Addams Family Values
1993 · Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
Original language: English
- comedy
- family
- fantasy
The story
Siblings Wednesday and Pugsley Addams will stop at nothing to get rid of Pubert, the new baby boy adored by parents Gomez and Morticia. Things go from bad to worse when the new "black widow" nanny, Debbie Jellinsky, launches her plan to add Fester to her collection of dead husbands.
What it’s like
Dark, saturated sets in deep purples, blood reds and bone whites, lit with candle-glow and flat gothic shadows, with symmetrical compositions that hold the Addams mansion and its ghoulish rooms like stage tableaux. The camera stays mostly still and frontal, letting the performers' deadpan timing land, and the score swells with brassy, mock-romantic flourishes for dance numbers and tango sequences. Autumn is the season that lives in it: Halloween and Thanksgiving pageantry, a suburban summer camp that looks like a sunlit postcard set against the Addams gloom. The vibe is macabre and cheerfully wicked, with a warm, sly undercurrent of affection beneath the sniping. Pacing is brisk and episodic, built around sight gags and sharp one-liners rather than suspense. Violence is cartoonish and frequent: scheming, traps and mock-murders played for laughs, with no real gore and no lasting harm. It suits a comfort rewatch on a cold evening, a playful family night, or anyone who loves gothic camp. The sibling rivalry and the parents' unshakable devotion give it a surprisingly tender core.
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