Don’t be scared, Rob Zombie’s Munsters movie won’t be “dirty, violent, and nasty”
The movie will be rated PG, meaning it might not even have any killer clowns
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If you work in Hollywood long enough making movies that are violent or serious or boring, you’ll eventually take on a project with more mass appeal and be forced to utter an old filmmaker cliché the first time someone asks you about it: “I wanted to make something my kids could watch.” That’s not the exact line that Rob Zombie has offered up in response to questions about the tone of his upcoming The Munsters movie, but it might as well be. (Though, as far as we know, Rob Zombie doesn’t actually have kids, so maybe that explains why he didn’t say that specific thing.)
What he did say is that his Munsters movie is shooting for a PG rating, explaining on Instagram (via Variety) that anyone assuming his movie will be “dirty, violent, and nasty” is wrong. “It’s all good down on Mockingbird Lane,” he added, referring to the address of the Munster’s house (where they park their DRAG-U-LA, if you will).
Assuming Rob Zombie isn’t yanking our chain on this (like a spooky rattling ghost chain), this will be the first feature he has written and directed that isn’t dirty, violent, or nasty, and it may also be the only film he’s ever made that doesn’t involve murderers dressed as clowns. Even a PG movie could probably have implied murderer clowns, right? It’s like asking Edgar Wright to not do those dramatic quick zoom-ins or Wes Anderson to abandon his twee little miniatures. There’s gotta be a clown with a knife somewhere in this movie!
Cast-wise, Zombie’s Munsters will star regular Zombie collaborators Jeff Daniel Phillips (as Herman Munster), Sheri Moon Zombie (as Lily Munster), and Daniel Roebuck (as Grandpa Munster). Soundtrack-wise… he’s gotta get “Dragula” in there somewhere, right? Even a Kidz Bop-style version that cuts out the burning through witches?
34 Comments
I don’t understand why you hire Rob Zombie to direct a PG movie, it’s just really weird to me.Give me a Noah Hawley or Alex Garland Munsters…or hell Baz Luhrmann now that would be a trip.
He got started working on the Pee Wee’s Playhouse set so it’s not too far-fetched. He’s just as interested in camp as he is in gore.
I think he’s producing it? I think Rob Zombie hired Rob Zombie
That makes sense.
Eli Roth just did The House with a Clock in Its Walls a few years ago to surprisingly decent results. It’s not a totally unprecedented move.
Really? The trailers made it look awful.
I’m not gonna praise it as a classic or anything, but I thought it was a solid family movie. Somewhere around the B-/C+ line. Which is far ahead of where I’d put most of Roth’s output ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cronenberg’s done a bunch of films that don’t involve hideously deformed bodies.
Let’s let Alex Garland keep making art-horror/sci-fi masterpieces. Zombie’s like 2 for 7 or something, and I’m sure he probably has a Munster tattoo somewhere unmentionable, so let the guy fulfill his childhood fantasy.
His good 2 are Devil’s Rejects and Lords of Salem, if anyone’s wondering. Scattered moments of 31 are also well done.
Or Bryan Fuller. I bet he’d do an awesome version.
People make fun of Zombie’s lyrics, but they’re meant to conjure a general atmosphere rather then be strictly coherent, kind of like The Streets. But instead of the working-class London rave scene or whatever, he conjures those posters with that guy with big eyeballs in a go-kart holding the shift knob
rat fink.
He’s way more boring and tryhard than Big Daddy Roth
Jesus fuck, I typed “rather then”
Nelson: Haw haw!
I first heard Rob Zombie while playing Need for Speed: Underground. “Two-Lane Blacktop” was part of the soundtrack. I loved it. His music works really well for that kind of gameplay.
Sid Haig pretty much owned the depraved murder clown thing.Anything else is probably gonna be disappointing.
He would have been the perfect Grandpa Munster.
That could get dirty, violent, and nasty fast, but I guess it wouldn’t have to.
Oh good, it’ll be PG so even young people will now get to see his wife not-act. Meeooowww! Saucer of milk for me, please.
she’s terrible
So, will we get some kind of speed metal cover of that surf-guitar theme music? That would be a thing.
Rob can’t sing that fast.
To be fair, it is an instrumental.
I swore I remember it hearing lyrics at one point and I was right!
Much prefer the surf guitar instrumental version that the series actually used, in that case.
Agreed, I love that version
And to be sure that his stage name doesn’t scare the kids away, he’ll be temporarily changing it to Reginald Zombie.
Perhaps Give Zombie?
This is a definite step down from 2012’s “Mockingbird Lane”.
I grew up on The Munsters and still love that show. They tried to reboot that property before and it never worked. If there had to be a Munsters reboot, I’d rather see someone like Brad Bird do it because he would at least get the characters. Casting is another problem because Fred Gwynne was Herman. I don’t know who you’d get to play Herman today, maybe Michael Shannon because he’s legit funny when people let him be funny?
Brad Garrett would seem to fit the bill at first blush too.I’m like a lot of others down here in the comments…love The Munsters and appreciate a seemingly earnest attempt to reboot it, but am wary of what Rob Zombie’s execution might end up looking like.
Yeah, you can’t be cynical with the Munsters. As weird and goofy as that show was, there was a lot of heart in that show.
Not sure why this is surprising — one of Rob’s first jobs in L.A. was famously as a production assistant on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, so he knows his way around child-friendly fare.