Rob Zombie's Munsters

[Goblin19]

I may still watch it. I’ve watched quite a few Rob Zombie movies and I would never say he’s a bad director, but he is a pretty awful writer. I would like to see him direct a horror movie written by someone else.

[ODBJBG]

I finally got around to watching this. Despite having easily one of the worst trailers ever (certainly for a "major" motion picture) I tried to avoid all reviews and went in with a clean mental slate, hoping this movie would be better than early previews. Dan's such a swell guy surely there would be some decent stuff buried in here somewhere.

Nope. This movie is terrible. No one can objectively look at this as a good movie. Not even a good Munsters movie.

It's another example of Zombie really not being a good director in any sense of the word. He claims it was extremely low budget. Honestly aside from some bad CG and green screen here or there, it's fine. The visual style is garish on intent, and doesn't work AT ALL, but it doesn't feel like the budget is the reason nothing works. It's the direction.

But low budget can be good. This just isn't. Dan is a great guy and he tries, but no one else in the leads really have any charisma or acting talent to pull something like this off. McCoy and the other cameos are fine, but not enough to elevate this. It's not clear what half of them are doing. It feels like they just told McCoy to act goofy when the camera was on. No one knows why. The side characters are better than the leads but they have no point. They just sort of wander in and out of the story. Or what is supposedly a story. It's hard to believe there's much of a narrative here.

And it takes FOREVER to get anything to happen and yet, feels like it's constantly moving so fast. No time to soak anything up... Yet this feels like a 20 min story "Herman meets Lily, gets swindled out of the castle and moves to the US" told over 2 painfully long unfunny hours.

It's all very non-cohesive. None of it makes any sense in that regard. Sometimes we'll see a character go on for a long time where it feels like the scene is over and someone should yell cut and then other times when we should get a longer scene, it does a weird wipe to the next scene. It's tonally inconsistent (other than always being bad) and it's criminally unfunny. As in, there isn't a SINGLE moment in this entire movie that made me even half chuckle. The best "joke" is the "Threw away the mold with you in it I presume" gag from the trailer.

There's no precedent nor reason for the random wipes, or cutting to a TV show for extended periods of time just because. These things are tropes from Zombie's music videos where you can get away with showing clips from better TV shows and films as segues, but not in a movie where it has no context or importance. We get montages when we shouldn't. We don't get montages in moments that actually call for them. Ineptitude run amok.

This is objectively a terrible film on every level.

I know Zombie is legit a fan, but he should have been a big enough fan to realize he doesn't have the talent to do it. It's as if he never saw a single episode of the Munsters, only lots of stills.

No heart. No charm. No good gags. Herman is an awful unlikable character. Lily is doing a bad Elvira impersonation that Sheri isn't talented enough to do. The acting is just abysmal and wooden across the board. Heck when the real Elvira shows up in a bit cameo, she's a better actual ACTRESS than the rest of the bunch.

Camp is zany, fun, but can still be good. Camp is occasionally winking and nodding at the audience. Camp is not bad. People who think this was bad on purpose and that was the intent are deluding themselves. This is just bad. Camp it ain't.

In the original show there would be occasional fun moments where we would see Herman in a different outfit. The visual sight gag of seeing Frankenstein's monster in silly outfits could almost garner a laugh alone. But the reason that worked was because it wasn't the normal thing. It happened on occasion. Here we rarely ever see "normal" Herman, and instead see him in a constant (and almost always pointless) barrage of different outfits that can't be played for a sight gag because we see that more than his usual attire. Zombie doesn't understand how to execute even the simplest of these concepts.

Zombie may be a huge Munsters fan, but he's made the single worst Munsters movie/media iteration to date. Even worse than Scary Little Christmas.

Alas, hubris gets the best of all of us.

Hopefully in a few years someone will take a stab at the Munsters with some money and most importantly talent.

[shaunaconda]

It was okay! About how I thought it would be. I actually think the actors did a pretty good job with the characters.

