The Munsters is the ninth feature film from shock rock musician turned director Rob Zombie. And it’s fair to say it stands as one of his most controversial films thus far- as it finds him stripping away all the violence and profanity he's normally known for a PG (sort-of) family film. It’s a colourful & campy ride, dotted with lightly chucklesome humour, quirky visual detail, and (largely) well-placed cast. Here from Mediumrare Entertainment is a UK Blu-Ray release of the film- featuring a director's commentary track, and a making of.

The Munsters, of course, was a US TV series from the 1960’s- it ran for two seasons, clocking up a total of seventy episodes. The series centred around a family of horror-centric characters, who can’t understand when normal folks reacted in a panicked/ alarmed manner when they come in contact with the family.  As he did with his remake of the Halloween franchise Zombie has given his own take on the source material, adding in his own distinctive twists- though it’s fair to say his alterations are not as drastic as some of those in his two Halloween films.

The film opens with Dr. Wolfgang (Richard Brake) and his hunched-backed, tubby ‘n’ bearded henchman Floop(Jorge Garcia) collecting together body parts to build the ultimate man. We see the pair getting the hands from a zombie pianist, and Floop breaking into the morgue to steal the brain of a highly intelligent man- unfortunately, he gets the wrong brain, instead getting that of a corny joke-spouting comedian.   

Next, we move to meet Lilly- played by Zombies wife/ often lead actress Sheri Moon-  who is a lonesome female vamp of 100 who lives with her ageing father The Count(Daniel Roebuck) in a huge Transylvanian castle with their loyal butler Igor(Sylvester McCoy). She keeps going on dates- but no one’s clicking, and we see her on her last date with bald, long-fanged, and rat-loving Orlock- played by Richard Brake. She gets back home thoroughly fed up, and her Dad is watching the TV- where Dr. Wolfgang is revealing his latest creation, that’s he’s built from body parts, and fired up with electricity.  The Dr is expecting great things when his Frankenstein monster-like creation Herman(Jeff Daniel Phillips) when he speaks for the first time- but to his disappointment, he cracks a corny joke. Back at the castle, Lilly is competingly besotted by Herman- so she asks him on a date. 

The first hour or so of the one-hour forty-nine-minute film finds Lilly & Herman getting to know each other, her father’s attempt to break up the two, and their marriage by steam puffing robot. We also have a side plot regarding Lilly jive-talking werewolf brother Lester(Tomas Boykin) trying to get Herman tied up in a dodgy deal. The last forty or so minutes find the recently married couple going to Paris for their honeymoon, and moving to LA.

Throughout the film remains decidedly wacky & comic-book come to life-like- with great use of red, green, orange, and purple light touches. The set design and the families costumes are on point, and the whole thing looks like Zombie has been given his biggest budget thus far. I’ll have to admit I wasn’t quite sure how Sheri Moon would do as Lily, but she plays the part well, with sing-song/well-spoken tone. I'd heard criticism of Phillips's portrayal of Herman, but I really can’t see why- as he comes across well as the always trying to do his best/ corny joke-cracking lumbering monster. The final in the trio of lead actors is Roebuck, and he is spot on as the getting into mischief/ experimenting old count.
 
Moving onto the extras on the Blu-Ray, and we get a commentary track from Mr Zombie- this as with all his director's track is most interesting/ entertaining. He begins by discussing why he used the old-school Universal pictures logo, and even though the film is a comedy he sees it as very much his take/tribute to classic Universal horror. We find out the film was shot in thirty-two days in Hungary- with a mix of back lots and real locations, including a castle in downtown Budapest. He talks about how all the character costumes had to be created for each character, and the sets/ details were all built from scratch.  The film was shot during the height of COVID- so as a result he had difficulty getting actors from the US & UK, so hench some of the actors play a few roles. We get talk about film locations- one of which was an abandoned power station with a stained glass ceiling.  He talks about how he sees the film as a bizarre romantic comedy, and how Peter Cushing’s take on Dr Frankenstein was very much an influence on Brake’s Doc character. Later on, he talks about building a cemetery on the backlot, and how he didn't get to feature it as much as he hopped in the finished film. He discusses the cover version of “I Got You Babe” with both Moon and Phillips singing their own parts, and apparently before this her didn’t know his wife could descant. He talks about some of the more difficult filming days, and how he wanted the characters to be both fresh & new in their interaction with each other, as they don’t have the history they do in the original TV show. A great track.
Otherwise, we get Return To Mockingbird Lane- this is a great in-depth making off/behind-the-scenes doc which runs just over the hour mark. With the film following from the initial dressing of the characters, set building, and day-by-day filming. And lastly, we have a trailer.
 
Having followed and enjoyed Zombie film work since his nasty and deranged grindhouse throwback debut House Of 1000 Corpses. I’ll have to say I was a little apprehensive when I heard he was tattling this project, and it was going to be a PG family film- but I must say he’s pulled off with The Munsters been an entertaining and wacky romp of a film- and I do hope there will be some sort of follow-up, but who knows, as sadly it did get a fair bit of negative press- which to be honest I don’t really understand.