aesgaard41 Review of The Munsters' Revenge

The Munsters' Revenge (1981 TV Movie)

The Munster's Return But Forget To Be Funny

[5/10 · 11 September 2013]

I'm a big fan of Classic TV. The majority of modern television shows is nothing compared to the timeless quality of Classic Television like "Bewitched," "Gilligan's Island," "Hogan's Heroes" or "The Munsters," so when I was a kid and first watched "The Munster's Revenge," one of the first of several television reunion movies from the Eighties, I was more than overjoyed and exceptionally impressed, but just a bit upset that neither Butch Patrick or Pat Priest (or even Beverly Owen – the original hotter more exemplary Marilyn) would be allowed to return. Childhood tends to mask quite a bit, and with adulthood, I can see the stuff my teenage past self failed to recognize. For one, the plot is horrible. The writers obviously have never seen the series. What made "The Munsters" so remarkable wasn't that it was a family of monsters; it was the fact that it was a family of monsters living like a regular family and dealing with ordinary problems like paying the bills, problems in school and the local crime rate. What affected the Munsters in their later movies was that they started having strange and bizarre adventures, and that's just what the movie suffers from. The plot about robotic wax figures terrorizing town is a very weak concept, and what makes it that much more weak is that the characters are weak shadows of themselves. Fred Gwynne, Al Lewis and Yvonne DeCarlo can wear the costumes again, but the spirit is gone. They just don't have the energy they used to in the original series plus their characters are a bit askew. Since when did Grandpa yodel to turn into a bat, and since when did the police much less the public accept the Munsters existence? One of the biggest recurring gags in the series was that everyone, police and gangster alike, winced or freaked out at the sight of Herman, but here, not so much. Even more odd, Eddie has aged a few years and looks nothing like he once did, and the actress playing Marilyn, as attractive as she is, looks as if she has gotten younger! Even worse, "Uncle Phantom Of The Opera" (played by Bob Hastings – the same actor who joined Mel Blanc in voicing the Raven) definitely belongs in the category of the Lazy Hollywood Writers Category; even the Wolfman and the Creature from the Black Lagoon were named Cousin Lester and Uncle Gilbert in the series! Over all, the movie is a nice look back, but the movie has too few laughs, and the best scenes (Howard Morris AKA Ernest T. Bass as Igor back in Transylvania is a cast coup!) are too few and far apart. The movie really drags on the scenes involving the police and Sid Caesar's criminal plot away from the house. The best thing that should have been done would have been taking several of the original scripts and putting them together as a movie. Simply put, "The Munster's Revenge" is proof you can't go home again.