[apes3978]

I don't like the guy who play's Herman's voice … To me it's just annoying

Is it actually confirmed anywhere that the actor playing Herman had his voice dubbed in by another actor?

[Brown Bear]

I'm really rooting for these guys to be popular. Seems like such a passionate bunch making this project.

[Nostalgiabuff]

i made it about 10 minutes in. it's like a really bad SNL skit

[Earth 2 Chris]

I liked it! Is it great? No, but you can tell everyone is having fun, and myself and my daughter, who watched Munsters, Go Home none stop for a year when she was a toddler, did too.

It's probably a bit too long, and could have used a tighter cut, but it was just a nice, zany, Halloweeny experience. It was fun to see the nods to old Topstone masks, Leave It To Beaver (produced by the same folks as the original series) and of course the Universal Monsters.

I hope they do another one.

[LonnieFisher]

I'd like to see a sequel get made. That would be really awesome.

[enyawd72]

Well, I can admit when I'm wrong. I was sure this would be a trainwreck and I'd hate it.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed it...not sure of my own reaction, I watched it a second time last night and liked it even more.
If fact, I loved it, and will be picking up the blu-ray.

I can totally see this movie gaining a cult following. Maybe a sequel isn't entirely off the table.

[LonnieFisher]

I really want to re-watch it in black and white. The one thing that really bothered me was the red and green lighting. I just don't know how to change my computer from color to greyscale.

I googled it and watched a youtube video and it's really super easy. I'm going to watch a lot of stuff in greyscale now! I lived with black and white tv until I was 22 years old, so everything I watched on tv was always black and white. It's strange watching cartoons from back then in color...

[LonnieFisher]

I watched this for a second time but in black & white and it seemed better. My problem is for me the jokes were so old I gowned more than I laughed but my young Asian boyfriend was laughing because he hasn't heard them. If you have the ability to turn you screen in B&W than watch the show, it really does take you back to the original.

Just to let you know when Svengoolie played the Munster movie that was in color I changed my tv screen to black & white and enjoyed the movie where I have watched the color version before and couldn't get connected.

I really want to re-watch it in black and white. The one thing that really bothered me was the red and green lighting. I just don't know how to change my computer from color to greyscale.

[Werewolf]

I watched half an hour last night, and I think the internet needs to settle down.

We are living in the dystopian hellscape era of the cruelty is the point and rage sells. It's never enough to think "Wow, that sucks. Eh, whatever, life goes on I'll find something else to watch." You have to have a burning seething hatred of something that becomes an all-consuming point of your existence these days. It's crazy.

[Mikey]

I don't like the guy who play's Herman's voice … To me it's just annoying

Also, by the clips that I've seen the movie seems boring and the jokes aren't funny

[monitor_ep]

I watched this for a second time but in black & white and it seemed better. My problem is for me the jokes were so old I gowned more than I laughed but my young Asian boyfriend was laughing because he hasn't heard them. If you have the ability to turn you screen in B&W than watch the show, it really does take you back to the original.

Just to let you know when Svengoolie played the Munster movie that was in color I changed my tv screen to black & white and enjoyed the movie where I have watched the color version before and couldn't get connected.

[blastphemey]

I watched half an hour last night, and I think the internet needs to settle down. Someone I know called it "the worst movie ever made" it's not even the worst thing I've seen this week! It looks gorgeous and has a couple of great performances, especially Jorge Garcia and Dan Roebuck (weirdly both from "Lost"). Something is off, but I'll withhold judgment until I see the whole thing. Its heart is in the right place, though—reverence for what came before it is rare these days.

Gotta say I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. I haven't finished it because I got distracted, I'll probably put it on to finish while I paint or something. But I think people get way too fired up and radical about everything these days. It's not that big of a deal, it is a homage of a movie and it's not great but it can be left at that, it's my personal belief that one's blood pressure should remain the same when reviewing films and media.
The amount of people in the world that believe everyone needs their views aligned with everyone else's is just crazy. What a boring world we would live in if that were so.