Dumb Things We All Ignore In The Addams Family Movies
All five films in "The Addams Family" franchise have one thing in common: They break as many barriers as possible. Sometimes, it works, and other times, it leads to confusing plots that not even suspension of disbelief can counter. Yet, the family is so lovably kooky that it's easy to look the other way and pretend it's not absurd for parents to allow their children's rivalry to escalate to attempted murder. All's fair in blood and war, right?
While we tend to think of the Addams family as harmless outcasts, they're much darker than fans give them credit for. Sure, they talk the talk of being obsessed with death and the dark forces, but they've also killed a hefty number of people. The family's passion for torture doesn't stop within their own walls, either. They love tormenting the general public. And though the family seems to have some kind of paranormal ability to escape death, the regular folks they catch in their web of chaos aren't so lucky.
Despite all of that, we all love this weird family, and we ignore quite a few dumb things that happen in the franchise. Between confusing and unexplained paranormal components, controversial parenting, and uncomfortable Freudian components, these are the dumbest things we ignore in "The Addams Family" movies.
Where does the Addams family get their wealth?
They're creepy, and they're kooky and altogether ... loaded? In all five of "The Addams Family" movies, the extended family has an undisclosed yet substantial amount of wealth. Not only do they have a mansion in every iteration, but they throw around money like it's meaningless. Given how the family tends to shun society and greed (especially in "Addams Family Values"), it's pretty hypocritical how they handle their cash flow.
In "The Addams Family," Gomez and Morticia bid $50,000 on their own finger trap as some kind of kinky foreplay. While charitable endeavors are a welcome way for the wealthy to spend their money, getting publicly hot and bothered by spending more money than many people make in a year is an odd flex for a family that shuns superficiality.
Additionally, "Addams Family Values" is essentially a parody of wealthy culture, but the Addams family still spends $20,000 apiece on Pugsley and Wednesday's cringe summer camp. That's more than the cost of college tuition at many state schools. Even weirder, we never discover exactly how the Addams family came into their wealth. No one in the family seems to have a job, and it's never explained where their generational wealth comes from. However, given some of the shady things the family gets up to, it's safe to say that the money isn't exactly clean.
Mysterious magic
One of the greatest things about "The Addams Family" franchise is its understated mysticism. Yet, the magic in the franchise is often confusing, inconsistent, and unexplained. Sure, audiences don't need to be spoon-fed achingly technical details about how the Addams family's magic works, but we could use a throwaway line here or there to justify some of the films' absurdity. We have no clue how baby Pubert can launch to the height of an airplane in flight in "Addams Family Values" or how Thing is sentient and can somehow see where he's going as a severed hand. Gomez is somehow shrinking people to put inside his toy train, and the Addamses employ a band of talking heads.
In the animated sequel, Wednesday even uses a voodoo doll on Pugsley. It continues to make him mime the doll's actions, even after Wednesday throws it off Niagara Falls. Still, Pugsley wasn't following its every move when it was seemingly in her pocket. Wednesday also brings an entire classroom of dead toads back to life in "The Addams Family" animated movie, which remains unexplained.
We don't get an ounce of insight into what kind of powers the family has or how they use them. Instead, we're just meant to accept the most outlandish plotlines, and for the most part, we do. Nevertheless, some clarity would be a welcome change.
Can the Addams die?
Most people with ample land opt to have a backyard outside of their home — but most people aren't the Addams family. Instead of putting in a swing set for the kids, the Addams family has a massive graveyard for their fallen family members. The fact that there are any dead family members is strange, given how frequently the family thwarts certain death. Between severe electrocution, bombings, and falling from extreme heights, this family almost seems immortal.
Of course, their proclivity for cheating death is never addressed or explained. Fans are just supposed to accept that a bomb wouldn't actually blow Fester up in "Addams Family Values" or flying up (and falling back down) to the height of a plane in flight wouldn't kill baby Pubert in the same movie. We know Morticia's mom is a witch, but even witches are limited in their powers. As a whole, even the live-action movies in the franchise follow cartoon logic, and we're just supposed to accept that without explanation.
Ironically, the Addams family faces less certain death in the two animated movies, but they still face a fair amount of life-threatening predicaments unscathed — like Pugsley getting launched off Niagara Falls in "The Addams Family 2." How is anyone in this family alive?
Gomez isn't supposed to traditionally attractive
The Netflix series "Wednesday" may have gotten roasted for casting Luis Guzmán as Gomez, but the show has the right idea. While all three live-action films depict Gomez as a tall, thin, conventionally attractive man, he looks nothing like that in the source material. There's no denying that Raul Julia slayed the character, and it's difficult to picture anyone else in the titular role. Still, Gomez is short, plump, and has a football-shaped head in the original New Yorker cartoons created by Charles Addams. Similarly, Tim Curry took a page from Julia's book in the third live-action film. Mirroring that character choice does make sense for the film, considering that fans are meant to buy that it's the same universe, but it's still far from accurate.
