The Hoovers (Little Miss Sunshine)
The Family: Three generations of weirdos, from a pornography obsessed grandfather to a pathologically silent teenager, via a suicidal uncle.
At least they love each other!
Strangest Member: The grandfather might have a heart of gold, but teaching a small child a dance routine he picked up in a strip joint… it’s a bit odd.
The Codys (Animal Kingdom)
The Family: A brutally unhinged family of murderous Melbourne crims, presided over by the twin terrors of terrifying matriarch Janine, and her dead-eyed son, Pope.
Strangest Member: Janine, who lurches from twinkly-eyed cheer to cold-blooded ruthlessness at the flick of a switch.
The McFlys (Back To The Future)
The Family: Marty McFly’s homelife is fairly normal, until he gets transported back to the fifties and finds his mother lusting after him like a dog on heat.
Yuck.
Strangest Member: George McFly, whose idea of courtship is leering through the window at his intended from the cover of a nearby tree.
The Griswolds (National Lampoons)
The Family: The perma-bickering Griswold clan, who seem to find themselves embroiled in no end of amusing scrapes.
Particularly set on family holidays, no matter how disastrous their past experiences.
Strangest Member: Clark Griswold, whose obsession with crafting the perfect family holiday becomes a bit unnerving after a while.
The Torrances (The Shining)
The Family: An alcoholic dad, whiny mum and psychologically troubled child all hole up in a haunted hotel together over the winter months.
What could possibly go wrong?
Strangest Member: Little Danny, the luckless child with an unwanted psychic ability known as “the shine”.
It mostly manifests itself through hideously violent visions, which doesn’t do much for his mental state.
The Stewarts (The Others)
The Family: Psychologically disturbed matriarch Grace, and her two sickly children, Charles and Anne.
Pretty weird because… SPOILER ALERT… they’re all ghosts. Woooooo!
Strangest Member: Grace, who brought about their spectral status by smothering the two children and then blowing her brains out.
The Herculeses (Forbidden Zone)
The Family: A deranged bunch of weirdos, who are just about as odd as any family harbouring a door to another dimension in their cellar are likely to be.
Strangest Member: Gramps, a former wrestler named Killer Rosenblatt, who has to be tied up in order to prevent him from eating anybody.
Every family has one.
The Corleones (The Godfather)
The Family: America’s primo clan of mafiosos, all of whom profess the importance of family, before gradually tearing themselves apart.
Not many of them live to see old age…
Strangest Member: Michael, who finds himself grossly corrupted by power, and stoops so low as to sign his brother’s death warrant.
Whatever would Vito say?
The Hillards (Mrs. Doubtfire)
The Family: A broken home, courtesy of father Daniel’s feckless clowning and inability to provide his wife with the stability she so craves.
Not that weird on the face of it, until we get into Daniel’s plan to win them back…
Strangest Member: Daniel, who decides that dressing as an elderly woman and conning his way back into the bosom of the family is a recipe for domestic bliss.
The Family (Sitcom)
The Family: A perfectly happy nuclear unit who inexplicably go haywire following the purchase of a pet rat.
Sexual depravity ahoy!
Strangest Member: The mother, who repeatedly attempts to seduce her newly-gay son back into being straight.
As mentioned earlier, this rarely works…
