually is. That’s a sin, made worse by how Zombie stretches this across 1 hour and 49 minutes. This thing meanders, along the way becoming the ultimate Nothing Happens flick. Even though I liked the characters (hey, they’re the Munsters), watching them without any narrative drive couldn’t keep me engaged for the better part of two hours.
Two more things. One, I would never give away the entire plot of a film, but my synopsis above covers all 1 hour and 49 minutes. And no, I didn’t post a spoilers notice, because I can’t spoil a plot where no plot exists. Two, Rob Zombie is the first writer and director to create a film that has no plot, yet has a subplot! There’s this side story about Lily’s brother who owes gangster gypsies money and wants to swindle away the Count’s castle. It’s the only narrative thread in the whole flick, and it’s a subplot. Congratulate yourself, Rob. You’ve just made movie history, in the oddest of ways.
Lucio Fulci never directed a plot worth having, but he’s revered because of his visual style. I’m positive no one is going to say the same of Zombie here. All the online reviews I’ve seen for the first trailer hammered how cheap the film looks (some compared it to a poorly shot Youtube video, others to a porno spoof without the porn). They’re not wrong. It looks cheap. But I contend that Zombie intended it to look this cheap, as if he were directing a color version of the old TV show. It doesn’t really work, but I have to say, it’s got a fun color palette, with all these neon greens and reds and blues. Zombie thankfully threw out his grungy, “looks like ’70s celluloid run over by a Mack truck” aesthetic and did something bold for a change. Others will slam it, but I’ll give it a pass.
I’ll even give a pass to characters wearing costumes and masks that are clearly cheapies bought at a Halloween store (the Creature of the Black Lagoon is the shining example), because this isn’t a horror flick. It’s a budget comedy that exists solely so Zombie can revere a Nick at Nite classic he loved as a kid. This isn’t elevated horror; it’s RZ getting together a bunch of friends and making a movie.
I’ll give it to Zombie’s friends. They all obviously bought in. Daniel Roebuck is the clear standout, as he gets the material and plays to it perfectly. No one will confuse Jeff Daniel Phillips for Fred Gwynne, but he tackles Zombie’s terrible dialogue with a goofy, gleeful smile. Rounding out the main cast, Sherie Moon Zombie plays straight part of the comedy trio, and she’s decent as Lily. Sadly, Zombie assembled a talented cast and hung them out to dry in this plotless flick. At least Richard Brake, who I’m convinced Zombie grew in a petri dish solely so he could star in RZ flicks, is having a ball as the mad doctor.
Many of Zombie’s choices are bizarre, but perhaps the most out there was how little he includes the Munster house. RZ’s flick is a back story to the classic series, and most of it takes place in Transylvania. The whole joke of the series was the Munsters thought they were normal, everyday Americans. A frequent gag was how the regular humans would flip out and run in terror upon encountering the family. Because Herman and Lily are monsters among monsters in this version, that whole element is absent. I get that Zombie wanted to tell a love story between Lily and Herman, but Munster fans likely would come to this flick to see them hanging around 1313 Mockingbird Lane. That Zombie only introduces the house with about 15 minutes left in the flick proves once again just how misguided his take is.
And that’s not because he doesn’t love the original material. The way he guides Lily and Herman together, it’s evident how much joy he gets out of the characters and the concept. I truly believe he went into making “The Munsters” with the best of intentions and that his heart is in every frame. I applaud him for going way outside his ultraviolent, white trash realm to make something I could legitimately call “family friendly.” But the overarching problem is, Zombie needed to apply his brain from a much different angle to achieve anything that would please an audience. In the end, I think the only audience he made this film for was Rob Zombie. And that’s kind of sad, because given just how much avidity he has for the series, he could have given me a really good time. Instead, he gave me a plotless, cheap looking mess that runs nearly two hours.
Did I regret watching Rob Zombie’s “The Munsters?” I chuckled every ten minutes or so, but that’s not what I would call a great laughs per hour rate. I can say, though, that at no point during the flick does President Kennedy take a drugged up Herman and force the monster to fellate him. That may be the most backhanded way to say I’ll never watch “Blonde,” but I’m not saying I’ll ever watch THE MUNSTERS again. It may be the less offensive of Netflix’s two releases this week, but it’s no winner.
