It’s Family First and Family Last?

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Addams family? A family that is creepy and kooky? Mysterious and spooky? All together ooky even? All of these elements are essential to who the Addams family are at their core. However, more important than the hijinks that come from the Addams family and their macabre ways interacting with “normal society,” are the values they have been upholding for decades. The Addams’ as characters, but also as a brand, are about the importance of loving and supporting your family unconditionally, about loving yourself for who you are, and about standing up against corrupt systems of oppression. It is these core Addams values that I used as the basis for my ranking system, and so it seems fitting that my favourite Addams family movie was easily Addams Family Values (1993).

Before I dive into my rankings proper, I should say that I only reviewed four of the five existing Addams family movies, because I wanted this article to partially serve as a review of whether The Addams Family 2 (2021) is even worth checking out. Also, I will be ranking these movies from best to worst, because you need to know the Addams’ at their best to really understand why their worst is their worst. So, let’s start with fan favourite, Addams Family Values (1993).

To be perfectly honest, I had never seen an Addams family movie in its entirety before writing this article. As someone who hates horror movies and all things scary, I never understood the appeal of watching a family whose whole thing is scary. But lo and behold, this movie made me get it. This movie is entertaining, it’s funny, it’s genuinely charming, and it has some incredible social commentary that has actually aged pretty well. Has it aged perfectly, definitely not, but given that this movie came out two years BEFORE Disney’s Pocahontas, it is amazing how brutally honest and poignant Wednesday’s “genocide is bad, white settlers are bad” speech is. The movie as a whole is far from perfect; the scenes with Fester and Debbie are hit or miss, the special effects hold up okay, and the pacing is pretty bad (but that’s a problem with all the live action Addams movies). The scenes with Wednesday and Pugsley at summer camp are the best parts of the movie by far however, and those scenes combined with the superb acting of the main cast more than make up for the movies flaws.

In second place, we have the first proper Addams family movie, The Addams Family (1991). This movie’s pacing was also really bad; it’s kind of all over the place when it comes to plot, and the ending is bizarrely abrupt. However, this movie introduces us to the best Addams family cast to date, and is overall a good introduction to the Addams world. Gomez and Morticia are truly the healthiest couple to ever be portrayed onscreen, and the family dynamic as a whole is genuinely amazing to watch. Watching Fester interact with Gomez and the kids is delightful, and the scene at Wednesday and Pugsley’s school is especially hilarious. These people care so deeply about each other not just because of familial obligation, but out of love, and it shows in every scene.

In third place, shockingly, is the direct to VHS Addams Family Reunion (1998). Overall, this movie is not good. It’s primary function was to serve as a pilot for the TV show The New Addams Family (1998 - 1999), which is ironic given that basically none of the actors from this movie returned for the show. Not that that is a great loss though, because aside from Tim Curry none of the other actors seem to care one bit about the movie they are in or the characters they are portraying. Also yes, you read that correctly, Tim Curry is in this movie as Gomez. How we went from having a Puerto Rican actor play Gomez in the 1991 and 1993 movies to having 80’s Hollywood’s favourite white boy Tim Curry play Gomez I couldn’t tell you. It is such disappointing casting too because Tim Curry is a phenomenal actor who brings fantastic energy to the role, and supplies the only semblance of emotion present in this movie, he just should not have been cast as Gomez. There is a lot that is bad about this movie; the CGI is absolute garbage, the acting is stale, a lot of the family values are lost in favour of cheap gags, the ending is terrible (in no small part because it is terribly offensive to neuro-divergent people) and despite the bar already being so low this movie’s pacing is somehow the worst of all. In spite of all this, Addams Family Reunion is still in third place.

Fourth place is reserved for a movie that takes basically everything the Addams family stands for, and throws it all out the window, The Addams Family animated movie (2019). I watched the Addams family movies in chronological order, and by the time I finished The Addams Family (2019) I could have written an entire article on why this movie is so distasteful on basically every level. This article is already way too long though, so I’m going to make this as short as possible. Arguably, this movie is the best made of any of the Addams family movies. From a purely technical standpoint, this movie has good animation, character designs that are faithful to the original 1938 comic strips, decently funny dialogue, some clever references to previous Addams family media for hardcore fans (or for someone who watched four Addams family movies in three days) and a plot with logical pacing. However, when it comes to tone and consistency, this movie sucks.

I could also write a whole other article on children’s media of the 2010’s, and how it often appeals to the widest demographic possible by diluting its story down so much that all the nuance and social commentary has been striped down to its most palatable form, but lets just say that that is this movies biggest issue and call it a day. The Addams family is at it’s best when they are standing up for marginalized communities against privileged, white, cis, straight normalcy/oppression. No matter how macabre they may be, the Addams’ have always had respect for other people, they just have no interest in leading the same lives as “normal” people. That being said, the Addams’ are always welcoming to “normal” people who want to join their family, such as Margaret (1991) and Debbie (1993), so long as those people are accepting of the Addams way of life.

To make The Addams Family (2019) all about how the “normal” people of Assimilation Town (yes that is the town’s real name) hate and fear the Addams just as much as the Addams hate and fear them, only to then pivot in the movie’s climax and have everyone in town suddenly get along perfectly because the one villain has been defeated, is a terrible message. This movie’s final scenes have the same energy as the First Nations people in Disney’s Pocahontas being just as angry and “ignorant” about the settlers as the settlers are of them, which to reiterate, is terribly offensive and inacurate! I cannot believe that I watched the Addams’ of all people confront their biases towards the poor, misunderstood oppressors, only for everyone to learn to love each other because Wednesday Addams made one friend in town.

None of these movies are high end cinema, but if you’re looking for a fun Halloween-y movie with some important social commentary peppered throughout, check out The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values for sure, and maybe even Addams Family Reunion if you can find it. I will probably check out The Addams Family 2 (2021) out of morbid curiosity (it’s what the Addams’ would want), but an Addams movie that is all macabre-ish jokes without any of the family values and social commentary so intrinsic to the Addams core, is semi amusing entertainment meant for children and children only.