Addams Family Values (4K UHD)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Screenplay: Paul Rudnick (based on characters created by Charles Addams)

Stars: Anjelica Huston (Morticia Addams), Raul Julia (Gomez Addams), Christopher Lloyd (Uncle Fester Addams), Joan Cusack (Debbie Jellinsky), Christina Ricci (Wednesday Addams), Carol Kane (Granny), Jimmy Workman (Pugsley Addams), Kaitlyn Hooper (Pubert Addams), Kristen Hooper (Pubert Addams), Carel Struycken (Lurch), David Krumholtz (Joel Glicker), Christopher Hart (Thing), Dana Ivey (Margaret Addams), Peter MacNicol (Gary Granger), Christine Baranski (Becky Martin-Granger)

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Year of Release: 1993

Country: U.S.

The Addams Family / Addams Family Values 4K UHD

In a rare instance of a sequel improving upon the original, Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family Values makes good on all that was good in The Addams Family (1991), which gave new life to the amusing Gothic clan that originally appeared in New Yorker comic panels by artist Charles Addams, while also adding a few new twists. The best addition envisioned by screenwriter Paul Rudnick (Sister Act, In & Out) is a much larger role for the family’s brooding offspring, Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman), who in the first film were peripheral characters relegated to morbid gags between scenes, but here are given their own subplot when they are shipped off to a sunny summer camp where they totally, completely, and utterly don’t fit in.

The main plot in the film involves goofy Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd), who finds romance with Debbie Jellinsky (Joan Cusack), the nanny hired by bug-eyed paterfamilias Gomez Addams (Raul Julia) and his imposing wife Morticia (Anjelica Huston) to look after their new baby, Pubert. Debbie, who is weirdly enthusiastic and giddy and smiley, seems immediately suspicious, but Fester is smitten, if only because Debbie actually shows interest in him, despite his hunchback, sunken eyes, bald head, and general weirdness. Before you know it, they’re married, and then the real Debbie emerges, who is controlling, manipulative, cruel, and in it all for the money (just as in the first film, the threat to the family is an outsider trying to pillage their riches).

Meanwhile, Wednesday and Pugsley find themselves in the clutches of an insufferably upbeat summer camp run by the toothy Gary Granger (Peter MacNicol) and his uber-positive wife, Becky (Christine Baranski). The morbid Addams offspring resist at every turn the camp’s attempts to integrate them into their sunshiny ways and engage them with their snobbish fellow campers. The conflict between the smiley counselors and the dour Addams duo is one for the ages, and it culminates in a hilariously perverse Thanksgiving-themed pageant in which Wednesday engineers a rant against white colonialism and the subjugation of native peoples before literally burning the place to the ground.

Addams Family Values pushes the bounds set by its predecessor in ways that are consistently humorous, asking us to smile and find laughs in all manner of gloomy delights. The film is once again anchored by Gomez’s infectious joie du vivre and romantic passion for Morticia, who remains as pleasantly icy as ever. Raul Julia, in what would sadly be one of his last performances (he died in 1994 of a stroke at the age of 54), plays up Gomez’s ardent intensity, which is over the top in all the best ways. Barry Sonnenfeld, who moved from ace cinematographer to director on the first film, again manages to turn the idea of normality inside out in getting us to not just buy into, but genuinely celebrate the Addams’s macabre preoccupations. Not all of it works as well as it should—the physical comedy involving the baby Pubert at times feels forced and out of place—but as a whole Addams Family Values lives up to and even surpasses its predecessor in conveying the titular family’s wonderful weirdness.

Addams Family Values 4K UHD

Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 surround Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 surround German Dolby Digital 2.0 surround French Dolby Digital 2.0 surround Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 surround
Subtitles	English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Supplements	Audio commentary by director Barry Sonnenfeld and screenwriter Paul Rudnick “Crafting Family Values” featurette
Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date	October 29, 2024

COMMENTS
Addams Family Values was previously released on Blu-ray in 2019 as a set with The Addams Family, which marked the film’s first presentation in high definition. Five years later we now have it in full 4K, transferred from the original 35mm camera negative, and it looks fantastic. The image boasts excellent detail and contrast, with strong color saturation that looks even better thanks to Dolby Vision grading, which we see with particular strength in the brightly lit, sunny camp scenes. As with the first film, the colors are almost a bit too intense, which plays its comic, campy sensibility. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1-channel surround soundtrack appears to be the same that was previously available on the Blu-ray release. It is quite good, with solid separation in the surround channels, an effective low end (for moments of rumbling thunder, for example), and clear dialogue. And, unlike the Blu-ray release, which had no supplements, the 4K UHD disc includes a new audio commentary by director Barry Sonnenfeld and screenwriter Paul Rudnick that is quite interesting and informative and “Crafting Family Values,” a 10-minute retrospective featurette comprised primarily of circa-1993 interviews with cast and crew during the film’s production.

Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick

Overall Rating: (3)