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Addams Family Values

Tagline: "The family just got a little stranger."

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No specific holiday elements identified.

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Release Year: 1993

Runtime: 94 min

Streaming Platforms:

Plot Summary: Siblings Wednesday and Pugsley Addams will stop at nothing to get rid of Pubert, the new baby boy adored by parents Gomez and Morticia. Things go from bad to worse when the new "black widow" nanny, Debbie Jellinsky, launches her plan to add Fester to her collection of dead husbands.

Holidays:

Gomez and Morticia Addams have a baby, and they name him Pubert. After a number of failed attempts by his siblings Wednesday and Pugsley to kill him, Gomez and Morticia gently rebuke them and
hire the nanny Debbie Jellinsky to care for Pubert, not aware that Debbie is a serial killer who marries and then murders rich bachelors to collect their inheritances. After she seduces Uncle Fester, Wednesday becomes suspicious of her intentions.
To maintain her cover, Debbie tricks Gomez and Morticia into believing Wednesday and Pugsley want to go to summer camp. They are sent to Camp Chippewa, managed by the bubbly counselors Gary Granger and Becky Martin-Granger. There, they are singled out by the campers, including popular and snobbish girl Amanda Buckman, for their macabre appearance and behavior. Joel Glicker, a nerdy bookworm and fellow outcast, becomes attracted to Wednesday.
Debbie and Fester become engaged. At her bachelorette party, Debbie is repulsed by the Addams family and their relatives. At their wedding, Fester passionately and with great emotion declares his everlasting devotion, while Debbie offers a lackluster response. On their honeymoon, she tries unsuccessfully to kill Fester by throwing a boombox into the bathtub. Frustrated, Debbie forces him to cut ties with his family; when they try to visit Fester and Debbie at their home, they are turned away. The Addamses are alarmed to find that Pubert has transformed into a blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked and blond-haired baby. Grandmama attributes this to his disrupted family life, and Gomez becomes horribly depressed.
Back at Camp Chippewa, the counselors cast Wednesday as Pocahontas in Gary's Thanksgiving play, "A Turkey Named Brotherhood". When she refuses to participate, she, Pugsley, and Joel are all sent to the camp's "Harmony Hut" and forced to watch hours of wholesome family entertainment movies and television shows. Afterwards, the three feign cheerfulness, and Wednesday agrees to take part.
During the performance, Wednesday returns to being her true self. With help from Joel, Pugsley, and the other outcasts, they capture Amanda, Gary, and Becky by igniting the pilgrim set. Later, Wednesday and Joel share their first kiss before she leaves, with Joel staying behind to lead their friends to ensure the camp's permanent destruction. Pugsley and Wednesday return home in the campsite's stolen van. Meanwhile, Debbie tries to kill Fester by blowing up their mansion, but he survives. She then pulls a gun and reveals that she never loved him and was only after his money. Thing helps Fester escape.
Fester later apologizes to Gomez at the Addams mansion, Wednesday and Pugsley return, successfully reuniting the family at last. Just then, Debbie arrives, holds them at gunpoint, and straps them into electric chairs to kill them all. The Addams family listens to her sympathetically, as she explains that as a child and young (self-proclaimed) ballerina, she killed her generous and doting parents, Sharon and Dave, after they gave her a Malibu Barbie doll on her 10th birthday rather than her desired Ballerina Barbie. Then, as an adult, she murdered her first two husbands for incredibly frivolous and materialistic reasons.
Pubert, now restored to his normally pale and mustachioed self, escapes from his crib with a knife and reaches the family via a series of improbable events. As Debbie lowers the switch to electrocute the Addamses, Pubert connects two loose wires, rerouting the electrical current through her instead, destroying her in spectacular fashion. All that remains are a pile of ashes, her shoes, and her credit cards—the means of the family's salvation.
Some time later, the Addamses and their relatives gather to celebrate Pubert's first birthday, with Joel also attending. Fester laments Debbie's loss, but soon becomes smitten with Dementia, a new nanny that Cousin Itt and his wife Margaret Alford have hired for their child. Out in the family graveyard, Joel attempts to ask Wednesday out by asking about having a future with a husband, though she turns him down. She then tells him Debbie was a sloppy husband killer, and that Wednesday would have scared her husband to death and made sure not to be caught. As he lays flowers on Debbie's grave, a hand emerges from the earth and grabs him, prompting Wednesday to smile as he screams.

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