There are many, many holiday-themed movies to choose from, but not a whole ton that are specifically oriented around the US’s Thanksgiving holiday. One particular perennial Thanksgiving favorite, though, is the darkly hilarious Addams Family Values, the second movie adaptation of the old Addams Family sitcom from the 1960s, and the progenitor to Netflix’s Wednesday. And this fall, Addams Family Values is getting a 4K Blu-ray release for the very first time, 31 years after it was originally released in 1993. You could watch it on Thanksgiving and then jump right into the Christmas season with How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which is also releasing on 4K Blu-ray for the first time the same day.
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Addams Family Values lands on 4K Blu-ray on October 29, and the release will include a digital copy code.
In this story, the spooky Addams Family–Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Wednesday, Pugsley and Grandmama–welcome a new member of the family, Gomez and Morticia’s new baby Pubert. They hire a nanny named Debbie to take care of Pubert, but it turns out she’s a serial killer who plans to seduce, marry and then murder Uncle Fester. One part of her plan involves sending Wednesday and Pugsley to a sleepaway camp, where they have to put on a Thanksgiving play–it’s one to remember, and a big part of the reason Addams Family Values is a cult classic to this day.
Another major contributor is the way that Addams Family Values balances out its extremely dark sense of humor with a light tone–it’s a balance that many films have attempted, but few have actually achieved, with Addams Family Values being a rare example of one that pulled it off.
The Addams Family franchise has been around for a very long time–the titular family first appeared in a comic strip in The New Yorker in 1938, and then was adapted into a sitcom that ran for two seasons starting in 1964, followed by animated series in 1973 and 1992, two live-action movies and a live-action TV series in the 1990s, a pair of animated films in 2019 and 2021, and also the 2022 Wednesday series on Netflix, which could very well be the most popular iteration of the franchise
With this 4K release, Addams Family Values finally joins its somewhat less dark and cynical predecessor, The Addams Family, which was released on 4K a few years ago, in both standard packaging and a steelbook edition. On top of that, Wednesday is one of the very few Netflix series to receive a Blu-ray release, and it’s going for half off at the moment. So if you don’t want to wait for Addams Family Values 4K to arrive in October, you’ve got some other options in the meantime.
Speaking of Netflix series with Blu-ray releases, two popular animated shows based on video games are slated to launch in October, too. Arcane, the beloved animated show set in the League of Legends universe, will be getting a 4K Blu-ray release with a limited-edition steelbook case on October 8. On the same day, Castlevania: Nocturne will launch on 1080p Blu-ray, and preorders are discounted at Amazon.
