Christopher Lloyd names his most overlooked movie: “Strange, yes, but I liked it a lot”
With Halloween on the horizon, it gives us an excuse to watch as many spooky things as humanly possible, from actual proper horror to more family-based creepiness, a good example of which are the Addams Family movies from the early 1990s, starring Anjelica Huston and the legend that is Christopher Lloyd.
Lloyd was coming off the back of the massively successful Back to the Future trilogy when the first Addams Family film was made in 1991, and he took on the role of the much-loved Uncle Fester on a production that, while a big hit with audiences, proved a nightmare to get made.
Plagued by issues including malfunctioning make-up effects, a blood vessel bursting in the lead actor’s eye, a studio running out of money and a director of photography who replaced the original person only to then having to be taken to hospital for weeks, it’s a wonder the film got made in the first place.
But once it did, it was a huge hit, bringing in six times what it cost to make at the box office and necessitating a sequel, Addams Family Values, two years later, which did almost as well, and then a third movie, which went straight to video and isn’t even worth talking about, honestly.
It didn’t mark the end of Lloyd’s enjoyment at portraying the undead however, as not only did he play an angel in a TV movie four years later, he also portrayed a zombie in a 2001 comedy called When Good Ghouls Go Bad, plus he voiced a dog returned from the grave, and a body who comes back to life in a film called Cadaver. At this point, it might be worth examining whether Lloyd has spent more time dead than alive on screen.
In between all the ghostly goings on, though, he also took on plenty of other less ‘not-breathing’ parts, and it seems one of his favourites was an Andy Garcia movie from 1995, that also featured Christopher Walken.
He told AVClub: “Well, I feel that way sometimes about Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead. I feel like… There are people who love it, and that’s another one that has sort of a cult following, but I would’ve liked to have seen that make a bigger imprint on the audience. It’s another one I loved doing, but I just thought it was a uniquely written, performed, and directed film. Strange, yes. But I liked it a lot.”
Released just a year after Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, it suffered from comparisons as well as a pretty dark plot and it was a total flop on release, recouping just half a million dollars from a budget of more than six.
Although Lloyd’s performance was more than passable, it certainly wasn’t anywhere near his first foray into film, which came with 1975’s incredible Jack Nicholson movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, where he played one of the mental patients on Nurse Ratched’s ward.
It was the role that got him noticed and led to his initial career working extensively on TV, especially alongside Danny DeVito in the much-loved network sitcom Taxi, which scooped numerous awards, including two Emmys for Lloyd.
Most recently, he’s returned to the Addams Family world with the Netflix show Wednesday, although rather than Uncle Fester, he plays the creepy head-in-a-jar teacher Professor Orloff.
