Addams Family Reunion

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Addams Family Reunion
Addams Family Reunion.png
Official VHS cover [1]
Directed byDave Payne
Written by
  • Rob Kerchner
  • Scott Sandin
Based on The Addams Family by Charles Addams
Produced by Mike Elliott
Starring
Cinematography Christian Sebaldt
Edited byJ. J. Jackson
Music byAmotz Plessner
Production
company
Distributed by Warner Home Video
Release date
  • September 22, 1998 (1998-09-22)
Running time
91 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Addams Family Reunion is a 1998 American comedy horror film based on the characters from the cartoon created by cartoonist Charles Addams. Directed by Dave Payne, the film was intended to serve as a pilot for a new proposed television series produced by Saban. The film stars Daryl Hannah and Tim Curry as Morticia and Gomez Addams respectively while Carel Struycken and Christopher Hart's hand are the only ones to reprise their roles from the last two films. The film's plot focused on the eccentric, macabre aristocratic Addams family mistakenly arriving at the wrong family reunion and encountering a man (Ed Begley Jr.) who seeks to commit murder in order to inherit a fortune.

Contents

Payne had intended to give the film a dark, edgy tone, but Saban had interfered with the development, insisting that the story be aimed solely at entertaining children, and lack much of the black comedy and satire of the previous films. Saban also wanted Payne to imitate aspects of Paramount Pictures' popular 1991–93 duo of films, and the 1964 TV series, and rejected any original idea developed by Payne and the film's screenwriters. As a result, the film was poorly received by critics, who criticized the film's screenplay, special effects, production design, and much of its acting, while singling out Tim Curry's performance for praise, calling Curry the best part of the film.

Plot

Discovering that his grandparents have developed "Waltzheimer's disease", a disease that is slowly turning them "normal", Gomez plans a family reunion, hoping that some branch of his enormous family tree will find a cure. However, Gomez sends a card written in blood, which damages the machines of the company organizing the reunion and results in the Addams receiving the wrong invitation.

Gomez, Morticia, Fester, Lurch, and the grandparents drive to a luxury resort for the family reunion. Gomez meets psychiatrist Dr. Philip Adams, who plans to poison his wealthy father Walter Adams and rearrange his will. Gomez hopes that Dr. Adams can cure his grandparents. Philip's sister, Katherine Adams, is aware what Philip is doing and wants a piece of Walter's wealth and threatens Philip if he doesn't give her the share of the wealth.

Philip's brother and his wife, who are headed to the reunion, are given the wrong address and end up in the Addams family mansion, where Granny and Cousin Itt are staying. They stay there as guests, but are increasingly abused by their hosts. Granny learns that the wife is vegetarian, so she feeds her with a plant: deadly nightshade. Cousin Itt plays poker with the husband, and wins over most of the man's fortune.

Pugsley falls in love with Gina Adams, a young bespectacled girl. Wednesday antagonizes two of her new snobby "cousins", children of Philip. Lurch saves Gina's mother from drowning in the swimming pool. He falls in love with the woman, while she is disgusted with him. Walter Adams expresses his hatred for his son and most of his family. Fester and Thing do their best to capture Butcher, Fester's mutated puppy who feeds on human hair.

Philip initially refuses to help Gomez in any way, but agrees to a bet. If he beats Gomez in a game, he will earn thousands of dollars. If Gomez wins, Philip will offer his services to him. Philip is overconfident, as he is a champion in many games. But Gomez easily defeats him in successive challenges, in the games of darts, table tennis, and tennis. Philip is publicly humiliated in the process.

Instead of offering his services as previously agreed, an enraged Philip attacks Gomez in public. They have a knife fight, which Gomez eventually wins. While Gomez holds his knife to Philip's throat, the police arrive. Gomez and Morticia are arrested for attempted murder, Pugsley and Wednesday are arrested for digging open the grave of the resort's founders. Fester is considered insane and becomes a mental patient, while Butcher and Thing are captured by a sadistic dog catcher. Lurch has been buried alive by Wednesday and is unable to escape.

Pugsley and Wednesday are taken in by child services, Katherine secretly called child services to get rid of the Addams so no one can stand in her and Philip's way of getting wealthy, and placed in foster care with Philip's wife. Meanwhile, Philip gains custody over Fester and tortures him with an electric chair. He has previously used this chair to torture other patients. The dog-catcher plans to feed Thing to one of his dogs. Gomez and Morticia are unable to escape a police cell.

Walter Adams has taken a liking to Gomez, and posts bail for him and Morticia. He helps them rescue Lurch, who then helps rescue the rest of the family. Pugsley and Wednesday were in the process of torturing their foster family, but are happily reunited with their parents. The Addams Family strap Philip in his own electric chair, and have him tortured by his patients.

