Tagline:
Weird is relative.

Wide Release Date:
November 22, 1991

Directed by:
Barry Sonnenfeld
Written by:
Caroline Thompson
Larry Wilson
Produced by:
Scott Rudin

Starring:
Anjelica Huston
Raul Julia
Christopher Lloyd
Christina Ricci
Jimmy Workman
Dan Hedaya
Elizabeth Wilson
Dana Ivey

PREGAME THOUGHTS

Astute reads of Tom Writes About Stuff may know that an 11-year-old Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams was my very first crush. She broke my three-year-old brain. It happens.

Speaking of breaking my three-year-old brain, I found The Addams Family morbidly fascinating at the time. I know it’s all silly and stupid, but as a kid it was like I was watching some horror show that I wasn’t supposed to be watching. I don’t think I ever had nightmares over it or anything, but it certainly was influential on my dark and unnatural tastes in everything, I suppose. Not that I was ever some goth kid who listened to the Birthday Massacre or Clan of Xymox in high school. I’m not an idiot.

So let me watch this as an adult. I wanted to get an Addams Family fix without seeing any of the insufferable ’60s sitcom.

THE 600(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

The Addams Family! Gomez (Raul Julia)! Morticia (Anjelica Huston)! Wednesday (Christina Ricci)! Pugsley (Jimmy Workman)! Uncle Fester has been missing for 25 years now after a falling out with his brother, and it makes everyone sad and I’m also crying. Gomez’s lawyer, Tully Alford (Dan Hedeya), owes a lot of money to loan shark Abigail Craven (Elizabeth Wilson). When Alford visits Craven with his tail between his legs, he meets her son Gordon (Christopher Lloyd) who looks exactly like Uncle Fester with a red wig. Floored by this revelation, Alford suggests to Abigail that Gordon poses as Uncle Fester in order to infiltrate the Addams household and find where they keep their fortune.

Tully Alford and his wife visit the house to perform a séance to contact Fester. Cue Gordon “Uncle Fester” Christopher Lloyd Craven, who arrives at the front door! Abigail Craven poses as a German psychiatrist named Dr. Greta Pinder-Schloss and tells the family that “Fester” was lost in the Bermuda Triangle for 25 years.

Let me teach you how to gut a fish with your teeth, kiddo.

Gomez is thrilled to have his brother back! They both engage in hijinks and cockamamies, with “Fester” pulling a fast one over Gomez because Gomez is really dumb. “Fester” is especially interested in finding that damn fortune, but Gomez gets him involved watching old home movies and participating in gallivanting as Gomez likes to do. After some time, when “Fester” can’t remember important and easy details about their past, Gomez starts to get very suspicious that he’s an imposter. Wednesday has been saying this all along. Morticia takes “Fester” to the back graveyard to stress the importance of family. “Dr. Greta Pinder-Schloss” convinces Gomez during a therapy session that “Fester” isn’t an imposter, Gomez is just experiencing displacement. This perks Gomez right back up again! Business as usual.

Meanwhile, “Fester” starts becoming attached to the family; especially Wednesday and Pugsley, whom “Fester” enjoys spending time with and teaching how to swordfight for their school play. “Fester” attends the play, against his mother’s wishes, and witnesses Wednesday and Pugsley’s swordfight complete with gallons of fake blood. Growing increasingly irked by her son’s inability to find the fortune, she declares as Pinder-Schloss that “Fester” will be leaving again soon. The Addams family throws a huge party with all their family and friends for “Fester”‘s farewell. Alford learns that Uncle Fester, being the older brother, technically owns the property. Using the Addams family’s curmudgeonly judge neighbor, a restraining order is put into place that bans the family from the estate. Gomez attempts to fight the order with no success.

Oh, Thing, you’re going to have to perform some of your famous handjobs to make us some money again!

The family moves into a motel and figures out ways to make money. Morticia becomes a morbid preschool teacher. Wednesday and Pugsley try to sell poisoned lemonade outside the motel. Thing becomes a courier. Gomez slouches. Alford, Abigail, and Gordon all attempt to break into the family vault, but they fail humorously. Eventually, Morticia returns to the house to talk to “Fester” and she is captured and tortured (which she gets off on) in order to get information out of her about the vault. Thing witnesses this and returns to Gomez to “tell” him. Gomez rushes to the house, where he is also threatened. “Fester” gets fed up and confronts his mother. A magic book is used to create a hurricane and blow Alford and Abigail out the window. It is assumed that they are buried alive by Wednesday and Pugsley! Those scamps!

Seven months later, “Fester” is a welcome member of the family (especially since a giant plot hole tells us that “Fester” was really Fester the whole time and he had amnesia or something, just roll with it). Morticia, now an expectant mother, knits baby clothes.

