Serious revival, authentic, but completely unnecessary

Throughout his career as a musician and filmmaker, Rob Zombie has shown his love for all corners of horror history. More specifically, one of his biggest hits is “Dragula,” named after a hot rod built by Grandpa Monster in the 1965 episode of monsters. His latest project, Revival monsters, marked a new territory for the director, as it embraces the comedic and comedic tone of the sitcom, as opposed to the more gruesome and gruesome adventures he set out to portray. What is this monsters It proves that Zombie, along with the film crew, were fully committed to honoring the source material, but even with this movie coming from a likable place, it’s not an adventure worth getting the feature film treatment.

Served as an origin story for the original comic series, monsters He sees Herman (Jeff Daniel Phillips) being resurrected in a bizarre science experiment in Transylvania, while Lily (Sherry Moon Zombie) searches for romance. Her father “The Count” (Daniel Roebuck) wants nothing but the best for his daughter, and despite a chance encounter that leads to Lily’s infatuation with Hermann, it’s not a relationship he supports, and knows how much she can do better and tests everyone’s patience in tackling.

The thing that still feels shocking to think about is how both sitcoms are Addams family And the monsters It premiered a week later in 1964 and both ran for two seasons, leaving incredibly similar footprints on pop culture. They both featured a mixture of cute, family-friendly humor with horrific monsters, while both of them also struggled to revive for decades after running the initial sitcom in any substantive way, despite having had several made-for-TV movies. Last attempt at resuscitation monsters Came with reimagining Mockingbird Lin Back in 2012, even with HannibalBrian Fuller leads the project, only the pilot episode ever aired.

The only difference between the two is that Addams family He got a feature film in 1991, which saw the terrifying family side by side with the real world. This movie was a huge success, leading to the cultural revival of the franchise, the importance of which caused a major challenge to this film. monsters: Had the story similarly explored the contrast between the characters and the real world, it could have been denounced as a derivative. By going completely in the opposite direction, this takes away monsters The trio sees almost entirely in Transylvania along with every other kind of monster, so while it’s certainly not derivative, it also strips the experience of any real stakes, tension, or narrative momentum.

Instead of feeling like a real movie, it’s time to run monsters It looks like a bunch of scenes. There are a number of compelling elements about the origin monsters, with the main draw being the whole family dynamic. This dynamism is absent in the film by Eddie Munster and Marilyn Munster, which can be seen as a narrative decision to tell Hermann and Lily’s love story, but their absence is frequently missed and feels like a budget constraint. Not being able to see the whole family together just creates the feeling that this is just an off-brand version of the source material, despite its many references to classic monsters in monsters knowledge.

The lack of any real narrative momentum creates an unexpectedly bizarre and instructive experience, as the film itself almost offers its own sequential storyline. Instead of a comprehensive and engaging storytelling, it’s as if we’ve been given an episodic anthology. It even makes us wish that instead of it being a feature film, we could have had a limited four-episode revival series so we could change our expectations. Other TV series have been able to transition to the big screen in more effective ways, as this narrative completely misses the structural mark of a long-form adventure for the characters. It’s annoying early in the movie, for example, that The Count’s cousin hatches a scheme to sell their castle, even though these items take an hour to explore or have any significant impact on the actual movie. When those elements come back, it feels like a whole new movie is starting.

While omitting Eddie and Marilyn’s sense of being a budget issue, this lo-fi production sense actually works in favor of the film’s aesthetic. The production layout looks like sets compared to the actual locations, and while this may seem like a flaw in other mods, it works in favor of this revival, as it mirrors the tone of the original series. However, the film’s vibrant color palette feels a bit odd, especially with Hermann’s bright green skin and how well the film’s short black and white sequences look by comparison.

Regardless of the conceptual and storytelling challenges, the look, feel and performance work together surprisingly in a real way. Roebuck’s The Count looks and feels just like the original version of the character, and it feels eerily like it came straight off a TV screen in the 1960s. One benefit of setting up the story before the original TV series is that Phillips and Moon offer slightly different scenes to their characters than previously created, which also means we don’t keep them in specific archetypes.

The film undoubtedly comes from creators who have a great passion for the source material, but that passion can only take us so far. We can’t help but wonder who this movie is about, as it’s possible that the various updates and changes from the source material won’t sit well with fans of the original series, while there isn’t much that looks like it’s trying to pull more towards younger audiences. Although Zombie has a history of providing muddled stories, it fully embraces the family-friendly tone of the franchise, without any winks or hints that the project wanted to create non-colored jokes but wasn’t allowed to.

monsters She’s off when it comes to expectations, and we doubt she’ll win any naysayers. The movie certainly has its heart in the right place, so we hope the project finds its audience and helps introduce younger viewers to the lovable characters, but we remember Jurassic ParkWhen Ian Malcolm asked if the cast and crew of this movie were too preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should. Sadly, this is just another reminder why we haven’t had a successful revival of the concept, although we’re still relieved that those classic episodes aren’t going away any time soon.

Rating: 2 out of 5

monsters Now available on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD.

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