The Munsters Review

"The Munsters," the feature-length film based on the 60's sitcom, was co-produced by Universal. Universal has their own streaming service called Peacock. Yet this did not appear on Peacock, instead debuting on Netflix and DVD. That's not a good sign. Neither does my zero-star review, and especially not since I couldn't watch the whole thing.

Yes that's right folks, in the age of streaming, "The Munsters" is the first film reviewed here that I digitally "walked out on." I can do that. Sure yeah this is film criticism, but what better criticism is there then by acknowledging that your life is more valuable than a film? Does this review count? Does it matter? I dunno, but I do know that this is one of the worst, if not the worst professionally made films I've ever seen.

It sucks, a movie that actively works to make you hate it, and yeah, in a silly way it won. I didn't finish it, but enough of that- why did I press "back" on my remote about thirty minutes in? Could it be the characters who are unlikeable? Maybe sets that look like Spirt Halloween threw up or perhaps costumes that appear to still have some puke on them from that same store? Or is it all of the above? Oh god is it all of the above, and more!

The "more" was that there was somehow over an hour left by the time I bounced.

Now I've never actually seen an episode of the show this is based on (I was always more of The Addams Family), but I get the idea. Haha, it's all the Universal monsters in a sitcom. Ohh the innocent 60's. Jeff Daniel Phillips plays Herman (aka Frankenstein's monster), Sheri Moon Zombie plays Lily (a vampiress), and this is partly a "how they met" kinda story. Only it's so overproduced, so overacted, so over-the-top that it just pounds you over the head with its "hey isn't just sooooo funny how much we know how silly this all is?! Har he har har!!" Spoiler, it's not.

Much of the blame is probably on writer-director Rob Zombie, not only for casting his wife because she's his wife, but for failing to know what audiences want. A smart script that celebrates what it is parodying, direction that lusts over the cheesy but appropriate sets, or anything that resembles an actual movie. It's labored instead of labor of love. There's no sense that anyone here wants to be involved, every single thing looking, sounding and acting so disparate that it ultimately feels alien. Like this was made by some nonhuman entity who knows from the synopsis of better movies what a movie is, but has never seen one, let alone directed several!

"The Munsters" so artistically inert and so unattractive to look at that I'll forever be upset with myself for not shutting it off sooner.