Let’s Explore the Weird Backstory of ‘Addams Family Values,’ the Perfect Thanksgiving Film

It’s the perfect Thanksgiving film. Addams Family Values is dark, shocking and features a musical indictment of the racist annual celebration of our nation’s founding. But behind the scenes, the making of the film was a strange labor of love.

The queer origins of Addams Family Values

The creative team behind the film is Scott Rudin and Paul Rudnick, who had been collaborating on the Sister Act project since the late ’80s. The script for Addams Family Values was having difficulty, and so Rudin brought Rudnick in to fix it. It’s thanks to him that it has such a biting edge.

Addams Family Values features the perfect cast

Most of the cast from the original returned, though Carol Kane was a new addition as Grandmama. (In reality, she’s a year younger than Anjelica Huston, but the prosthetic makeup, resembling the mask she wore in The Princess Bride, hid her true appearance.)