The Addams Family has been released on Netflix in the US today, Wednesday, 9 April – and this 1991 classic is a must-see for all fans.
They were the original ghoulish family who lived in the sinister house around the corner, but it took The Addams Family some time to make the move from the pages of the New Yorker magazine to television and, ultimately, the cinema.
They first appeared in the late 30s in a series of single drawings by American cartoonist Charles Addams which ran until their creator’s death in 1988. By that time they’d found their way onto TV, firstly as a live action series in the sixties and then around ten years later as an animation.
The first TV show premiered in 1964, running for two seasons and also giving birth to that piece of music that everybody associates with Gomez, Morticia and their clan.
That rhythmic finger-snapping theme tune was the work of Hollywood composer Vic Mizzy and captured the family’s inimitable combination of laughter and spookiness so perfectly that it’s now a timeless classic.
The animated series followed in the 70s, but only lasted for one season after which everybody’s favourite eccentric ghouls retreated from the spotlight. Both versions kept close to the visual appeal of those original black and white cartoons and the family’s detached, if not aloof, attitude to the outside world. As a wealthy, long-established family with a taste for the macabre, they were unconcerned that other people found them strange or just downright scary.
But they were back with a bang in 1991, when director Barry Sonnenfeld revived the franchise for cinemas and the first Addams Family movie arrived on the big screen. Darker in tone than the TV series, it very nearly ditched the all-essential theme tune in favour of something to go with that change, but an audience test screening which made use of the music was a huge hit, and the theme was there to stay. M C Hammer was also brought in to update the score for the 90s, so that the film would attract lovers of the TV show and bring in new fans.
The Addams Family could be seen as something of an origins story for Netflix’s much-loved Wednesday, which is set to make a welcome return this year, complete with Jenna Ortega in the starring role. The film’s story returns to the wealth they enjoyed in the original cartoons, with a con-artist setting out to rob them of their money. Head of the family, Gomez, is lamenting the absence of his Uncle Fester 25 years after his disappearance when, out of the blue, he turns up on the family’s cobweb-strewn doorstep. But is it really him? Or is he an imposter, sent to relieve them of all that money?
The key to the film’s success – against a budget of $30 million, it grossed $191.5 million at the worldwide box office – was some inspired casting. With her ghost-white face and jet black hair, Anjelica Huston was born to play the vampish Morticia and, as the doting Gomez, Raul Julia introduced just the right note of hamminess to what was essentially a dark, comedic love letter to weird outsiders. The star turn, though, came from the actor already known as the spaced-out Reverend Jim in TV’s Taxi and Doc from Back To The Future. Christopher Lloyd was hilarious at the psychopathic Fester. An 11-year old Christina Ricci was the film’s Wednesday, who rejoiced in her own comic moments, especially when it came to tormenting her hideous little brother, Pugsley.
While the storyline wasn’t exactly its strong point, it didn’t matter, because the film was all about dark fun: the knock-out one-liners, creepy quips and ghoulish gags were all bang on target against the background of the deliciously off-kilter mansion. It spawned a sequel just two years later, with Sonnenfeld and his cast returning for Addams Family Values to face the machinations of a murderous nanny Debbie (Joan Cusack), employed to look after Gomez and Morticia’s new baby.
Two animated movies, with the voices of Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron and Nick Kroll arrived in cinemas in 2019 and 2021 but, since then, most of family have gone quiet. Not so Wednesday, of course, and the combination of her second series and The Addams Family arriving on Netflix today, means their many fans have plenty to keep them going until Gomez, Morticia and Fester have another resurrection. It can only be a matter of time
The Addams Family is released on Netflix in the US on 9 April and is on Prime Video in the UK. Addams Family Values is on Prime Video in the US and the UK.
Wednesday is on Netflix in the US and UK.