Super Spooky Halloween Movie Night: Addams Family Values

Welcome to Movie Night! Where we choose a movie based on any number of variables and feelings, create a themed menu to match, then spend the night watching these movies! It’s an uncomplicated but promising plan.

This movie night comes on the brink of Halloween, when normal people plan ahead to get trashed listening to “The Monster Mash.” I’ve already crossed my fingers that secretly, Halloween will be cancelled this year and that soon it will go without question that I am too old to participate. And while I am busy avoiding it at all costs, we may as well laugh and play a drinking game, right? So without further ado – let the dark humor and absurdist spook theatrics begin!

THE MOVIE
ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES 

[buy me ]

Before we begin, be prepared: this shit is hilarious.

A synopsis of this movie is available nowhere, unless you want a lot of spoilers. So here’s my best attempt to sum this gem up: a sequel to The Addams Family, this 1993 film begins when Morticia and Gomez Addams, the oversexed and bizarre parents to daughter Wednesday and son Pugsley, welcome their new baby to the family. When they seek out a new nanny, one bright and incomprehensibly upbeat woman joins their clan: Debbie Jelinsky. When she ships the kids to summer camp and chases after lonely Uncle Fester, however, the family must work together to keep him from her cheery clutches – especially when they catch wind that she’s a gold-digging serial killer.

“You have placed Fester under some strange, sexual spell. I respect that.” 
– Morticia Addams 

The thing, though? She’s completely and totally met her match. Otherwise the movie wouldn’t be half as funny, obviously.

When I was a kid, I did not understand The Addams Family. I also hated The Munsters. Dark comedy didn’t really make sense to me, and the fact that adults enjoyed it somehow made it even weirder. How was this something anyone wanted to consume, after all? It was so creepy and gross and weird.

I get it now, is what I’m saying.

Debbie: Isn’t he a lady killer?
Gomez: Acquitted!

Watching this movie as an adult gave it an entirely new meaning. Suddenly I understood it as some sort of theater of the absurd, as some incredible mix between physical comedy and subtle innuendo. Suddenly I got the charm. My friend Amanda prefaced our viewing with shock that I didn’t already love the film, and by the end I did. After all, I laughed and I cheered in favor of a group of complete and total weirdos. And I even related to them! Sometimes.

I was also incredibly drunk.

 The Drinking Game

If you’re watching Addams Family Values with your friends or cat on Halloween and doing your best to appear like you have a social life, you’re probably looking for a spare beer. And if you happen to have the extreme privilege of living with someone equally as antisocial as you at any given point in the week, you may have the opportunity to find a spare beer for them and engage in the Addams Family Values drinking game, which is by far the best part of the film! Please drink responsibly, because I love you and it’s weird to get sick when you’re just at home, y’know?

The Rules (modified from Lazy Dork):

+ Drink anytime a character is holding the baby
+ Drink anytime the camp directors jump up and down
+ Drink whenever camp is mentioned
+ Drink whenever characters are shown in the graveyard
+ Drink whenever someone says “Cara Mia”
+ Drink whenever Fester comes close to having sex
+ Drink whenever a weapon of death is shown
+ Drink whenever you’re uncomfortable

I recommend playing with a beer or maybe a mixed drink, but definitely not the kind I made with Bacardi and water-based Country Time lemonade mix. Like, please don’t ever drink that at all.

If you’re looking for a good beverage for the game, try this drink I made once entirely from leftover liquids and then named after myself.

What You’ll Need

+ Sprite or some sort of lemon-lime soda / seltzer water
+ Pink lemonade
+ Vodka

Fill a glass with equal parts vodka and pink lemonade. Top it off with your clear bubbly drink of your choice for some watering down and carbonation at the same time! Also, spend a while stunned at how good it is. Just stunned.

I hope it’s the spookiest Halloween of all time, you guys. And I hope there’s a lot of laughing, too.

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Carmen

Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.

Carmen has written 919 articles for us.

14 Comments

  1. I love both Addams family movies! My wife and I have a halloween marathon every year and watch both Addams family movies, The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and the Nightmare Before Christmas. We stuff ourselves with candy and beer/wine and carve pumpkins. It just wouldn’t be halloween without Gomez and Morticia.

  2. “Eat Me!” “Hey It’s Thanksgiving Day!”…This song/joke became twice as funny when I grew up and got why it is seriously funny. I watched this before camp as part of my birthday movies with camps in them mini-marathon…but I think once I finish Shaun of the Dead it needs to happen again with vodka.

  3. Has anyone seen the new Munsters remake, Mockingbird Lane? Portia de Rossi plays Lily and Eddie Izzard plays Grandpa. Don’t know if they’ve ordered more episodes or if it was just a one-time Halloween thing.

    • I totally meant to watch that last Friday night, I did get to see a nice clip of it on Yahoo! news, critics are saying it’s suprisingly well-written and not just another doomed remake.

      I thought Portia looked stunning, I know Ellen had the little kid on her show who plays young Eddie and OMYGOD was he adorable and really witty! He had Ellen genuinely trying not to totally crack up!

  4. So this is my second AS comment about how much I LOVE this movie. The horrifying summer camp is the funniest part. I will absolutely try the drinking game.

  5. The part about watching this with your cat, I can totally relate to. I’ve spent the last few years “party” holidays alone with my cats having movie marathons. woo!

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