Eddie Munster is homesick for Transylvania. It seems Christmas just doesn’t feel very, well, Christmas-y when you’re a transplant to sunny Los Angeles. In fact, says the boy, “Christmas bites,” which is funny — well, in theory — because he can turn into a werewolf during full moons.
In order to make Eddie (Bug Hall, aka Alfalfa of 1994’s The Little Rascals) have a happy holiday, each of his four family members goes all-out. His father, Herman (Sam McMurray, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation), squeezes in side jobs to afford that Marquis de Sade dungeon action playset Eddie so badly wants, while his mom, Lily (Ann Magnuson, Making Mr. Right), helps him deck the exterior of their castle with such macabre decorations as a working snowman guillotine. His “ugly” cousin, Marilyn (Elaine Hendrix, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion), plans one monster party, and ol’ Grandpa (Sandy Baron, Leprechaun 2) uses his devil magick to teleport Santa Claus into the home and accidentally turns him into a giant fruitcake, complete with hat, belt and beard!
That Santa (Mark Mitchell, Inspector Gadget 2) nearly is eaten by a nosy neighbor (Silent Night, Bloody Night’s Mary Woronov, reprising her role from the previous year’s Here Come the Munsters) and then almost drowned in eggnog best signifies this made-for-TV movie’s slight streak of anarchy.
The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas could have been pedestrian claptrap that put forth no effort beyond riding on property recognition; instead, director Ian Emes, the man behind many a Pink Floyd music video, and his crew tried — really, really tried. Granted, while it runs a distant second to the brilliant subversion of Addams Family Values, viewers must admire that jokes about phone sex and a woman’s midget-bedding fantasy were able to survive through the final cut of a family-oriented movie — one celebrating the birth of the Christ child, no less!
Despite such early cringeworthy moments as Herman busting into James Brown dance moves for a group of carolers, performances are on-target — even the ones meant to be broad (barring Baron’s), perhaps to honor the sitcom spirit of TV’s original Munsters family. McMurray is the most vicarious, and he is funniest in a throwaway reaction as his Frankenstein’s-monster character passes a lit torch he doesn’t expect to see as he descends a basement stairwell. Hendrix is appropriately adorable as the oblivious Marilyn, per this bar exchange with Tom (Jeremy Callaghan, The Great Raid), part-time rocker and would-be suitor:
Tom: “What’s your poison?”
Marilyn: “Strychnine.”
Tom: “How about something nonlethal?”
Marilyn: “All right. A virgin Bloody Mary — light on the virgin’s blood, if you don’t mind.”
You really shouldn’t mind much, excepting a dated reference to SnackWell’s cookies and Emes denying us the pleasure of seeing Santa make good on his promise to deliver deer shit to Eddie’s bully. —Rod Lott
En route toward some much-needed R&R, the oil-and-vinegar brothers Josh (Wings Hauser, 
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