And Gomez goes back to his toy trains.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

This was better than I expected. I was giggling like an idiot throughout most of the movie, especially at Christopher Lloyd’s Uncle Fester performance. The faces that guy can make, man. There wasn’t one moment where he looked at all normal. I loved the idea that this woman’s adopted son looks exactly like Uncle Fester wearing a curly red wig, and that he was able to eventually “fit in” with this impossibly bizarre and off-putting family dynamic that the Addams find so comfortable and homey. Seeing him play with the kids with nothing but earnest enjoyment, to the ire of his mother, filled me with such unbridled glee. He almost forgets that his whole purpose is to find the Addams Family vault, of which he fails spectacularly, of course.

Fester: “Look, children! A new chapter!”
All: “Scaaaabs!”

It’s the book that keeps on giving!

Christopher Lloyd was the best, but the rest of the casting was impeccable. I won’t even get into Christina Ricci’s Wednesday again lest I creep everyone out, but for me these people are the definitive versions of these characters. Pudgy Jimmy Workman’s Pugsley, the angular and stoic Anjelica Huston’s Morticia, and the effervescent and flamboyant Raul Julia’s Gomez. Perfect choices all around.

My favorite aspect of the Addams family themselves is the lack of dysfunction. The group as a unit play off each other well, and there is never any fighting or yelling amongst themselves. Pugsley is happy to get tortured by her psychopathic sister playing “Is There a God?” while their mother looks fondly as if she misses her own youth. Gomez holds everything together as the enthusiastic patriarch. He and Morticia get inappropriately lovey-dovey in their own sickening way. They have the perfect marriage! It’s quite nice to see, in this day an age!

Also, there’s not enough electrocution happening as a nuclear family pastime anymore, I always say. How far we’ve fallen as a society.

TOPIC 2 — Anjelica Huston Was Disgruntled

Here’s a paraphrased excerpt from Huston’s 2014 memoir:

It was decided that the character of Morticia should have eyes which slanted upwards at the sides, an effect which was achieved by attaching an elastic strap to the back of Huston’s head via fabric tabs glued at her temples, which pulled the corners of her eyes upwards A second strap was added to balance the appearance of the lower part of her face with the upper. The bands caused extended discomfort to Huston, and, unless she removed them at lunchtime, she would suffer severe headaches and rashes later in the day. Removing the bands for a break entailed hours of extra work in both removing and then re-applying her makeup and wig. On top of this, the bands would snap at the slightest turn of Huston’s head, causing yet more grueling repair time. Eventually, she learned to pivot and turn on her feet without moving her upper body or head.

Not pictured: the retinal detachment Huston suffered just by glancing at this wall.

Also according to Huston, Judith Malina’s way of dealing with being embedded in latex for over twelve hours a day was to “smoke an endless series of joints in her trailer throughout filming”. That sounds like some badass shit to me. Embed me in latex all day too and pop some earbuds into my ears. Crank Akercocke up to eleven, son.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

In order to gain Morticia’s figure Anjelica Huston wore a metal corset. She also had to get gauze eye lifts, neck tucks, and fake nails daily
She also needed $700,000 of plastic surgery and bone marrow transplants. The role of Morticia was supposed to reprised by Carolyn Jones, but the original actress declined on account of being dead for the previous eight years.

To make Anjelica Huston’s eyes look slanted like the original Morticia, the make-up artists had to attach strings with spirit gum to the outside corners of her eyes and anchor the strings on her head.
They also had to modulate her voice by packing her throat with fifteen pounds of “stage putty” (plastic explosive with some food dye).

Wednesday Addams is one of Christina Ricci’s favorite roles.
Yeah, no shit. Has Ricci done anything even remotely as memorable? Charlize Theron’s easily manipulated fuck buddy, maybe.

Bruno Kirby offered his fat suit from “The Godfather Part II (1974)” to Christopher Lloyd, in order to play Uncle Fester.
Gross! Who knows what kind of lingering venereal diseases were adhered to the rubber! I only kid. The only disease Bruno Kirby had was cancer!

Cher wanted to play the role of Morticia.
I can’t dunk on this trivia too hard. Cher would have been a good casting decision.

The main theme written and performed by M.C. Hammer won a Razzie Award in the category of Worst Original Song.
l-o-fucking-l, man. It was one failure after another with that guy.

All right! Great movie everyone! Bravo!

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Yes. I didn’t actually remember any of this movie going in, and I’m glad I watched it. One-liners aplenty, good jokes, fantastic casting. Story’s a little meh, but who cares about the story when you’ve got Raul Julia frantically playing with toy trains?