The Munsters

"The Munsters" isn't a bad film; it's just a forgettable one.

There's no denying Rob Zombie's well-known affection for "The Munsters." I love anything quirky and weird, so when the first trailer landed, I marked the date on my calendar and readied myself to have some fun.

 The problem is Zombie's film feels like a story that can't decide if it's paying homage to its source material or outright making fun of it. The film attempts to capture the source material's campiness but can never pull it off. When you look at the individual pieces, many of them work, but viewing the film as a whole is a bit of a disappointment.

That being said, "The Munsters" isn't a terrible film. Jeff Daniel Phillips's performance as Herman Munster is terrific fun and Sheri Moon Zombie as Lily is enjoyable. The look of the film is excellent and I adored the use of bad CGI, but it's a film I kept rooting for throughout, but in the end, I couldn't embrace it for what it strove to be.

"The Munsters" is the origin love story of Herman and Lily stitched together in a series of sketches instead of scenes. We see Herman's creation, his and Lily's love blossom, their exile from The Count's (Daniel Roebuck) castle, and their settling in at 1313 Mockingbird Lane. I know that sounds simplistic, but that is ultimately the story. What lies in between are forgettable scenes that feel they are included only to inflate the run time to an absurd 110 minutes.

Universal wouldn't allow Zombie to shoot the film in black and white, so instead, he saturates the screen in a surreal kaleidoscope of color, resulting in one of the film's best parts. The set design is beautiful and something I couldn't get enough of.

The film has some fun moments, such as a rendition of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" by Herman and Lily left me in stitches. And that's what was so perplexing about the film. It's filled with charm and love and enough moments that I should have loved it more than I did, but Zombie's inability to make a cohesive story flow killed the film.

The fact the film features Cassandra Peterson, Elvira herself, and has her dress up for Halloween as a witch and not the Mistress of the Dark is unforgivable. Another travesty is that we spend minimal time at 1313 Mockingbird Land, which is inexcusable. However, we get a nice nod to original Herman Munster actor Fred Gwynne when our current incarnation of the character, in a panic, screams out, "Car 54, where are you!"

This film feels like something that would have been better suited for a limited series run where Zombie could take his time with the story and hit the traditional television story beats. For good measure, throw in a classic TV laugh track here and there to give it a nice vintage vibe.

In the end, "The Munsters" isn't a bad film; it's just a forgettable one. Zombie squanders a wonderful performance by Phillips and delivers a movie that aims high but comes up short.