The Addams Family

Spooky scary family drama send shivers down your spine

Well, it's Halloween, no one can go outside still and I spent ages struggling to find a movie to review. Being locked inside one day and seeing Cinemas slowly die the next is not exactly conducive to the creative process so much as it is a recipe to slowly become an anxious wreck. I already did my favourite Halloween movie last year, and as much as I wish I could just review The Rocky Horror Picture Show again, I despise plagiarism. So it's time for another Halloween not-really-that-spooky Spooktacular with my OTHER favourite Halloween movie, Barry Sonnenfeld's The Addams Family.

Released in 1991 and based on the New Yorker cartoon series by Charles Addams, The Addams Family is probably one of the funniest and best cast movies ever put to celluloid. The Addams are essentially the Kennedys if they decided to lean into the whole “Kennedy Curse” thing and just roll with it. Gomez Addams is a wealthy lawyer/juggler/fencer/investor who has never won a single case (by choice at least) and enjoys challenging people to fencing duels. Morticia Addams is a stay-at-home wife who enjoys raising carnivorous and poisonous plants and mild witch craft. The two of them have two children, Pugsley and Wednesday, and live with Gomez's Brother Fester and their servant Lurch. And Thing, who is a hand.

There is a joke near enough every second and every single one lands every single time and every actor pulls their weight. Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Jimmy Workman and Christina Ricci manage to steal scenes from each other in an endless back and forth that has me in stitches every time. The story is wonderfully ridiculous, involving missing persons, embezzlement, evictions, but all wrapped around a family who find attempted murder and poisoning to be signs of endearment and think that living in a house that seems haunted is just a good investment. The actual Addams home sets can best be described as absurdist-gothic fun houses that makes the few jaunts out to the “normal” world seem beyond bland. But that's the point.

Now I know that everyone has already pointed this out, but the main comedic element of the Addams is that they are a mirror image of an American sitcom family. Gomez and Morticia never argue or have a falling out and are still as mad for each other as when they were newlyweds, Wednesday and Pugsley may misbehave, but they still love their family dearly and would do anything for them. Their good fortunes come at the expense of nobody and they seem unwilling to lash out at anyone unprovoked and that makes them so likeable. They are scary looking sure, but they are extremely pleasant and well mannered.

Whilst not exactly morbid or grotesque, The Addams Family may be the thing you need this Halloween. It's a dark comedy you can watch with children, and they will certainty be all the better for it. But if nothing else, it can get you into the Halloween spirit that we all so desperately need right now.