A Vingança dos Monstros

Whoever wrote this odd and cluttered screenplay ruined a welcome and promising returning of the ours beloved old acquaintances friends of the classic series The Munsters, they brought back the nostalgic years having the iconic Herman (Fred Gwynne) persona and the priceless Grandpa Dracula (Al Lewis) also the gracious Lily Munster (Yvonne De Carlo) team up by the producers as just original remainder cast.

Our heroes are misidentified by some Munsters's robots lookalike of their own at Los Angeles Wax Museum on robberies, aftermaths the clumsy Herman & Grandpa are arrested by the police, due the Marilyn's unusual beauty draw attention and sudden love interest of the police officer Peter Fox a son of the Chief of Police Herb Voland, such love affair brings many troubles for the rookie detective due the duo-comics partners Herman-Grandpa are causing many endless hassles in the police department at the extent to Peter be thrown out of the force.

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First watch: 2025 / How many: 1 / Source: Youtube / Rating: 6.

Mixed up with some wax museum robots build for crime, the Munsters must both prove their innocence and expose the true thieves.

Director Don Weis offers a cheap, cheerful unintentionally creepy NBC TV movie, mainly due to the Phantom of the Opera (Bob Hastings) and blank the wax museum Munsters. The Addams Family composer Vic Mizzy offers a fitting throwback score. It's feels like a Munsters extended episode mixed with a hint of The West World TV pilot. While the series was disappointingly filmed in black and white, The Munsters (1964) pilot episode and Munster, Go Home! (1966) was filmed in colour. This thankfully was also filmed in standard colour in 1981.

Veteran Weis' staging is clunky at times, possibly due to budget restraints. The Munsters' Revenge writers Arthur Alsberg and Don Nelson's jokes, setups and gags are hit an miss, some are on the money and offer a few chuckles mainly from Lewis and Gwynne. It's fitting that they've included some additional classic horror characters including the likes of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Igor, The Phantom of the Opera, The Wolf Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Thanks to the original actors, namely the lovable Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster, Yvonne De Carlo (Lily Munster) and Al Lewis as Grandpa Dracula, it's a joy. Jo McDonnell is likeable enough as Marilyn Munster and K. C. Martel emulates Eddie Munster. American comic and actor Sid Caesar does his best with the script.

Despite The Munsters' Revenge short comings it's more enjoyable than the Munsters Today (1988) and heartwarming to see some of the cast reprise their roles.

The Munsters Revenge was a nice return for the original family. I'm not a big fan of TV reunion movies in general but The Munsters Revenge was great.

Herman and Grandpa were back accused of a crime they didn't commit. They had to prove their innocence and there were some nice scenes along the way particularly when Herman and Grandpa were in the police station.

Oh yes, and there's a few villains in the film as well which adds to the enjoyment. This film did have similarities to Carry On Screaming from 1966 and it was just as amusing.

Now when is someone going to release this onto DVD?

Following the success of the (awful) Gilligan's Island TV movie reruns, a number of TV movies were made in the 1980's reuniting casts from classic shows. Most of these movies completely missed the boat as far as recapturing the humor that made the shows so special. THE MUNSTERS REVENGE is among the most disappointing because it goes for a Laurel and Hardy-type comedy style that really wasn't in the original series. Yvonne De Carlo, a wonderful comedienne and essential to the series, is completely wasted - she has less time here in this 90 minute movie than she did in any single 30 minute episode. And since the roles of "Eddie" and "Marilyn" in this movie are nothing more than cameos, what was the point of making them younger and recasting them? With very little rewriting, they could have used Butch Patrick and Pat Priest. Although seeing some of the Munsters spooky relatives was a nice touch, I didn't enjoy Sid Caesar as the hammy mad scientist mainly because there's too much of him and not enough of the underused Munsters (ironically that very year, 1981, Caesar's old partner in comedy, Imogene Coca, was also inappropriately cast in a major part in a TV movie reunion RETURN OF THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES). Another strange inexplicable bit at the beginning of the film has the Munster family represented as wax figures at a local horror wax museum. Why would they be in there when they are supposed to be a "typical" (if strange) American family, not famous monsters? This was the last Munsters project featuring the original cast in their roles, there was an awful revival of the series in the late 1980's with a completely new cast and a 1990's TV movie which featured DeCarlo, Lewis, Priest, and Patrick in cameo roles as a family dining.

"The Munsters' Revenge" was a reunion movie for SOME of the original cast of the classic TV show. The three leads, Lily, Herman and Grandpa all reprise their roles...a major plus for the film. However, instead of having the original Eddie and one of the original Marilyns, the film kept the characters young and recast them.

The plot is fair. A local wax museum owner is evil. In reality, his wax dummies are robots and he uses them to commit various crimes. But some of them also look like the Munsters and soon Grandpa and Herman are arrested for the crimes committed by their robotic alter egos.

The biggest problem with this film is that it just wasn't written well. It lacks humor and heart and instead just feels as if the three originals are going through the motions. Not terrible...but also not good.