David Gelmini, John Martin and James Whittington look at some of the latest cinema, 4K UHD, Blu-ray and streaming releases...

THE MUNSTERS (2022) Streaming Now. ★★★

Rob Zombie has always been open about the fact that he is a huge fan of the classic 60s TV series The Munsters, so his dreams clearly came true when Universal hired him to direct a film based on the popular monster-themed sitcom.

As his first family-friendly picture, The Munsters is also a huge change of pace for the director of films such as House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, and the remake of Halloween, but rest assured, the heavy metal singer turned filmmaker has managed to deliver an enjoyable re-imagining of The Munsters for a modern audience. It’s not a masterpiece, but Zombie’s take on The Munsters is still likely to leave fans smiling.

To the film’s credit, the three central cast members all convincingly replicate the performances of the key characters from the original show. Daniel Roebuck perfectly captures Al Lewis’ speech patterns and mannerisms as Grandpa, while Jeff Daniel Phillips nails Herman Munster’s refined accent and his trademark laugh. Even Sheri Moon Zombie, who gets a lot of flack for appearing in all of her husband’s films, is surprisingly effective as the lovelorn Lily. Moon Zombie channels Yvonne De Carlo’s original portrayal of Lily so effectively that many fans might have trouble differentiating between the two performers.

The actors playing new characters not seen in the original show are entertaining in their own right, with Richard Brake clearly having an absolute blast in his dual roles as a self-obsessed mad scientist and a parody of Count Orlok from Nosferatu. Former Doctor Who star Sylvester McCoy is also great deal of fun as Igor, the family’s uptight butler who often fails to notice when jokes are made at his expense. And fans will be delighted to see Butch Patrick, who played Eddie Munster in the original series, making a brief yet memorable appearance.

Performances aside, a major issue with The Munsters lies with the script, which often feels more like a series of loosely connected vignettes than an actual plot. At first, we are given the impression that Lily and Herman’s romance will be the central topic of the story, but they fall in love at first sight and are married by shortly after the halfway mark. Grandpa comes up with a number of devious schemes to drive the two lovers apart, although this sub-plot is largely abandoned after they are married.

Another sub-plot involves a werewolf named Lester trying to settle his debt by launching a money-making scheme, which does not really affect the central characters until the third act, by which point, the film effectively stops being a love story and instead switches focus to how the now-cashstrapped Munster family are looking to start a new life abroad. This seems like something which should have occurred at the beginning of the story instead of towards the end.

Each of these plot threads could have easily been the main focus, and throwing them all in at once makes The Munsters far more convoluted than it needed to be. It’s also clear that entire sequences were written simply to accommodate jokes rather than to further the plot, and this soon becomes tiresome. Twenty minutes could easily have been cut without much of substance being lost.

While the movie is genuinely hilarious at times, amusing standouts being Grandpa’s constant deadpan delivery and physical comedy involving Herman’s superhuman strength (even solemn viewers will no doubt crack a smile when the clumsy Herman accidentally smashes the piano he was trying to play), there are also plenty of jokes which do not land and seem dreadfully out of place. For instance, an extended sequence towards the end focuses on how the Munster family are horrified by the appearance of regular human beings, which does not work as the film has plenty of earlier scenes showing the Munsters interacting with normallooking people without any issues.