Like "Wednesday," the animated 2019 film also nails the character's aesthetics, but that's admittedly a whole lot easier to accomplish with animation. Oscar Isaac himself doesn't fit the comic description, but that's nothing a little animation can't fix.
Feline murder?
The Addams family is marketed as a kooky, weird family, but sometimes, things get pretty dark. In the opening of "Addams Family Values," Wednesday, Pugsley, and their grandmother are burying a cat. That's not super weird, right? Family pets die, and it's a tough time for everyone. But what's not normal? A dead cat meowing as you bury it. When this happens, Wednesday shushes the poor thing instead of examining why their deceased pet is calling out from beyond the veil.
Instead, they bury the cat anyway, and we never get an explanation for what exactly is happening here. The most disturbing option is that the pet is still alive. However, given that the siblings' witchy grandmother is on the scene, she may have reanimated it after death. They could also be experimenting on the unsuspecting feline. Or perhaps the ghost of the cat doesn't like their choice of a shoe box. Either way, this bizarre and creepy moment goes unexplained, which further puts the family's morals in question.
Who needs sibling rivalry when you can have sibling homicide?
People with more than one child typically spend the bulk of their parenting sniping at their kids for fighting. Even arguing without making things physical will often lead to a booming "Behave!" from parents. The Addams family runs a different kind of household in which Morticia and Gomez not only fail to discipline their quarreling children but encourage their violent tendencies. Wednesday and Pugsley spend the bulk of "Addams Family Values" trying to kill their baby brother, Pubert. And that's not hyperbole. They actually try to murder him.
Between attempting to throw him off a roof and a foiled beheading, the Addams siblings aren't playing around. Instead of trying to stop their children from murdering their baby, Gomez and Morticia barely lift a finger and decide to outsource a serial killer babysitter for their kids when they get tired of (barely) dealing with it themselves. Given the Addams family's homicidal tendencies, it's not surprising that they miss Debbie's many glaring red flags.
In the live-action "The Addams Family," Morticia even catches Wednesday electrocuting Pugsley. When he insists that she go ahead, Morticia allows it and is touched by this particular brand of sibling bonding. Once again, it's a marvel that anyone in this family makes it to double digits.
A trail of bodies
The Addams family isn't just quirkily into death. They've killed many people, and there are even implications that they've eaten some of their victims. In the live-action "The Addams Family," Gomez's particular brand of stress management includes playing with a train set that appears to have a real human inside. So, what does Gomez do? Crash the trains together and likely kill whatever magically shrunken person is inside. Even more disturbing, Morticia's mom reads a human anatomy book alongside a cookbook as her cauldron bubbles. There's some real cannibal energy in this scene.
In "Addams Family Values," the Addams family laughs when they realize that they baked a living girl into a cake at Fester's wedding. It's unclear whether or not they eat the cake, but once again, they show little concern for human life. Later in the film, Fester goes missing, and Gomez seeks the help of the local police. Somehow, the officer doesn't have tabs on the weird family that's caused countless deaths in the neighborhood. The kill count extends further when the Addams family's black widow babysitter bites the dust — literally. After a heavy bout of electrocution, she actually turns to dust. She's really their only justified victim.
The Addams family is never portrayed as villains, but for a family this invested in killing people, maybe they should be. There's a difference between an offbeat fascination with death and darkness and creating murder chambers that your children play in.
A Freudian complex
Freud would have a field day with this family. Joel spends the entirety of "Addams Family Values" trying to woo Wednesday, and in several moments, he's successful. Joel does get a kiss from Wednesday, but even that moment is pretty messed up, given how young Christina Ricci and David Krumholtz were at the time.
To make things weirder, Joel draws a mustache on his face to look like Wednesday's dad in an attempt to impress her at the end of the movie. It's unclear what would possess him to emulate her father to make her like him, but it could probably get picked apart on Freud's couch. The Addams family can contact the dead, right? It's an emergency. Luckily, Wednesday isn't exactly charmed, as she expresses her disdain for simping men and pranks Joel with Thing.
On a similarly bizarre mustache note, Pubert has a mustache right after he's born, which we never get insight on. Pugsley doesn't have a mustache, so we know it's not a genetic quirk of the Addams men.
A casting shakeup
Recasts are never a great idea for a franchise with a dedicated fan base. It's bad enough when it's just one actor, but you have to question the purpose of a sequel when almost the entire cast is replaced. That was the case for "Addams Family Reunion," and it's not for the better. With a 33 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, it's safe to say that the movie wasn't exactly well-received. And it's not for lack of a great cast. Horror icon Tim Curry, best known for his roles in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "IT," took over the role of Gomez.