The Addams Family eventually return to their mansion, and leave their increasingly "normal" grandparents in the care of Philip's wife. Walter Adams bids farewell to the Addams and leaves for California and cutting ties to his Adams family. Wednesday amuses herself with lighting fireworks, while Pugsley seems melancholic. Gomez asks him if he misses Gina, but Pugsley is instead sad because he forgot his "Siberian firecracker" back at the foster family's house.

At this point, the "firecracker" is revealed to have been a nuclear weapon and the Addams Family witness a distant nuclear explosion apparently caused by it. Morticia comments that a nuclear winter is swiftly approaching and that she feels gloomy. Gomez and Morticia kiss, finishing the film.

Cast

Production

Pre-production

Following the success of the theatrically released films The Addams Family , released in 1991 and its 1993 sequel, Addams Family Values , Saban negotiated to purchase the home video production rights to the Addams Family brand in order to take advantage of the direct-to-video market. [2] Because of the underwhelming commercial performance of Addams Family Values, as well as the death of Raúl Juliá, who had played Gomez Addams, Paramount Pictures ultimately decided not to produce a third film, resulting in Saban deciding to reboot the series. [3]

Addams Family Reunion was co-produced by Saban with Warner Bros. The two studios planned to produce a new series called The New Addams Family , and intended to produce a two-hour pilot film for the series, which eventually became Addams Family Reunion; Saban planned to premiere the film on a cable network owned by the company before releasing it on video, and to follow the film with a television series if the film did well. [2] [3]

Addams Family Reunion was scripted by Rob Kerchner, who had experience writing numerous direct-to-video sequels, and Scott Sandin; Saban wanted the script to be aimed only for children, with little attempt made to engage an adult audience. Dave Payne, whose directorial experience came from making direct-to-video low-budget horror films for Roger Corman, was hired to direct. [2] [3]

According to Payne, Saban had purchased the rights from Charles Addams' estate, and he felt he could start fresh and create a dark fantasy film, comparing the approach he wanted to take as director to the Coen brothers. [2] However, Payne says, Saban wanted him to imitate Barry Sonnenfeld's films and the 1964 TV show, and any original idea proposed by Payne and the screenwriters was rejected. [2] In addition to the film lacking the previous entries' black comedy, Nathan Rabin also said that Addams Family Reunion has little of the anarchic satire of the Sonnenfeld films; according to Rabin, the only satirical aspect of the film is that the "normal" Adams family, whose reunion the Addamses mistakenly attend, "turns out to be far more devious, conniving, and evil than the morbid but basically good Addams clan". [4]

Casting

Tim Curry was singled out for praise in his performance as Gomez Addams. While the film was otherwise poorly reviewed, reviewers called Curry's performance the best part of the film. Tim Curry cropped.jpg
Tim Curry was singled out for praise in his performance as Gomez Addams. While the film was otherwise poorly reviewed, reviewers called Curry's performance the best part of the film.

The producers wanted to bridge the gap in continuity between the Paramount films and the new series, and reached out to Anjelica Huston and Christopher Lloyd to reprise their roles as Morticia Addams and Uncle Fester, but both declined out of respect for Raul Julia. Christina Ricci and Jimmy Workman were too old to reprise their roles as Wednesday and Pugsley Addams. [3] The only actors to reprise their roles from the Paramount films were Carel Struycken as Lurch, and Christopher Hart as Thing. [3] [5]

Recast as Gomez and Morticia Addams were Tim Curry and Daryl Hannah, with Pat Thomas as Fester and Nicole Fugere as Wednesday, a role she would later reprise for The New Addams Family TV series, the only member of the film's cast to do so. [3] According to Payne, he and Curry both felt that Gomez should be played "weird", in contrast to the Latin lothario Raúl Juliá had created for the Paramount duo of films. [2] Much of the film's cast, including Alice Ghostley, Ray Walston, Clint Howard, and Ed Begley Jr., had appeared in numerous direct-to-video films. [4]

Filming

Addams Family Reunion was shot in Los Angeles, California on a 30-day schedule. [2] Ed Begley Jr. arrived on set unprepared for his first day of filming as a tennis pro, explaining that he had no idea how to play tennis, resulting in the director shooting around Begley's inability to play the sport, and the actor was also difficult to costume, because, as a dedicated environmentalist, Begley would not wear any animal-based clothing such as leather. [2]

Music

The show's famous theme song was performed in a doo-wop rendition by the group Strate Vocalz, which Yahoo! described as being "terrible". [2] According to Payne, he had developed a "dark and edgy" opening sequence with appropriate music by the film's composer, but Saban, without his knowledge, had replaced his original opening title sequence and the original music with "some boy band, in bright fluorescent-colored shirts". [2]

