As usual, I read a lot of negative/lukewarm online reviews about Rob Zombie's new take on the "Munsters" TV show and so chose to pass when it first came out...I decided to check it out this year and was--as usual--surprised that those reviews didn't line up with my understanding (and enjoyment) of the movie, at all, and I think I know why.
Zombie's "Munsters" is, of course, about the way that Herman Munster came to be, and came into the life of vampire-ish Lilian and her dad, the former besotted wth this new creature, the latter apalled. How this group becomes a family and moves to sunny California is a setup for what would eventually be the show that played in the 60s. The characters are familiar even to non-Munster fans, being based on Universal monster icons. The look of the thing is all lurid colors, over-the-top acting and has a generally cheap TV-movie feel. The laughs are also cheap, the story is episodic and fluffy, and, surprisingly for Zombie, it's all pitched at the level of a family audience (well, kind of).
The reason most people didn't like it, in my humble opinion, is that Zombie made both an homage and tongue-in-cheek satire of a type of entertainmet that is from an era long gone and so the enjoyment of it wouldn't be accessible to anyone who didn't experience it as a kid originally, and the era in question is not actually the 60s, it's the 70s.
Zombie's "Munsters" is a pitch-perfect evocation of the kind of lurid, stupid, over-the-top, has-been-star-studded, Kroft Super Show-style variety specials and special event films that were the staple of TV for anyone watching between about 1969 and 1985. This movie ABSOLUTELY NAILS the cheap, trashy, weird-unto-surreal effect things like "Return to Gilligan's Island," "Paul Lynde's Halloween Special" and even reunion movies of the Addam's and Brady families had on young audiences of the day, and to look at it any other way is to completely miss the point (and the genius of it).
It's so completely dead-on in embracing the kind of dumb laughs Sherwood Schwartz (Gilligan, Bradys) and shows like "Green Acres" always aimed for, which is just simply not a "thing" anymore, while also using current cultural references to reflect the trashy times we currently live in, that it's something like an art film in its own way.
Too high of praise perhaps, but at the least it works as a low-rent "Brady Bunch Movie" like the 2 Brady films from the 90s...it absolutely knows how "stupid" it is, and completely embraces it, defiantly in some cases, because that's how shows played when Zombie and others in my generation were growing up. But I can't imagine anyone who did NOT grow up with that kind of entertainment having any clue what they were seeing with this new Munsters, and so of course they'd find it merely stupid or shallow--at the least, it wouldn't satisfy their expectations for a post-modern, clever, ironic, quippy update of a really dumb show. It is actually incredibly clever, but not in the way viewers looking for irony, fast, "zinger"-style laughs and the kind of "over it" commentary that is the staple of modern times (for better and for worse) would expect. It lands right in the center of the tacky variety show/reunion film of the 70s decade, but if you don't know that reference (let alone appreciate it), you wouldn't get it, and that's unfortunate, because it's kind of brilliant (observe the "Sonny and Cher" homage--again--nobody under 50 could possibly relate to it or get why its so funny...and it is, joyously so).
The other thing that makes it brilliant is that if you know Zombie's work at all, you know he has fangs, and in "Munsters" they're barely concealed. It would be the equal of Russ Meyer directing with a true feminist edge or Quentin Tarantino doing something non-violent and without curse words...is it even possible? One is constantly expecting one of Zombie's "Munsters" to start swearing or suddenly brandish a bloody blade, and yet the worst we get is a harsh rock number from Herman and a couple other things...The Count leering over a magazine that exploits necks the way Playboy theoretically exploits women (although I did see a spoil-sport reviewer suggest that he was actually leering at women offensively in the magazine...you see how people just simply don't GET this...? The joke is not even the leer itself, it's making fun of the leer. But in a literal-minded world like the one we're in today that joke would be lost).
There are subtle, potentially offensive jokes involving race, sex, gender...xenophobia, the old Catskill comic trope is dragged out...but it's never mean-spirited, quite the opposite...but see...that stuff was just par for the course if you were watching TV in the 70s, we were able to openly laugh about everything back then, unlike now...good, bad or indifferent, Zombie absolutely nailed the "trashy 70s special" aesthetic, and while it does suffer from a lot of unfortunate problems (it's too long, the last section is far more interesting than the first 3/4, it does lose the tone its going for now and then and is sometimes just merely bad, not cleverly bad), but overall I found it a startlingly clever, satisfying and fun love letter to a style of entertainment that is long gone and, yeah, probably doesn't make any sense to modern audiences, but was sure fun to see again for someone from that era, particularly when created by someone with a great eye who truly understands how that era worked. And even Sheri Moon did a great job and was fun to watch, and that's saying something, ha ha.
