Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We here at Bloody Disgusting sincerely hope you are having a relaxing holiday and getting to spend some quality time with your families and maybe squeeze in a horror movie or two in the process.. We’re taking today to reminisce and celebrate one of the greatest Thanksgiving celebrations ever put on film (and it doesn’t even take place on Thanksgiving!): Addams Family Values.
If, like me, you were a child of the 90s, you probably watched Addams Family Values a lot growing up. For me, it was one of those movies that was funny but had its roots planted firmly enough in the horror genre that it scratched the itch I had from not being allowed to watch actual horror movies as a child.
Addams Family Values has a macabre sense if humor, and that helps it in being much better than its predecessor quality-wise, though it didn’t help with box office numbers (it has since gained a cult following). In the film, Fester’s (Christopher Lloyd) new wife Debbie (a gloriously unhinged Joan Cusack) is also a serial killer known as the Black Widow, who marries men only to kill them and gain their inheritance. In her plot to marry Fester, she sends Wednesday (Christina Ricci, in what is arguably her best role) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) to summer camp, where a pair of counselors (Peter MacNicol & Christine Baranski) are putting on a Thanksgiving play (in the summer…for reasons not mentioned). They cast Wednesday as Pocahontas and mayhem ensues.
The Thanksgiving play is the centerpiece of Addams Family Values and is the sequence I used to rewind and watch over and over again with my sister while we were growing up. It’s a cathartic scene for anyone who has ever been an outcast and for anyone who has ever wanted to see Harmony from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel really get what’s coming to her. Basically, it’s awesome. Now stop reading and watch it, because Thanksgiving.