As one of the most opinion-splitting filmmakers in the business – sort of like a gore-soaked Zack Snyder based entirely on how much his filmography is loved and hated in equal measure – the prospect of Rob Zombie abandoning his R-rated image to reboot The Munsters as a family-friendly horror comedy was nothing if not curious.
Of course, it shouldn’t have been all that much of a shock when the musician and director has harbored dreams of bringing the classic TV series back to the forefront of popular culture since well before he made his feature-length debut behind the camera on House of 1000 Corpses, but the mileage varies as to whether or not The Munsters was genuinely worth the two decades he’d spent trying to get it off the ground.
Savaged in certain quarters as an abomination against cinema that easily ranked as one of the worst films to release last year – and saved itself the ignominy of cratering at the box office by skipping theaters – there are also plenty of staunch defenders out there who endorsed and embraced The Munsters for its loving approach to the subject matter and offbeat irreverence that gave it a distinctly old school feel.
Regardless of what side of the fence Netflix subscribers fall on, the evidence is there that they’re watching the polarizing picture in their numbers, after FlixPatrol outed The Munsters as one of the streaming service’s most-watched titles on a global level. One person’s trash is often another’s treasure, and it seems as though Zombie has managed to deliver the best of both worlds in one fell swoop.