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Rob Zombie’s The Munsters (2022) is a film adaptation of the 1960s sitcom of the same name. It follows the origin of the characters from the original series as well as establishes how Frankenstein Herman Munster and Lily Munster got married and ended up living in the fictional town of Mockingbird Heights.
However, Zombie’s The Munsters does not exist in isolation. In the second half, the Munsters shifted to a larger space, which is predominantly occupied by humans. But it does not look at ghosts and monsters as an extension of the human world, but one that exists independently.
Read on to find out some of the social trends from Netflix’s The Munsters (2022).
The Munsters (2022) takeaway: Romance, familial spat and money tropes find a prominent place in the plot
One of the best ways to identify the traits of independent existence is through the reflection of similar cultures in different communities. The Munsters ticks the right boxes in terms of mixing monsters with traits that are generally considered to be specific to humans.
Lily’s attraction to Herman
Lily first saw Herman on a television show when Dr. Henry Wolfgang introduced his creation to the world. Visual responses suggested that Lily had fallen for Herman the moment he appeared in front of the audience.
She also found his senseless humor funny, and could be seen laughing at all of Herman’s jokes. Both Herman and Lily were looking for true love, and got married shortly after meeting for the first time.
However, Zombie’s film romanticized their relationship with hardly any of the complexities portrayed, thereby rendering an unclear though true-to-the-original picture. It also reflects on the representation of women in the human world, who, according to pop culture, are more prone to getting attracted to the physical aspects of men.
Even when Lily was getting ready for Herman’s arrival at their place, she asked Igor for suggestions and said,
“Which dress says I am very, very interested, but not miserable and depressed?”
Father-daughter spat over potential partner
The Count always disapproved of Herman as a potential partner for Lily. As he once said to his butler, Igor, about Herman, “He’s got no class.” The Count believed that his daughter should be with someone who is affluent as well.
A typical father, the Count wanted to do away with Herman, and was rooting for Orlock, whom Lily went on a date with before she met Herman. The Count described Orlock as “not only a swinger, but loaded to the fangs.”
But Lily, who did not seem to have any financial worries, was not attracted to Orlock. She rejected him shortly after their date as she sought romance, while he showed her photos of his rats.
Inflation in Translyvania
One of the brushed upon aspects of the film is the mention of inflation in Transylvania. As per the timeline, the events in Zombie’s films took place before 1865, which is when Lily and Herman got married.
When Lily invited Herman over for dinner, the latter decided to buy a bottle of O-ve blood and a bouquet of lillies for 3 Leus (currency in Transylvania, since it is a part of Romania). Herman had noted to the shopkeeper that prices were going up.
Financial worries creeped up later when the Munsters relocated to Los Angeles after being rendered homeless by Zoya Krupp. However, Zombie did not let these tensions thrive and seep into the storyline. They entered and exited as tokenistic dialogues.
Outdated monsters
The most hilarious part of The Munsters was when Floop and Herman were discussing the former’s prospects in the entertainment industry. Herman was wearing a robe with the words “Rock Star” stitched on the back.
He and his decayed skeleton friends were in what looked like Herman’s green room when Herman said that he should return to his vaudeville roots, since he thought that his material was too intellectual for his audience.
When the skeleton guys dressed up in a pair of jeans and jackets, agreed with Herman, Floop said,
“Don’t listen to them, they are relics.”
The Munsters is aspirational for non-human beings who have been reduced to objects of horror in pop culture and films.
Another good example could be the Count asking Igor to crack his bones after he got stiff from sitting. Dracula and his daughter did not come with fangs either.
So, when the Munster family arrived in Los Angeles on Halloween, the humans thought that they had their costumes on just like everybody else. The family did not portray any signs of quintessential monsters – an educated way to step away from their stereotypical representation.
A potential reason behind this could be Zombie's conscious choice to step away from films that he has made in the past, including Halloween and Halloween II.
The Munsters premiered on Netflix on Tuesday, September 27, 2022, and is currently streaming on the platform. The movie features actors Jeff Daniel Phillips as Frankenstein Herman Munster, Sheri Moon Zombie as Lily Munster, Daniel Roebuck as Vampire the Count, Richard Brake as Dr. Henry Augustus Wolfgang, and Sylvester McCoy as the Count’s butler Igor.