Release and reception

Addams Family Reunion was released on September 22, 1998 on straight-to-video. [3] [6]

The film was poorly received by critics, being compared unfavorably to the Paramount films, which reviewers felt Saban and Warner Bros. had tried, unsuccessfully, to imitate. [3] [4] [7] Nathan Rabin wrote that "the dialogue is awful, the acting sitcom-broad [...] [and] the direction [is] unremarkable". [4] Other points of criticism made in negative reviews included poor CGI [3] and cheap-looking production design. [4] However, Bloody Disgusting, Den of Geek and Nathan Rabin praised Tim Curry's performance as Gomez Addams. [1] [3] [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Addams Family</span> Fictional family created by Charles Addams

The Addams Family is a fictional family created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. They originally appeared in a series of 150 standalone single-panel comics, about half of which were originally published in The New Yorker between 1938 and their creator's death in 1988. They have since been adapted to other media, such as television, film, video games, comic books, a musical, and merchandise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uncle Fester</span> Character in The Addams Family

Uncle Fester is a member of the fictional Addams Family and has been played by numerous actors, beginning with Jackie Coogan in the television series The Addams Family (1964).

Thing (<i>The Addams Family</i>) Fictional character in The Addams Family

Thing T. Thing, often referred to as just Thing, is a fictional character in The Addams Family series. The Addamses called it "Thing" because it was something that could not be identified, being originally an unseen creature in the original cartoons but starting with the live-action television series it was settled to be a disembodied hand. It is known as "Mãozinha" in Brazil "Cosa" (Thing) in Spain, "Dedos" (Fingers) in Hispanic America, "Mano" (Hand) in Italy, "La Chose" in French speaking countries, "eiskaltes Händchen" in German, and "Rączka" in Polish.

<i>Addams Family Values</i> 1993 film by Barry Sonnenfeld

Addams Family Values is a 1993 American supernatural black comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and written by Paul Rudnick, based on the characters created by Charles Addams. It is the sequel to The Addams Family (1991). The film features almost all the main cast members from the original film, including Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Carel Struycken, Jimmy Workman, and Christopher Hart. Joan Cusack, Carol Kane, and David Krumholtz joined the cast for this film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morticia Addams</span> Fictional character from The Addams Family

Morticia Addams is a fictional character from the Addams Family multimedia franchise created by American Charles Addams in 1933. She plays the role of the family's reserved matriarch. Morticia Addams has been portrayed by several actresses in various Addams Family media, including Carolyn Jones in the television series The Addams Family (1964), Anjelica Huston in the feature films The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993), and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the streaming television series Wednesday (2022).

Lurch (<i>The Addams Family</i>) Character in The Addams Family

Lurch is a fictional character created by American cartoonist Charles Addams as a butler to the Addams Family. In the original television series, Lurch was played by Ted Cassidy.

Grandmama (<i>The Addams Family</i>) Fictional character in the Addams family fiction

Grandmama is a fictional character in the Addams Family television and film series. First appearing in the works of cartoonist Charles Addams, she is a supporting character in the film, television, and stage adaptations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gomez Addams</span> Character of The Addams Family

Gomez Addams is the patriarch of the fictional Addams Family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams for The New Yorker magazine in the 1940s and subsequently portrayed on television, in film and on the stage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pugsley Addams</span> Fictional character

Pugsley Pubert Addams is a member of the fictional Addams Family, created by American cartoonist Charles Addams.

<i>The Addams Family</i> (1964 TV series) American sitcom

The Addams Family is an American macabre/black comedy sitcom based on Charles Addams's New Yorker cartoons. The 30-minute television series was responsible for taking the unnamed characters in the single-panel gag cartoons and giving them names, back stories, and a household setting. It was spearheaded by David Levy, who created and developed the series with Donald Saltzman in cooperation with cartoonist Addams, who gave each character a name and description for the first time. The series was shot in black-and-white, airing for two seasons on ABC from September 18, 1964, to April 8, 1966, for a total of 64 episodes. The show's opening theme was composed and sung by Vic Mizzy.

<i>The Addams Family</i> (1973 TV series) American TV series or program

The Addams Family is an American animated sitcom adaptation of the Charles Addams single-panel comic for The New Yorker. The show was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for Saturday mornings in 1973, and was later rebroadcast the following season. Jackie Coogan and Ted Cassidy, who played Uncle Fester and Lurch, respectively, in the 1960s television series, returned in voice-over roles. The cast also included 10-year-old Jodie Foster, who performed the voice of Pugsley Addams. The show's theme music was completely different and had no lyrics or finger snapping, but retained a recognizable part of the four-note score from the live-action series.

