Warning! SPOILERS for The Munsters (2022).Rob Zombie's feature-length reboot of The Munsters has some key differences from the original TV show. While a family comedy may not be the obvious fit for the director of House Of A Thousand Corpses, The Munsters at least occupies the same genre. The original sitcom followed the lives of a family of horror archetypes as they adjusted to life in contemporary suburban America. Rather than revisit this premise, the new movie depicts how the Munsters ended up leaving their home in Transylvania for the United States.
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The Rob Zombie Munsters prequel/reboot is the second 21st century attempt to revisit the Munster family, following a failed reboot from Hannibal co-creator Bryan Fuller. Titled Mockingbird Lane, the show featured Arrested Development's Portia de Rossi as vampire Lily Munster, and the comedian Eddie Izzard as her vampire father Grandpa. While a pilot was produced for Halloween 2012, the series wasn't picked up by NBC, who had disagreements with Fuller over the inconsistent tone. Criticisms of tonal inconsistency have also been leveled at the new Rob Zombie movie, which similarly attempts to bring the Munster family to a contemporary audience.
One of the aspects of The Munsters that Rob Zombie wanted to retain for his reboot was the black-and-white aesthetic of the original '60s sitcom, which was rejected by the studio. Instead, the film is shot is incredibly colorful, except for a black and white homage to the original Munsters title sequence. This is the most obvious difference from the original sitcom, but there are many more changes made in Rob Zombie's The Munsters movie.
How The Munsters Movie's Herman Compares To The Show
In the original series, it's said that Lily and Grandpa met Herman in Transylvania at some point in the late 1800s. This meeting is depicted in the new movie, which depicts how Herman and Lily fell in love at first sight, after she saw him on TV, and he meets her backstage at a Transylvania club. As The Munsters TV show heavily drew on Universal's iconic monster movies for inspiration, Herman Munster's creation was explicitly linked back to his creator, Doctor Frankenstein. Herman's origins are different in The Munsters movie, visually he's still a Frankenstein-style creation, but is instead constructed by new character Dr. Wolfgang, who gives him the hands of the greatest pianist while intending to give him the smartest brain in Transylvania.
Due to a mortuary mishap, Herman is instead given the brain of a hack comedian, and he briefly embarks on a career in show business: first as a comedian, then as a rock star. It's a nod to The Munsters season 2, episode 12, "Will Success Spoil Herman Munster?" in which Herman briefly becomes a famous singer. Aside from this substantial change to his origins as a creation of Frankenstein, who spent time in England, the movie version of Herman retains the character's good-hearted nature, childish glee and memorable guffaw.
How The Munsters Movie's Lily Compares To The Show
Strangely for a modernization of The Munsters, the Lily in Rob Zombie's divisive movie often appears to be more in thrall to Herman than she is in the original show. The original Lily wasn't afraid to tell Herman off, but the Lily in the movie is merely mildly annoyed that Herman's accidentally signed away her family home. When audiences are introduced to this new version of the character, she's presented as a beautiful vampire, unlucky in love, on a string of disappointing dates. When she sees Dr. Wolfgang's creation being unveiled on daytime TV, she instantly falls head over heels with Herman. It's presented more as an instant physical attraction than the mutual love and affection present in the original sitcom. It's possible that their relationship plays differently in a 2022 Netflix movie, as it's absent of the constraints of the more chaste network TV of the '60s.
How The Munsters Movie's Grandpa Compares To The Show
Grandpa Munster often referred to Herman as his favorite son-in-law. As The Munsters movie depicts Herman and Lily's courtship, he's presented as much more of a disapproving future father-in-law. The movie depicts how Herman gave Grandpa a better life in America, which is what always earned the character's respect in the original show. As with Herman and Lily, the look of the 2022 version of Grandpa is in-keeping with the character designs from the original sitcom.
How The Munsters Movie's Igor Compares To The Show
Played by Doctor Who's Sylvester McCoy, Igor is technically one of The Munsters' new characters. However, Igor was a character in the original show – Grandpa's loyal servant who had been irreversibly turned into a bat. The movie depicts Igor's life prior to his transformation, a loyal butler to both Grandpa and Lily, serving them food, assisting with wardrobe choices, and helping conjure up magic spells. When the family has to relocate to America, Igor is turned into a bat in order to save on the air fare, a process that will prove irreversible.
How The Munsters Movie's Lester Compares To The Show
Like Igor, Lester Dracula is another Munsters character who gets a larger role in the new movie. Son of Grandpa, and brother of Lily, Lester is a flashy entrepreneurial wolfman, who only appeared in one episode of the original Munsters show, who regularly fails in his business endeavors. Returning for The Munsters movie, Lester Dracula is presented as less of a businessman, and more of a reckless gambler whose debts ultimately lose Grandpa and Lily the family castle. It's Lester's manipulation of the well-meaning Herman that results in the family heading to America to start a new life, but Lester's gambling eventually pays off and rewards the family handsomely. This is a nod to The Munsters season 1, episode 15, "Herman's Rival," when the Munster patriarch loses his life savings to one of Lester's failed business schemes.
The Munsters' Eddie And Marilyn Don't Appear (Or At Least Not As You Expect)
Despite the appearance of deep cut characters like Lester and Zombo, there are two crucial Munsters characters missing from the movie – Eddie (Butch Patrick) and Marilyn Munster (Beverley Owen/Pat Priest). As Rob Zombie's reboot focuses on the early days of Herman and Lily's relationship, it's unsurprising that their son Eddie doesn't appear. Butch Patrick does get a cameo in the movie, however, as the Tin Can Man – Eddie and Grandpa's homemade robot from the original series.
The absence of Marilyn, Lily's niece also fits with the new movie's place in The Munsters chronology. The character's origins are never fully explained in the original show, beyond her assertion that she's lived with the Munsters since she was a baby, and that her parents still live in Transylvania. If green-lit, Rob Zombie's Munsters sequel could explain the Marilyn mystery. Marilyn was played by both Beverley Owen and Pat Priest in the show, and it's Priest who makes a vocal cameo as the Transylvania Airlines Announcer on the Munsters' flight to America.
The Munsters Movie Takes Place In Transylvania, Not America
The biggest difference with Rob Zombie's Munsters movie is the setting. The appeal of the show was the inherent comedy in a family of horror movie archetypes living in suburban America during the tumultuous 1960s. The blended family of a Frankenstein's monster, two vampires, a werewolf child and a beautiful blonde American woman often allowed for the show to tackle the intolerance of the times. In setting the majority of the movie's runtime in Transylvania, Rob Zombie forgets the original message of The Munsters.
The Transylvania of The Munsters movie is an incredibly exaggerated, cartoonish world where monsters and ghouls rub shoulders with each other. This setting is so broadly drawn that the culture clash of Herman and Lily's honeymoon to Paris doesn't really land beyond an exaggerated sequence of horrified Parisians evacuating a restaurant. When the Munster family do arrive in America, they do so during Halloween, meaning that they can seamlessly blend into their surroundings. Just as it looks as if the movie will tackle what life will be like for them for the other 364 days of the year, the movie ends. The movie's big location change means that The Munsters misses an opportunity to update the classic sitcom for the shifting family values and fraught political climate of the 2022.