As but a small child, i was very into the whole 'Universal Monsters' thing. Boris Karloff as the eternal Monster from James Whale's classic 1931 Frankenstein, Bela Lugosi as the titular Count from Tod Browning's Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr.'s tragic lycanthrope Lawrence Talbot aka The Wolf Man (George Waggner, 1941) stalked the mist-drenched forests of my dreams and i knew that the night was not what it might seem. These gruesome spectres of the macabre always had a touch of humour about them to me, however - possibly due to the influence of having seen both Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein (Charles T. Barton, 1948) and The Monster Squad (Fred Dekker, 1987) before the age of eight or so, long before seeing the characters in their original classic cinematic context.
It is for this reason, perhaps, that i always loved both The Addams Family (1964-1966) and The Munsters (also 1964-1966) when they would be rerun on Channel 4 during my misspent, maladroit and maladjusted youth: but especially the latter. I enjoyed the fact that, being made by Universal television, the show was able to utilise the classic Jack Pierce created looks for the creatures comprising the cast - such as the Karloffian Frankenstein stylings (replete with flat-topped head, anode and cathode duly bolted onto both sides of the neck, and costume of asphalt-spreaders boots and black serge suit) sported by Fred Gwynne as Herman, and Al Lewis' bemedallioned Lugosi-inspired penguin suited Dracula outfit as Grandpa. They seemed tangible echoes of the real Famous Monsters of Filmland to me, whereas, funny though the show was, i always asked myself who or what the Addamses were supposed to be?
I even enjoyed - somehow - the late '80s to early '90s revival series The Munsters Today ("We went to sleep twenty years ago / And woke up with a brand new show!"), now in glaucoma-inducing colour NTSC videotape, and starring Catwoman (Lee Meriwether, replacing Yvonne De Carlo as Lily). One would have thought, therefore, that i would have eagerly looked forward to a 21st century 're-imagining' of The Munsters, especially given a pedigree of being directed by Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects [1995], Apt Pupil [1998], X-Men [2000] and many of its sequels/prequels, and Superman Returns [2006]) and produced and co-showrun by Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies [2007-2009], Hannibal [2013-2015], American Gods [2017-?]), and yet... It wasn't only the dreaded spectre of the 'pilot not picked up to go to series' taint that cast a pall over the project by the time i became aware of its existence: i genuinely didn't want to watch it for the longest time as i didn't want my happy childhood memories of these characters to be tainted with a bad interpretation (i mean, sure, you'd think that John Schuck and company would have done that in the early '90s, but at least that ran for a couple of seasons so someone besides me was watching it). But the time finally came to bite the (silver) bullet and give this thing a whirl.
Eschewing the original's creaky monochrome Universal horror approach, the Mockingbird Lane pilot opens with a campfire scene more indebted to the early '80s slasher horror genre of The Burning (Tony Maylam, 1981) or the Camp Crystal Lake of Sean S. Cunningham's 1980 Friday the 13th, during which Eddie Munster's werewolf transformation is treated with a seriousness far beyond anything that the Henry Hull-inspired widow's peak of Butch Patrick may have ever called for - young Eddie's (Mason Cook) carnivorous lunar activities at scout camp being covered up as the activities of a "baby bear". Charity Wakefield (Lois Lane-a-like Lucy in 2016 Doctor Who Christmas special The Return of Dr Mysterio, as well as Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility [John Alexander, 2008] and Mary Boleyn in Wolf Hall [Peter Kosminsky, 2015]) takes on the role of "normal" Munster relative Marilyn, adding a kooky and skew-whiff sense of offbeat menace to the role previously essayed by Beverley Owen, Pat Priest and Hilary Van Dyke. Unlike those previous 'cute' Marilyns, however, there is the underlying feeling of unease that this one isn't the normal one - she could quite easily go for your throat.
Stepping into the Frankenstein lifts of Herman we have nobody's favourite cast member of Stand By Me (Rob Reiner, 1986), Jerry O' Connell - also of Sliders and Kangaroo Jack and possibly other stuff - playing Herman not as a literal reincarnation of the Karloffian Monster, but as a m,an literally held together by the nuts and bolts and sutures of surgery: stitched and braced together and with a heart on a timer that needs replacing (cue requisite sub-Grinch maudlin US TV sentiment). Grandpa has Eddie Izzard assuming Al Lewis' role, arriving Salem's Lot-style, his coffin delivered by scared moving men in a van, with rats spilling from his coffin a la Gary Oldman's crepuscular Count in Francis Ford Coppola's cinematic and overwrought 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula (with a crimson cloak / dressing gown echoing Eiko Ishioka's ruby robe). Completing the clan is Portia de Rossi (of the sublime Arrested Development 2003-2013) as Lily, who has a glorious entrance (pardon me) as spiders spin her a gossamer cobweb gown over her ethereal form.
The bulk of the pilot's plot consists of the usual 'fish out of water' sitcom tropes, enlivened by Izzard's louche delivery (recoiling from a proffered handshake with "I have a disease") and insistence on his monstrous heritage ("I intend to start drinking again"), and the amusement of the family dinner wherein scout leader Steve has been lured with the intent that Grandpa will drink his blood and Herman will receive his heart but is under the comic misapprehension that he is there to take over Herman's marital duties towards Lily.
An amusing enough update of a fondly recalled classic, but it's no real surprise that it didn't make the cut, as 'twere, in the very cut-throat world of modern television pilots. Perhaps some things shouldn't be resurrected.
Some things belong dead.
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