Hello friends, how does another Month of Spooks piece sound to you? Bad? Awesome, let’s go!
They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky, they’re altogether ooky… “The Addams Family”!
Gomez (Raúl Juliá) and the rest of the Addams family are in for a shock when their long thought dead relative Fester (Christopher Lloyd) shows up on their door step. What they don’t know however is that it’s not actually Fester, but a con man with his sights set to scam the family of all they have. Half heist movie, half Addams antics… and it’s a fun mix. I would’ve been perfectly fine with good ol’ Fester just being good ol’ Fester throughout, but I really enjoyed this spin on the classic characters. It makes for a fun story that contains a surprising amount of good character moments throughout. There’s also a lot of funny stuff throughout, with jokes ranging from very goofy to quite macabre. Now, not all jokes land, there were a handful that didn’t really elicit any reaction at all if I’m gonna be honest. The good jokes still outweigh the meh by quite a bit, but those that didn’t make me laugh still definitely stick out. But overall, I had fun with the story here.
The characters here are creepy and kooky, mysterious and spoo- god damn it, sorry. But I don’t know how else to describe them. They’re all wacky and weird and wonderful, and I love them all. They’re well written and all feel like wonderfully updated interpretation of the classic characters. I also think the cast helps in this department. Raúl Juliá is an amazing Gomez, Anjelica Huston is perfect as Morticia, Christopher Lloyd is terrific as Fester-not-Fester, Christina Ricci and Jimmy Workman are adorable and hilarious as Wednesday and Pugsley, Carel Struycken kills it as Lurch, Judith Malina is great as Granny. And the supporting cast of Dan Hedaya, Elizabeth Wilson, Christopher Hart, Dana Ivey, and more are all great too. It’s just a wonderful cast.
The score for the movie was composed by Marc Shaiman, and it was really good. Energetic, bouncy, a little spooky, it’s got everything you could really ask for when it comes to music in a mildly horror-adjacent family fil- Wait, this is PG-13? Oh shit, I guess I can’t call it a family film then… or can I? Anyhow, Shaiman’s score is good.
Based on the comic strips by Charles Addams, “The Addams Family” was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and he did a really solid job. His direction here has this snappy energy that really fits the story and characters and keeps any scene from getting dull. Even when something happens that didn’t cause laughter (despite the clear intentions of the crew), Sonnenfeld’s direction at lest kept me watching. I can also say that I really liked the effects in this. Some great hair and makeup effects are featured throughout, a few fun and unexpected things I don’t wanna spoil, and of course Thing. Some of the compositing in a few moments can look slightly jank, but I think it kind of adds to the charm of it. I just like the way this film’s made.
This movie has been decently well received. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 65% positive rating. On Metacritic it has a score of 57/100. And on imdb.com it has a score of 6.9/10.
“The Addams Family” is a charming and quite funny little caper adventure. It has a good plot, great characters, great performances, really good music, really good direction, and funny comedy. Time for my final score. *Ahem*. My final score for “The Addams Family” is an 8.65/10. So it’s definitely worth buying.
My review of “The Addams Family” is now completed.
*Snap* *Snap*
TheMarckoguy 
I was a huge fan of the US TV series starring John Astin and Carolyn Jones, in the 1960s. When they made this film, I was worried that they would spoil everything. But they didn’t! It was really in the spirit of the TV show, and perfectly cast too.
Best wishes, Pete.