By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
Why Watch This Movie With Your Students
Here's what your students naturally take away from the movie, whether through themes, values, ideas, or perspectives.
🖤 A family that celebrates being different rather than hiding it. The Addamses are openly strange by any outside standard, and the movie treats that as something to enjoy rather than correct. Students see a family whose confidence comes from within, not from resembling anyone else.
🔍 A mystery built around a possible impostor. The question of whether Fester is really who he claims to be runs underneath the entire movie, giving students a clear thread of suspicion and evidence to follow scene by scene.
💀 Dark comedy that never turns genuinely mean spirited. The movie's humor leans into macabre and morbid subject matter, but the family's affection for each other keeps the tone playful rather than cruel. Students see how tone and intention shape how dark content actually lands.
👨👩👧👦 A married couple whose devotion anchors the story. Gomez and Morticia's relationship is presented as passionate and unwavering throughout, giving the family's chaos a stable emotional center.
🎭 A visually distinct gothic style that stands apart from typical Halloween movies. The movie's sets, costuming, and tone create a specific aesthetic built around embracing the macabre, giving students a clear example of how visual style can reinforce a story's themes.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG-13.
📋 A free editable parent permission slip is available for this movie. It explains the educational benefits of watching movies in class and includes a space for parental consent. → Download Free Permission Slip on TpT (Free resource)
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- Frequent dark comedic violence involving weapons and torture devices, played for laughs rather than genuine peril.
- A stage performance includes fake blood sprayed across an audience.
- Strong flirtation and sexual innuendo between the married couple at the center of the story.
- Mild language, including damn, hell, and God used as an exclamation, along with some name-calling.
- A character smokes a cigar, and adults are shown drinking alcohol without being portrayed as drunk.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
📚 English Language Arts Teachers. The Addams Family fits ELA classes studying mystery structure, character voice, or dark comedy, since the guide's comprehension questions track the plot in chronological order alongside three separate creative writing tasks. Three sets of differentiated questions make it straightforward to place students at the right level of challenge for a mixed ability classroom.
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers. The guide's multiple choice comprehension set works well with ESL and ELL students, giving them a structured, lower barrier way to follow the plot alongside the rest of the class. The creative writing tasks also give language learners additional opportunities to practice descriptive and narrative writing tied to the same story.
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons. The differentiated comprehension questions and creative writing tasks are self-explanatory enough for students to work through with minimal guidance, making this a solid option to leave with a substitute teacher.
🏠 Homeschool Parents. The Addams Family is a natural home learning choice around Halloween. The creative writing task in Part 2, in which students design a profile for a newly arrived long-lost relative, is the kind of open-ended activity that home learners can spend extended time on. The three-level comprehension sets let a parent match the questions to the child's level.
🌟 Supporting All Learners Movie guides can be a wonderfully calm fit for students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities. The structured format gives every student a clear purpose during viewing, easing uncertainty and allowing them to engage at their own pace. If you teach in a special education or learning support setting, you may find this guide a gentle and practical resource. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 15-page classroom-ready resource.
Part 1: Comprehension Questions
Three sets of chronological comprehension questions for differentiation: a 40 question set, a 30 question set with 10 questions removed from the full set, and a 30 question multiple choice set with 3 possible answers. Answer keys are included for all three sets.
Part 2: Creative Writing
Students complete a profile of a long lost relative who turns up at Fester's farewell party, including a drawing and writing about the relative's life story and future plans. They also write about Gomez and Morticia's relationship, covering how they met, their wedding day, and their honeymoon. The final task asks students to create a recipe for one of Granny's breakfasts, including ingredients, equipment, and directions.
Part 3: Just for Fun
A word search and a 10 question crossword puzzle based on the movie, with 5 additional words to find in the word search. An answer key is included.
“Excellent variety of tasks. Questions and activities helped me assess students learning properly. Students really enjoyed the recipe activity!”
— Darci D.
“This product has a different level! Very good!”
— Julie D.
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
A movie is not a break from learning. It reaches students through sight, sound, and story at once, engaging the brain in ways text alone does not, and the structured work around it is what turns the viewing into a genuine lesson. You can read the research behind this on the Why Movies Work page.
- A Teacher Notes and General Directions page opens the guide with a brief overview of everything inside: what the movie is about, then each part of the guide in order with a short description of what it entails. You know what to expect from the whole resource before you hand out a single page, so you can pick up the guide cold and teach it the same day.
- Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets, so grading is quick and you are not rewatching the movie to check answers. Some guides also include example answers for the creative and written activities.
- Print and go: classroom ready, with no additional preparation needed. Print one the morning you need it and the lesson is ready.
- Substitute and first-timer friendly. A guide can be handed to a substitute or picked up by a teacher covering the topic for the first time. Nobody running the session needs to have seen the movie.
- Differentiated comprehension sets. Most guides include two or three question sets at different difficulty levels, and most include a multiple-choice option that works well for ESL and ELL students. One class set covers your strongest readers, your strugglers, and your language learners without separate prep.
- Activities that go beyond recall. Each guide includes structured activities that ask students to engage with the movie, not just watch it, ranging from creative and written tasks to discussion and critical thinking questions depending on the guide. That variety matters in a mixed classroom: a student who freezes on a written question set may show real understanding through a drawing or a creative task, and a confident writer gets room to go beyond recall. For the teacher, it turns a movie session into work that can actually be assessed: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
