The Queens of Halloween: Lily Munster

During the 60's there seemed to be a change when it came to the depiction of women in horror, and many Queens of Halloween were birthed into this black and white world of television to become iconic horror characters. Not as popular as Morticia Addams, and more adapted than the Bride of Frankenstein, the character of Lily Munster still reserves a place as a queen of horror.

Played by Yvonne De Carlo, Lily Munster is the matriarch of the titular named TV show The Munsters. The show came out in September 1964 and ran for 70 episodes, 6 more than The Addams Family did, which is often sparked as a more popular version. The Munsters have since found a large audience in syndication and in August 2017, Seth Meyers announced a development of a modern-day interpretation of the series. This has yet to seen the light of day.

Despite this, Lily Munster continues to be an iconic horror character today. As the voice of reason of the Munster family, Lily is a vampire with a fiery temper. She gets angry often with her husband Herman (who looks like Frankenstein's monster) for his foolish actions but is a supportive mother figure, especially to her teenage niece Marilyn.

The most notable difference to Lily Munster is her outfit. She has the overall suave of a vampire with her black and white striped Bride of Frankenstein hair, but while Morticia and Elvira have signature looks of slim fitting black dresses and long black hair, Lily usually dresses in an ankle-length pale pink gown with long, flowing bat-like sleeves. She also wears a bat-shaped medallion as a necklace, linking her past to the classic Dracula mythos of vampires turning into bats. Lily was also known to have pale or light green colouring of the skin, despite the black and white of the television in those days.

While Lily Munster is not seemingly as popular as Morticia or Elvira, she is often depicted with the ladies in symbolism of the Queens of Halloween, and she is an iconic look all of her own.