Review: The Munsters (2022)


Mad scientist Richard Brake and his hunchbacked assistant Jorge Garcia rob graves for body parts to create what is ultimately named Herman Munster. Lily is a 100+ year-old vampire who falls in love with the big lug. Daniel Roebuck plays Lily’s father The Count (later to be known as Grandpa Munster, even though he’s Lily’s father, not Herman’s), who does not approve of Lily’s choice of mate.


I wouldn’t say I was a devotee of the TV show, but I definitely watched re-runs of “The Munsters” (and “The Addams Family” for that matter) from time to time as a kid and enjoyed them well enough. Rob Zombie (“Halloween”, “The Devil’s Rejects”) is yet to make a film I can wholeheartedly embrace but I was at least mildly intrigued to see what he could do with the project. Then I saw the first trailer for this 2022 big-screen adaptation and my heart sank. I honestly thought I was watching something from not even Zombie, not even a Troma movie, but one of those E.I. Independent/Seduction Cinema cheapie sexploitation parodies I used to review for the now defunct Film Asylum…minus the stuff you specifically watch those films for. Having now seen the full film, yeah that’s what we’ve got here. A softcore porn parody with none of the sex and no Misty Mundae, leaving only the bad jokes and garish, cheap cinematography and production design. And to be honest, the jokes are even worse here. This is one of Zombie’s worst efforts alongside the godawful “Halloween II”. It’s a terrible insult to a fun TV show.


Sheri Moon Zombie as per usual has no business being here and no clue how to play Lily Munster. She tries to imitate the great Yvonne DeCarlo to some extent, but is way off the mark and dreadfully unfunny. It’s ironic that Cassandra Peterson turns up briefly because Ms. Moon Zombie makes Elvira seem subtle and a model of magnetic screen presence. Jorge Garcia and especially Daniel Roebuck are competent performers who try their best but even they struggle with the awful material. Zombie has no aptitude for comedy nor does the writer-director have a clue about solid, well-structured and paced storytelling either. It’s basically an origin story, but a dreadfully boring one that doesn’t introduce Herman Munster until well into the film. Why does Zombie insist on backstory and origin stories that aren’t remotely interesting? The film should’ve started with Herman’s creation or already having been created and part of the family. Jeff Daniel Phillips isn’t remotely well-served by the script playing Herman Munster, but tries hard and he does offer up one or two Fred Gwynne-esque moments in the part.


The TV show wasn’t high art, but it wasn’t low-rent like this awful, painfully dull big screen adaptation. Was this meant to be a prank? A soul-crushingly depressing experience and one of the worst films of 2022. I struggled to get through this one. Just watch Zombie’s “Dragula” clip again, a better “Munsters” tribute than this.


Rating: D-

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