Addams Family Values - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

"Well, isn't he a lady killer!" 
"Acquitted!"

About a year ago I was privileged enough to be the guy that got to review Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1991 The Addams Family on 4K UHD. I dearly love that movie and was left wondering how long it would take for the even darker and funnier Addams Family Values to come home to 4K disc. The answer turned out to be about a year. Now as we’re about to enjoy Halloween 2024, this amazing sequel proves once again it’s of the rare variety that’s actually darker, funnier, and better than the first film. 

As the Addamses settle into a new life with little newborn Pubert, Wednesday (Christina Ricci), Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) work to figure out a new pecking order to gain the attention of their increasingly romance-starved parents Gomez (Raul Julia), and Morticia (Anjelica Huston). Meanwhile, Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) is busy pitching woo for the new nanny Debbie (Joan Cusack) who has more than a few skeletons in her closet. When the kids are sent to summer camp, they’ll have to survive the feel-good onslaught of camp directors Gary and Becky Martin-Granger (Peter MacNicol and Christine Baranski) as the rest of the family learns to cope with Fester's blind love. 

Addams Family Values is one of the rare comedies that successfully returned to the well. It's tough to bottle lightning once, it's nearly impossible to do it twice. But, here we are! This film didn’t have the baggage of reintroducing the world to America's favorite family. It didn’t have to figure out if Uncle Fester was really who he said he was. There wasn’t the push and pull behind the scenes to nail the tone. The first movie proved Barry Sonnenfeld knew how to handle the material and with the help of writer Paul Rudnick, he could ratchet up the demented sense of humor for a sequel. 

Right from the start this film is one joke and gag after another with expert timing. The simple exposition ends with a great one-liner. Basic character development ends with a gag. Every plot beat ends on a joke. Nearly every scene ends with some kind of pun, one-liner, or sight gag to pull a laugh. Impressively enough, nearly every joke lands. The pace may slow a tad for the middle part, but that’s all because it’s saving some of the biggest laughs for the final act including the now excruciatingly hilarious recreation of the first Thanksgiving via Wednesday Addams. 

As I mentioned in my long-ago Double Feature Blu-ray review, I love both The Addams Family and Addams Family Values. I think they’re both incredibly funny films that handily withstand repeat viewings. There’s something about Sonnenfeld’s comedic energy, this great cast, the sharp comedic timing, great editing, and devious tone that help them endure as ‘90s comedy classics. But if I’m really going to stand up and pick one over the other, I have to go with this sequel. But then again, you have yourself one hell of a double feature if you stack them back to back! 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Addams Family Values haunts its first single-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray release from Paramount Home Entertainment. Pressed on a BD66 disc, the disc is housed in a standard black case with identical slipcover art featuring metallic accents. The disc loads to a static image main menu with standard navigation options. 

Much like the first film, Addams Family Values is a sort of mixed bag of visual tricks. From sped-up frame rates to early CGI compositing, to classic optical effects, the film can have the occasional visual inconsistency here and there, but boy does this 4K Dolby Vision transfer give us the best home video presentation yet! Again like the first film, it’s immediately clear that a lot of work went into this transfer with vastly improved detail clarity and a more natural and cinematic film grain presence with deep rich inky blacks and shadows. Facial features, clothing textures and details, and production design, all are on display. And thanks to a chunk of the film taking place at a summer camp, we have a lot of amazing colors to appreciate as well. Dolby Vision HDR is smartly applied highlighting all of the best aspects of the transfer. Now again, like the first film, some of the effects plates don’t quite spark to life, but that’s more to do with limitations with the technology at the time than a fault in the transfer. So it might not look flawless, but compared to past releases, it looks amazing. 

Now on the audio side of the spectrum, we have what sounds like the same DTS-HD MA 5.1 track from the two-film Blu-ray set. Doing the disc flippies I didn’t notice any difference. But that’s just fine since it’s a great mix. We get all of the audio gags, clean dialog, the fantastic Marc Shaiman score, and all of Uncle Fester’s howls with excellent clarity. It’s a nice active surround mix that is far more focused on selling the comedy and gags than arbitrarily delivering a wall-to-wall experience. That isn’t to say it isn’t immersive, but the channel usage is purposeful and employed for maximum impact.

On deck for bonus features, we don’t have a lot but we have a couple of great bits to dig through. First up we have a new, terrific, funny, and informative audio commentary with director Barry Sonnenfeld and writer Paul Rudnick. The pair deliver a ton of information about the making of the film, the cast, the incredible cameos, and the casting of various actors. They clearly sound like they’re having a tremendous time watching the film together. Next is a short, but nice retrospective look at the film featuring archival interviews. It’s a newly made bit since it uses HD clips of the films. It’s not a very deep look at the film, but it’s workable. 

• Audio Commentary featuring Barry Sonnenfeld and Paul Rudnick
• Crafting Family Values (HD 10:29)

Addams Family Values is the rare sequel that takes everything that worked in the first film and makes a better sequel. From the crisp writing and witty dialog to the zany plot, the formula for this generation of Addamses was perfected. Sadly with the untimely passing of Raul Julia soon after its release, we’ll never know what could have happened with a third feature. Now Paramount brings this fantastic silly fright flick to 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray. Like the first film’s debut on the 4K format, we’re treated to an excellent Dolby Vision-enhanced upgrade with solid audio. We might not get a lot of extras, but that commentary is dynamite! Snap your fingers and order your copy in time for Halloween - Highly Recommended