<i>The Addams Family</i> (1992 TV series) 1992 animated series

The Addams Family is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and based on the eponymous comic strip characters by Charles Addams. It is the second cartoon show to feature the characters, and ran from September 12, 1992, to November 6, 1993, on ABC. The series' development began in the wake of the successful 1991 Addams Family feature film. Two seasons were produced. It remained part of ABC's Saturday Morning lineup until it was replaced by Fudge in January 1995.

<i>The Addams Family</i> (musical) Musical Comedy

The Addams Family is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. The show is based upon The Addams Family characters created by Charles Addams in his single-panel gag cartoons, which depict a ghoulish American family with an affinity for all things macabre. Although numerous film and television adaptations of Addams' cartoons exist, the musical is the first stage show based on the characters. The Addams Family is also the first show produced by Elephant Eye Theatricals.

<i>The New Addams Family</i> American TV series or program

The New Addams Family is a sitcom that aired from October 1998 to August 1999 on YTV in Canada and Fox Family in the United States and CITV in the United Kingdom on weekends. It was produced by Shavick Entertainment and Saban Entertainment as a revival of the 1960s series The Addams Family. The series was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

There have been seven video games based on The Addams Family television series and films, released between 1989 and 2022 on various home video game consoles.

<i>Halloween with the New Addams Family</i> 1977 television film

Halloween with the New Addams Family is a 1977 American made-for-television comedy horror film based on the 1964–1966 sitcom The Addams Family. In contrast to the "new" in the title, most of the original series regulars reprised their roles, including John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan, Ted Cassidy, Lisa Loring, Ken Weatherwax and Felix Silla. Eleven years after the cancellation of the 1960s TV series, it was the only presentation that brought together most of the original cast in a color production, shot on videotape.

<i>The Addams Family</i> (1991 film) 1991 film by Barry Sonnenfeld

The Addams Family is a 1991 American supernatural black comedy film based on the characters from the cartoon created by cartoonist Charles Addams and the 1964 television series produced by David Levy. Directed by former cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld in his feature directorial debut, the film stars Anjelica Huston, who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance as Morticia Addams, Raul Julia as Gomez Addams, and Christopher Lloyd as Fester Addams. The film focuses on a bizarre, macabre, aristocratic family who reconnect with someone whom they believe to be a long-lost relative, Gomez's brother Fester Addams.

<i>The Addams Family: An Evilution</i> 2010 nonfiction book by H. Kevin Miserocchi

The Addams Family: An Evilution is a book about the "evilution" of The Addams Family characters created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. The book was made to celebrate The Addams Family musical that opened on Broadway in April 2010.

<i>The Addams Family</i> (2019 film) 2019 film by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

The Addams Family is a 2019 animated supernatural black comedy film based on the characters from the cartoon created by cartoonist Charles Addams. It was directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan, with a screenplay by Matt Lieberman and a story by Lieberman, Erica Rivinoja, and Vernon. The film stars the voices of Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, and Allison Janney.

<i>The Addams Family 2</i> 2021 film by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon

The Addams Family 2 is a 2021 animated supernatural black comedy film based on the characters created by Charles Addams and the sequel to The Addams Family (2019). It was directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon and co-directed by Laura Brousseau and Kevin Pavlovic, from a screenplay by Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, Ben Queen, and Susanna Fogel, and a story by Hernandez and Samit. The film stars the voices of Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Kroll, Javon Walton, Wallace Shawn, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, and Bill Hader. It tells the story of the Addams family as they go on a road trip.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Squires, John (2017-04-13). "Remember When Tim Curry Played Gomez in 'Addams Family Reunion'?!". Bloody Disgusting!. Retrieved 2019-03-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "The crazy story behind the third Addams Family film that went straight-to-VHS". uk.movies.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2019-03-16.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Addams Family Reunion: The Sequel That Time Forgot". Den of Geek. Archived from the original on 2017-11-20. Retrieved 2019-03-16.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Rabin, Nathan (April 4, 2002). "Addams Family Reunion". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2019-03-16.
  5. ↑ McEwan, Cameron K. (2018-01-20). "The Addams Family – where are they now?". Digital Spy. Retrieved 2019-03-16.
  6. ↑ Goldberg, Matt (2013-10-31). "THE ADDAMS FAMILY to Be Rebooted as an Animated Film". Collider. Retrieved 2019-03-16.
  7. ↑ Ferguson, John. "Addams Family Reunion – review | cast and crew, movie star rating and where to watch film on TV and online". Radio Times. Archived from the original on April 2, 2018. Retrieved 2019-03-16.
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