Zombie's "Munsters" is, of course, about the way that Herman Munster came to be, and came into the life of vampire-ish Lilian and her dad, the former besotted wth this new creature, the latter apalled. How this group becomes a family and moves to sunny California is a setup for what would eventually be the show that played in the 60s. The characters are familiar even to non-Munster fans, being based on Universal monster icons. The look of the thing is all lurid colors, over-the-top acting and has a generally cheap TV-movie feel. The laughs are also cheap, the story is episodic and fluffy, and, surprisingly for Zombie, it's all pitched at the level of a family audience (well, kind of).
The reason most people didn't like it, in my humble opinion, is that Zombie made both an homage and tongue-in-cheek satire of a type of entertainmet that is from an era long gone and so the enjoyment of it wouldn't be accessible to anyone who didn't experience it as a kid originally, and the era in question is not actually the 60s, it's the 70s.
Zombie's "Munsters" is a pitch-perfect evocation of the kind of lurid, stupid, over-the-top, has-been-star-studded, Kroft Super Show-style variety specials and special event films that were the staple of TV for anyone watching between about 1969 and 1985. This movie ABSOLUTELY NAILS the cheap, trashy, weird-unto-surreal effect things like "Return to Gilligan's Island," "Paul Lynde's Halloween Special" and even reunion movies of the Addam's and Brady families had on young audiences of the day, and to look at it any other way is to completely miss the point (and the genius of it).
It's so completely dead-on in embracing the kind of dumb laughs Sherwood Schwartz (Gilligan, Bradys) and shows like "Green Acres" always aimed for, which is just simply not a "thing" anymore, while also using current cultural references to reflect the trashy times we currently live in, that it's something like an art film in its own way.
Too high of praise perhaps, but at the least it works as a low-rent "Brady Bunch Movie" like the 2 Brady films from the 90s...it absolutely knows how "stupid" it is, and completely embraces it, defiantly in some cases, because that's how shows played when Zombie and others in my generation were growing up. But I can't imagine anyone who did NOT grow up with that kind of entertainment having any clue what they were seeing with this new Munsters, and so of course they'd find it merely stupid or shallow--at the least, it wouldn't satisfy their expectations for a post-modern, clever, ironic, quippy update of a really dumb show. It is actually incredibly clever, but not in the way viewers looking for irony, fast, "zinger"-style laughs and the kind of "over it" commentary that is the staple of modern times (for better and for worse) would expect. It lands right in the center of the tacky variety show/reunion film of the 70s decade, but if you don't know that reference (let alone appreciate it), you wouldn't get it, and that's unfortunate, because it's kind of brilliant (observe the "Sonny and Cher" homage--again--nobody under 50 could possibly relate to it or get why its so funny...and it is, joyously so).
The other thing that makes it brilliant is that if you know Zombie's work at all, you know he has fangs, and in "Munsters" they're barely concealed. It would be the equal of Russ Meyer directing with a true feminist edge or Quentin Tarantino doing something non-violent and without curse words...is it even possible? One is constantly expecting one of Zombie's "Munsters" to start swearing or suddenly brandish a bloody blade, and yet the worst we get is a harsh rock number from Herman and a couple other things...The Count leering over a magazine that exploits necks the way Playboy theoretically exploits women (although I did see a spoil-sport reviewer suggest that he was actually leering at women offensively in the magazine...you see how people just simply don't GET this...? The joke is not even the leer itself, it's making fun of the leer. But in a literal-minded world like the one we're in today that joke would be lost).
There are subtle, potentially offensive jokes involving race, sex, gender...xenophobia, the old Catskill comic trope is dragged out...but it's never mean-spirited, quite the opposite...but see...that stuff was just par for the course if you were watching TV in the 70s, we were able to openly laugh about everything back then, unlike now...good, bad or indifferent, Zombie absolutely nailed the "trashy 70s special" aesthetic, and while it does suffer from a lot of unfortunate problems (it's too long, the last section is far more interesting than the first 3/4, it does lose the tone its going for now and then and is sometimes just merely bad, not cleverly bad), but overall I found it a startlingly clever, satisfying and fun love letter to a style of entertainment that is long gone and, yeah, probably doesn't make any sense to modern audiences, but was sure fun to see again for someone from that era, particularly when created by someone with a great eye who truly understands how that era worked. And even Sheri Moon did a great job and was fun to watch, and that's saying something, ha ha.