Film

Addams Family Values

Name: Addams Family Values
Genre: Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Released: 1993
Cast: Anjelica Huston, Raúl Juliá, Christopher Lloyd, Joan Cusack, Christina Ricci

The sequel that somehow tops the original — meaner, funnier, and structurally gorgeous. Wednesday gets shipped to a nightmare summer camp while Joan Cusack's black-widow nanny sets her sights on Fester back home. It's deadpan gothic comedy at its most confident: gorgeous production design, a genuinely killer script, and Christina Ricci delivering one of the great deadpan performances in American comedy.

TMDb rating

7.0

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The Addams Family1991

The original, and the film that establishes everyone you love here — Gomez and Morticia's marriage is still the most romantic thing in either movie, and the gags land just as hard.

But Structurally looser than the sequel, with a plot (inheritance, a fake Fester) that's more machinery than joke.

Beetlejuice1988

Tim Burton's gleeful afterlife farce shares the same DNA — macabre production design, gallows humour, a family unbothered by the ghoulish. Michael Keaton is unhinged in the best way.

But Rougher and stranger than Addams Family Values, with a plot that wanders and an ending that arrives abruptly.

Hocus Pocus1993

Same year, same Halloween-comedy energy, and Bette Midler chewing scenery as a resurrected witch. Broader and sillier, but it shares that love of theatrical camp villainy.

But Aimed younger and less sharply written — the jokes are for kids first, adults second.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Arsenic and Old Lace1944

This is where the joke started: ordinary-seeming family members treating homicide as a matter of hospitality, played entirely straight.

Cary Grant discovers his sweet, doddering aunts have been poisoning lonely old men and burying them in the cellar — cheerfully, as a kindness. Black comedy about murderous domesticity, decades before the Addamses made it fashionable.

But Stagey and theatrical by design — it's adapted from a play and never pretends otherwise, with a lot of talk and door-slamming.

Death Becomes Her1992

Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn locked in vain, murderous rivalry, played with the same gleeful, cartoonish nastiness the Addamses bring to family life. Genuinely gruesome in a way studio comedies rarely risk now.

But The visual effects have aged into camp themselves, which some viewers find distracting rather than charming.

Matilda1996

Roald Dahl's dark comic sensibility filtered through a child's eye — cruel adults, a gifted kid quietly plotting revenge, and a similar delight in punishing awful grown-ups.

But Warmer and more sentimental underneath the darkness — it wants you to feel good, which the Addamses never do.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events2004no page yet

Jim Carrey's gothic villain and a family of ingenious, doom-laden children make a decent cousin to Wednesday's world — arch, mannered, unafraid of misery played for laughs.

But Tonally more melancholy than funny in stretches; it never fully commits to comedy or dread.

Clue1985

An ensemble murder-mystery farce with the same rapid-fire, theatrical deadpan delivery — everyone's in on the joke and playing it dead straight.

But A different flavour of comedy entirely — no gothic family, just a houseful of suspects and three alternate endings.

Wednesday2022

Jenna Ortega picks up Ricci's torch and runs — same deadpan glare, now solving murders at boarding school. If you wanted more Wednesday specifically, this is built for you.

But A teen mystery series first and an Addams story second — Gomez and Morticia barely feature.

Corpse Bride2005

Stop-motion Burton at his most romantic-macabre, with a wedding-gone-wrong plot that shares Values' comfort with death as a punchline rather than a tragedy.

But Slower and more musical than comedic — it's closer to a dark fairy tale than a farce.

What We Do in the Shadows2014

Same engine — a monstrous family unit treating the horrific as mundane housekeeping — rebuilt in a completely different comic format.

A mockumentary about vampire flatmates squabbling over chores and virgin sacrifices, delivered in the same deadpan register as the Addamses' household chaos — just shot like a fly-on-the-wall documentary instead of a studio comedy.

But The found-footage format and improvised, shaggy pacing are a big shift from the polished set-piece comedy of Values.

Monster2003

Take Joan Cusack's black-widow nanny plot and remove the wink entirely — this is what that story looks like when it's true and nobody's laughing.

Charlize Theron's transformation into real-life killer Aileen Wuornos is the black-widow premise stripped of every joke — a woman whose relationships end in death, played as devastating tragedy rather than gothic punchline.

But Genuinely harrowing and sad, with none of the comfort or humour that makes Debbie Jellinsky fun to watch.