Starring: Jeff Daniel Philips, Sheri Moon Zombie

Directed by Rob Zombie

Netflix, out now

A prequel to The Munsters TV show, we go back in time to see how Herman and Lily Munster got together and bought their house on Mockingbird Lane.

Truly, I implore you, do not waste a second of your life watching Rob Zombie’s ridiculous, unfunny mess of a Munsters prequel. It’s rubbish, and for a filmmaker with so many duds on their CV, to hit a career low like this is quite outstanding.

Where to start? From the cheap sets, to the ridiculous plinky-plonk music, to the leaden delivery of the most awful puns, this overlong (nearly two hours!) nightmare of a movie fails on every level. It’s not even post-modern, and instead of poking fun at the elements from the 60s that are outdated to a modern audience, it just serves up dead-in-the-water jokes one after another. Crucially, they’re not funny – probably weren’t in 1964-1966. And believe me, Jeff Daniel Phillips is no Fred Gwynne and Sheri Moon Zombie is no Yvonne De Carlo.

I don’t have an issue with The Munsters being reinvented and certainly over the years there have been many attempts, from the animated The Mini-Munsters (1973) to The Munsters Today (1987-91) and Here Come the Munsters (1995). The problem is that the script feels more Scooby-Doo or Hotel Transylvania than The Munsters, with the lovable fish-out-of-water ghouls reduced to cyphers, rolling out awful jokes with heavily-telegraphed punchlines.

Verdict: Dreadful. Far worse than the embarrassing trailers suggested. Has ever a project been so lacking in artistic merit? Steer well clear. 1/10

Nick Joy