The Munsters' Revenge

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.

A sad, sad sight indeed is The Munster's Revenge. The Munsters are brought back one last time(Fred Gywnne received a huge paycheck to come back to the role of Herman Munster)in this made-for-TV movie about a pair of wax replicas of Grandpa and Herman that are robots "terrorizing" the city as preparation for a robbery of a mummy's stash at an exhibit. With the police on their heels, the two elderly television icons try to find out who is actually behind the crimes in order to clear their names. We get to see them dress in drag as waitresses(a minor highpoint in the film), grandpa turns into a bat with attached wire a couple times(one time even flying to Transylvania with Herman somehow invoking his frequent flyer miles I guess), and a most annoying relative "the Phantom" constantly sings and breaks glass ad nausium! What is most sad is hard to pinpoint: is it that Gywnne(especially) and Al Lewis look so haggard in every scene and so indifferent to the material. Is it the hokey costumes of the robots that have that school production values look about them. Maybe it is the ridiculous script. Sid Caesar's crazy, mostly unfunny antics. Or perhaps it is seeing something which brought me joy and fond memories as a child being treated to a super K-Mart fashion makeover. At any even, the result is decidedly disappointing and silly even for Munster standards. As for the rest of the cast, Yvonne De Carlo is adequate in a most vacuous role(though showing more cleavage than usual for a woman of her years and experience). K. C. Martell makes an ever-so-not affable Eddie Munster. Jo McDonell is an attractive Marilyn. Bob Hastings as the aforementioned Phantom looks and acts and speaks in the most absurd manner. The film has a real cheap feel about it even for a made-for-TV movie.

They've goofed it again. Even though Fred Gwynne detested what his old Herman Munster role did to the rest of his career, he agreed to reprise this wonderful character for an astronomical sum of money. Much to his surprise, the producers were willing to pay it - though as it turned out, Gwynne got the better half of the bargain. As a huge fan of the original MUNSTERS television show I can tell you this one hurts. That is, it's painfully unfunny to watch. I suppose it's better than no reunion at all, but what a shame it turned out so underwhelming.

For starters, the script is downright awful: A mad doctor (Sid Caesar - I'll deal with him later) has an army of monster robots, two of which resemble Herman and Grandpa (Al Lewis, also reprising his part). Sending these automatons out on random crime sprees, it isn't very long before they're mistaken for the real Herman and Grandpa Munster -- and our arrested heroes have to spend the rest of the movie convincing everyone that they're innocent, while trying to foil the doctor's plans.

Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis get the most screen time, which is a small solace, as their old jams together are the only thing worth staying tuned for. What very little satisfaction is squeezed from this revival is due to them. Just the same, they're visibly older and slower, and just don't seem to be as vital as they were on the show. This is certainly understandable, but what's not acceptable is that the jokes are terrible, and the glaring silence where a laugh track ought to be only alerts us to that fact. This brings me back to Sid Caesar, who is more annoying than funny, and adds absolutely nothing to the proceedings as "Dr. Diablo".

Yvonne De Carlo returns as Lily, but she's very under-used and that's probably all for the best. Since this was now the 1980's, the next mistake was in casting some new, "hip" modern-sounding actors to portray little Eddie and a new Marilyn. It would have been much more conceivable to cast the original Butch Patrick and Pat Priest as the now-older versions of their sixties characters. The modern music is also not very nostalgic for fans of the old show, and gets in the way. The feeling one gets from this lost opportunity is that those involved just missed the whole point of what made the original series so delightful to those of us who grew up loving it. Darn, Darn, Darn! ** out of ****

What this film needs is a laugh track, but even with that we've got a missed opportunity on our hands. Still in all, it's a treat to see the family reunited (especially considering how much Fred Gwynne despised his role). It's still nice to see Herman and grandpa getting into those same old jams, but what's with that Eddie? Should have had Butch Patrick return as the now-grown son.

As many others have said, this is a very lame movie with stale jokes, poor production values, a bad script, and almost no laugh track. It's a shame that Lily didn't have more screen time, and a shame that Butch Patrick, Pat Priest, and even Beverly Owen didn't at least have cameo appearances. It was a reunion movie, they should have been in it. Instead they focused on characters that had nothing to do with the original series. Sid Ceasar's performance was awful, actually offensive, and the Phantom of the Opera only made the movie worse. Still, it's the last time we get to see the original Munsters, Grandpa, Herman, and Lily, so as a true fan I'm glad they made this movie. I wish it could have been good, but it's better than nothing. I purchased seasons 1&2 as a set from Walmart for $19, which included this movie and "Munster Go Home". It's a great deal.