It’s hard to imagine a family movie franchise like The Addams Family taking off today. It’s violent, it’s sexual, it’s extremely critical of all societal norms. Come to think of it, it’s hard to believe it was popular in the 1990s either. Barry Sonnenfeld’s update of the classic Charles Addams comic strip, which later became a hit 1960s sitcom, was a passionate love note to its misfit protagonists, who were just as likely to throw each other in an electric chair as they were to express their love (which is to say, very likely).
But although The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values are now considered comedy classics, there’s another entry in the franchise that’s usually overlooked. That’s may be because a lot of people don’t know it exists. Addams Family Reunion, the third film in the franchise, was a straight to video oddity that recast most of the main characters, and was made not by blockbuster filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld, but by Dave Payne, the guy who brought you Alien Terminator and Alien Avengers 2.
The pedigree may be a little less impressive, but Addams Family fans shouldn’t avoid this nearly forgotten pop culture curio. Addams Family Reunion may be the worst film in the trilogy, but it’s still creepy, kooky and relatively ookie.
The first thing you’ll notice about Addams Family Values, if you can track it down (it’s never been released on DVD), is that the cast is dramatically different. The year was 1998 and Raul Julia, who played the debonair and theatrical Gomez Addams in Sonnenfeld’s films, had tragically passed away four years prior. To replace him the filmmakers needed someone just as eccentric and delightful, and to their credit they hired Tim Curry, who’s made a whole career out of playing wonderful weirdos.
Julia’s version of Gomez was a gorgeous lothario, who always seems to have just gotten out of bed with his wife or just about to get back into bed with his wife. Curry’s Gomez is still charming and dangerous, don’t worry about that; he just hasn’t stepped right out of a production of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Curry’s interpretation is less intense, and more in line with the sitcom dad character John Astin played in the sitcom.
“Children!” Gomez laments to their mailman, after his children tried to murder the poor man with lawn darts. “No matter how often you scream at them or how severely you punish them, they always beg for more.”
So it’s odd, then, that Daryl Hannah, taking over from Anjelica Huston, plays Morticia more sensually than ever. Whereas Gomez used to convulse with desire whenever Morticia spoke French, now it’s Morticia who practically reenacts an Herbal Essences commercial every time someone mentions torture. Hannah is thoroughly committed to the part and gives one of her funniest performances, and she’s clearly making the character her own.
The plot kicks in twice, oddly enough. First Gomez decides to look up the family tree and find more Addamses, so his oddball family can feel less isolated (a pretty big continuity goof, since they already had a big Addams family reunion in the first film). Second, they are visited by Great Grandparents Mortimer and Delilah (Kevin McCarthy and Estelle Harris), who freak everybody out by acting normal: planting flowers, watching sports… you know, the creepy stuff.
Gomez discovers that Mortimer and Delilah are suffering from a rare condition known as “Waltzheimer’s” (a lousy joke by every estimation), which causes them to become more normal as they age. So Gomez takes his family to a reunion of Addamses in the hopes of learning more about this hereditary condition; but due to a mix-up he stumbles into the wrong Addams family. These folks are stuck up snobs who have no love for outsider eccentrics like Gomez, Morticia and the rest of their brood. But ironically, they themselves may be more sinister.
It takes a while to get there, but most of Addams Family Reunion takes place at a cushy resort, where the Addamses stick out like a sore thumb. Gomez proves his superiority at every sport in the establishment, flinging deadly objects at dart boards and besting Ed Begley Jr., playing a doctor who plans to snatch his father’s fortune, multiple times. Begley is a strong comic foil, being a completely confident, unapologetic a-hole who’s trying – and failing – to protect his dignity.
Meanwhile, Pugsley Addams (Jerry Messing, Freaks and Geeks) has fallen in love with the daughter of another reunion attendee. Lurch (Carel Struyken, returning from the Sonnenfeld films) has been sleepwalking, and he keeps running into, frightening and/or kissing other attendees. Wednesday (Nicole Fugere, who reprised the role in the New Addams Family sitcom) is mostly just annoyed at being treated like a child. Fester (Patrick Thomas, Curse of the Puppet Master) has invented a Jekyll & Hyde dog in his laboratory, while Grandmama (Alice Ghostley, Grease) decides to stay home, where she menaces a couple of “normal” Addamses who wind up at their spooky estate instead of the proper reunion.
Eventually the Addamses wreak so much havoc that the “normal” Addamses have Gomez and Morticia thrown in jail, while Lurch gets buried alive, their disembodied hand Thing gets taken to a dog pound by Clint Howard, Fester gets institutionalized, and Wednesday and Pugsley are adopted by a typical sitcom family. Sadly, Addams Family Reunion doesn’t spend nearly enough time on these set-ups. Gomez and Morticia in prison could be a whole movie unto itself, as could Fester in a psych ward and Wednesday and Pugsley going all Ozzie & Harriet.
Instead, these great set-ups are largely wasted, and breezed past in just a few minutes. Addams Family Reunion concludes with a car chase and a series of rescues before finally sending Ed Begley, Jr. to electroshock therapy and sending the Great Grandparents off to a nursing home, where they can be happy in their boring new lifestyle.
Addams Family Reunion does not have a great plot, but it’s worth remembering that on the surface neither did the Sonnenfeld films, which revolved around familiar old sitcom tropes like amnesia, gold digging and summer camp. All that matters is that the filmmakers make the most of the comedic set-ups, which Sonnenfeld’s films excelled at… and Payne’s film does more-or-less okay.
Yes, the script is full of groaner jokes about “Publisher’s Killinghouse” and going inside “before you catch warm.” Payne was reportedly under a producer’s mandate to keep Reunion more family friendly than its predecessors, but although his film doesn’t feel entirely like Sonnenfeld’s (aside from mimicking some of Sonnenfeld’s stylistic flourishes, like fast-motion), it does feel of a piece with the original sitcom.
That original Addams Family TV series still holds up relatively well today, especially as a celebration of counterculture, but it also relied on silly jokes and hackneyed plots. If you can forgive or, if you can find it in your taste buds, even appreciate the film’s old-fashioned sensibilities and droll sense of humor you’ll find that Addams Family Values only fails in comparison to the slicker motion pictures that preceded it. If Reunion had come out first it might have a minor cult following of its own. But with a mostly different cast, a much lower budget, and under orders to tone down the “creep” factor, it was bound to be a letdown in the late 1990s, after Sonnenfeld’s films had already become instant cult classics.
Regardless of the humor or casting, the heart of the Addams Family is alive and well in Addams Family Reunion, and possibly sitting in a jar on Gomez’s desk. It’s still a film that celebrates these weird characters and respects the power of love to overcome social conventions. If the overlooked and maligned Addams Family Reunion were a person, that person would feel at home with the Addams Family.