However, the recasting of Gomez was ill-timed. Gomez actor Raul Julia tragically died of a stroke in 1994, making the recast appear in poor taste, especially since almost no one from the original lineup signed on for the third movie.
The only returning major cast members were Carel Struycken as Lurch and Christopher Hart as Thing. It might be a different story if the franchise rebooted itself into something new with a fresh spin, but with Struycken and Hart returning and the mirrored vibe of the originals, it's clear that the third installment is meant to take place in the same timeline and universe. That choice just so happened to be its kiss of death.
Things are getting hairy
Quirkiness will never extend to pet neglect. It's bad enough that Gomez and Morticia neglect their kids, but when pets get roped into the family morbidity, they've taken things too far. In "Addams Family Reunion," Fester mentions that he only feeds his dog hair. Why? So he'll attack people, of course. When someone says, "Good boy," the seemingly normal Chihuahua turns on beast mode and tries to scalp anyone in sight.
Given Fester's lack of hair, he's the only one who doesn't have to deal with the bizarre brutality he instilled in his dog. Somehow, Butcher survives on the delightful diet of human hair, but the storyline is gross, nonsensical, and hard to watch. Can we just leave pets out of weird experimentation plots, please?
Another uncomfortable plot point is "Waltzheimers," a condition that makes people ... enjoy waltzing? In reality, Alzheimer's is a devastating condition in which people slowly forget their family members and memories. The pun just isn't funny, and like most of the third movie's plot points, it's a miss.
Let's ride (or not)
Apparently, stranger danger doesn't extend to the Addams family. In "The Addams Family 2," Wednesday goes off on her own (trailed by a reluctant Lurch) to find her seemingly biological family. During her search, she accepts a ride from a group of bikers. Initially, there's an awkward exchange when Wednesday rejects a hug from one of the members. Dear adults: Please do not try to hug random pre-teens.
The bikers turn out to be harmless, but going off with a bunch of strange men is never a great idea for any woman — let alone a middle schooler. Sure, Lurch could have likely stopped anything shady from happening, but the bikers realistically should have asked more questions about where Wednesday's parents were, why she needed a ride, and if she needed any help.
The scene obviously exists for the ridiculousness of it and the aesthetic, but this movie is marketed for kids just as much as for adults. Still, it's not a great idea to depict a kid approaching a bunch of strangers they met in a bar and asking for a ride.
Who's your daddy?
Wednesday is a gifted scientist. Not only is she unafraid to push boundaries, but she also appears to mix the occult and science fiction in her experiments. In "The Addams Family 2," things haven't changed. Wednesday blows her competition out of the water at the science fair when she plants her octopus Socrates' intelligence into Uncle Fester. Though everyone gets a lame participation trophy, Dr. Strange (no, not that Dr. Strange) sees her potential and concocts a plan to steal her work.
Strange convinces Wednesday that she's been switched at birth after he doctors the results of a test when she visits his lab. Before Wednesday considers his claim, she does a DNA test on herself. Wednesday uses her own materials to conduct the test, and we even see her pulling hair from her father. If she can successfully implant animal genetics into human ones, there's no way she wouldn't be skilled at a simple DNA test.
Yet, the test says that she's not a match with Gomez, even though Strange wasn't there to manipulate the results. This leaves some pretty significant doubt that Gomez is her biological father. It all could be cleared up with a line or two from Strange about how he managed to pull off that part of the puzzle, but leaving a slight implication that Morticia may have cheated on Gomez is less cool than the family's murder schemes.
Paging Dr. Freud (again)
Okay, we need Freud to clear his schedule again. In "The Addams Family 2," Pugsley has heart eyes for a girl who's allegedly his sister. He spends most of the movie uncomfortably hitting on girls, but who knew it would get even weirder? When Pugsley meets Ophelia, there's a significant possibility that she's his sister and that she and Wednesday were switched at birth. Despite this revelation, Pugsley is immediately enamored with Ophelia and shares several cringe meet-cutes with her before realizing that she's actually ... an experiment pig?
Even after that revelation, Pugsley is still obsessed with her and seems ready to go for it when Wednesday makes her permanently human. It's not exactly out of the norm for Addams family relationships, given the cross-species relationships we've seen from the family before. However, that doesn't make it less awkward to watch. It's not the first time Pugsley has noted interest in someone he initially thinks is a family member, either. In "Addams Family Reunion," he's into his supposed cousin Gina after a genealogy snafu takes them to someone else's family reunion. Why is this a repeated trope?