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Transylvania: While the Count (Daniel Roebuck), a vampire of old, tries
time and again (and fails) to find a fitting suitor for his daughter Lily
(Sheri Moon Zombie), and while his ex Zoya (Catherine Schell) tires time
and again to get her hands on his castle, also with the help of their son
together, heavily indebted werewolf Lester (Tomas Boykin), mad scientist
Dr. Wolfgang (Richard Brake) creates an artificial human being out of
bodyparts - but unfortunately his hunchbacked assistant Floop (Jorge
Garcia) has given the monster (Jeff Daniel Phillips) a stand-up comedian's
instead of a scientist's brain, and the wise-cracking creature, soon to be
christened Herman Munster, is soon expelled by his creature - but Floop
takes him under his wing and soon makes him a big hit on the Transylvanian
stand-up circuit. This doesn't escape the attention of Lily, and once they
meet in person, it's love on first sight, and soon they marry, much to the
Count's dismay. Now in Herman, Lester has found the perfect victim for his
scheme, and he has him sign over the deed to the Count's castle. With
little left and nothing to lose, Herman, Lily and the Count travel to
Hollywood where a crooked realtor (Cassandra Peters) sells them the most
rundown house on the block - and they love it. And arriving on Halloween,
they feel right at home, too - but are positively scared when they see
what their neighbourhood looks like on any other day ... In
1964, two series with roughly the same theme, The
Munsters and The
Addams Family, premiered within six days, with both series
becoming deserved TV classics over time, with their fanbases interestingly
sharply divided. In 2022 it was a bit of history repeating when this here
prequel to the classic series debuted roughly the same time as Tim
Burton's sort-of sequel series to The
Addams Family, Wednesday.
This time the verdict among fans of the macabre was much clearer, while Wednesday
got lots of praise for Tim Burton's style and Jenna Ortega's (admittedly
fantastic) performance, Rob Zombie's The Munsters was almost
universally panned as soon as the first trailer dropped. And I think
that's a rather unfair assessment, as while Wednesday
was basically a overly clichéed high school drama cum murder mystery set
in Tim Burton land that was disappointingly low on any kind of humour,
with Christina Ricci (from the Addams
Family-movies) as the only interesting casting choice, Rob
Zombie actually tries (and often succeeds) to bring back the flair and
humour of the series of old - and besides bringing back Butch Patrick and
Pat Priest from the original series in voice roles, he also employs a few
other genre veterans, like Elvira
Cassandra Peters, Doctor
Who Sylvester McCoy and Space
1999's Catherine Schell. Now was Rob Zombie's film actually
pretty great then? The answer, rather disappointingly is no. There's just
too much wrong with this, as for one it doesn't have a proper storyline,
no classic three acts, the story just meanders along, jumping from one
idea to the next with little rhyme or reason - really as if it was a few
episodes of a series shortened and cobbled together. Which also means,
without a clear storyline the film, at 109 minutes, goes on quite a bit
too long. Then the humour that has worked so well in the 1960s and in a
sitcom format seems horribly outdated and out of place in a feature film
from the 2020s. Plus, the film's over-saturated colours do take time to
get used to. But it's at least lovingly made and captures the spirit of
the series quite well, and one thing's for sure, I'd rewatch this rather
than the rather over-rated Wednesday
any time.
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