October 12, 2019: A Little More Creepy in the Kooky, Please

Today we had plans to break north to Vermont to see some foliage, although at this point the foliage everywhere here—even along the highways—is pretty fantastic. Unfortunately, Lindsey got sick, so instead we played the day lowkey. I took the kids to the theater to see the new, animated The Addams Family movie. I honestly wasn’t looking forward to this one based on the trailers—I didn’t like the animation style and the jokes were Lurch-groaningly bad.

However, I enjoyed it enough. I mean, I did fall asleep for about 15 minutes right in the middle of the movie, but that’s not the movie’s fault. Those leather reclining seats take me right out if I recline just one degree too far. My daughters filled me in on what I missed, though.

My feeling on this movie is close to what I said about Scooby Doo earlier this year, but like turned up about a dozen notches. Any Addams Family movie, even and maybe especially for kids, needs to be really creepy, almost dangerous-seeming. The kids (and adults) need to get that this family is fundamentally different, and different to the point that you are uncomfortable with that difference. Embracing the difference and the family means so much more after going through that. If the Addams are just slightly eccentric, it doesn’t work. They’re Hotel Transylvania or something. I think the movies from the 1990s did a decent job at making the Addams Family appropriately dangerous, although I haven’t watched them all the way through in a while, just snatches here and there on FreeForm’s 31 Days of Halloween.

As a writer of spooky kids books, I think about this a lot. How far should we push stories for children? The impulse is to protect kids, right? In real life and in the stories they read or watch. The truth is, it’s far more important to protect them in real life, and very important to let things be more dangerous in controlled environments like books and movies, for all kinds of reasons. Of course, that’s what spooky adult stories are for, too.

Anyway, the one moment in the movie that was creepy and edgy exactly like an Addams Family movie should be was when Morticia is putting on makeup, and it turns out to be the ashes of her parents. Perfect. Loved that part. Both the idea and how they executed it. Another good thing they did was focus on the relationships between the Gomez and Pugsley and Morticia and Wednesday. They could have done so much more with it, but at least it was there.

I also liked the ending credits, where they redid the 1960s TV show credits with the animated characters. The whole way home my kids were trying to sing the Addams Family theme, which is hard when you don’t know how to snap your fingers.

Our other highlight of the day was a Halloween care package from a friend, who really goes all out with her Halloween care packages. It makes me want to stuff a stocking. I’ll start counting calories and treadmilling again on November 1. Promise.