The Munsters Actor Doesn't Understand Complaints About The Rob Zombie Movie Looking Cheap [Exclusive]
Daniel Roebuck has come a long way from his days playing a private investigator on "Matlock," where he acted opposite '60s sitcom legend Andy Griffith. In Rob Zombie's "The Munsters," Roebuck has donned vampire makeup to play another character from a '60s sitcom: namely, The Count, also known within the franchise as Count Sam Dracula or just "Grandpa." It's a role Roebuck inherited from Al Lewis and it's one that sees him promoting a movie that was already drawing mixed reviews even before its release, based on the lighting and editing of its trailers.
In a forthcoming interview with /Film's Jeff Ewing, Roebuck reveals that he has been reading the newspaper at the breakfast table like Grandpa, or perhaps just hearing some impertinent online anti-Munsters chatter. Roebuck defends "The Munsters" against the Rob Zombie "haters," saying:
"The elephant in the room is there's a lot of haters out there. [...] For whatever reason, they don't like that [Rob Zombie] is successful, that he's married to a beautiful woman, that she's beautiful, that she's an actress, she can be in the movie. There's so much that they complained about when they were going after how this film looked cheap. I thought, 'Are they crazy?' Like, this film is gorgeous. Gorgeous depth, the depth of the sets. It was a joy. You'd go to the set and it went on and on and on and on and on and on. We're in a medieval castle! We're in a building that was built 350 years ago, shooting these scenes — that's why the design is great and perfect."
Your Munsters may vary
As a movie director, Rob Zombie has never been a critical darling, with his highest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes (for lack of a better quality metric) being "3 From Hell," which currently stands at 58% on the Tomatometer. That's not the movie that topped /Film's own ranking of every Rob Zombie film, but it is the one that a certain contingent of critics found least objectionable.
Earlier this year, Zombie gave fans a vicarious tour of the "Munsters" set with some Instagram photos he posted. In his comments, Roebuck is obviously speaking from the perspective of an actor who has walked that set and experienced the depth of it in person. The issue some people seem to have with "The Munsters" is that it looks garish and unfunny. For all we know, this could be intentional; Zombie has never been known for comedy, and the movie's overall aesthetic may just be reflective of his own kitschy sense of humor.
Early black-and-white photos of the 1313 Mockingbird Lane house, where the Munsters live, looked gorgeous, but when the first teaser trailer for "The Munsters" transitioned into "living color," it was less well-received. All I can say is, just this week, I rewatched Zombie's music video for "Living Dead Girl," which also stars Sheri Moon Zombie in a riff on the classic silent horror film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." And I enjoyed it, but it only took up three minutes of my life.
As they say in acronym world: YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) on the feature-length appeal or lack thereof of Rob Zombie's "The Munsters," which is now streaming on Netflix.