The wind howls late at night. There is a rumble next door. Ray Peterson walks outside barefoot and is greeted by the sight of a blinding light coming from the basement of the new family next door's home. The glow of Old Man Rumsfeld's cigar shines through the second story window of his home across the street. Trouble is brewing in suburbia in Joe Dante's extremely underrated dark comedy classic, "The 'Burbs." Tom Hanks stars as Ray Peterson, a man obsessed with finding out who and what his neighbors, the Klopeks, are up to.
Peterson is on vacation and spending time at home in Hinkley Hills, Missouri. Specifically, his cul-de-sac neighborhood street of Mayfield Place. Along with his other neighbors and friends Mark Rumsfeld (the incomparable Bruce Dern) and Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun), the three begin to keep a watchful eye on the new family on the street, the mysterious Klopeks, who never seem to come outside or water their lawn. Their young neighbor Ricky (Corey Feldman) is home alone while his parents are away and along for the ride of joy and entertainment everything unfolding on his street is bringing him. At the end of the street, the elderly Walter (Gale Gordon) missing without a trace as they begin to notice even more strange behavior from the Klopeks such as the youngest member of the family (Courtney Gains) driving up to the curb, dumping a large black trash bag in the trash container, and then beating the hell out of it to get it to fit in the trash can, getting back in the car and driving back into their garage. One night, Ray sees them digging in his backyard. The trio begin to suspect that the Klopeks were involved in Walter's disappearance and soon begin to get to the bottom of it by any means necessary.
Rick Ducommun and Tom Hanks find more than they bargained for when snooping around their new neighbors' business in Joe Dante's "The 'Burbs"
I can not begin to describe how excellent the cast of this film is. Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, and Rick Ducommun are all perfect as their characters plus Carrie Fisher and Wendy Schaal excellently play off of their husbands as Mrs. Peterson and Mrs. Rumsfeld respectively. The old paranoid Rumselfd is a retired Army Lieutenant that still salutes the flag as he raises it every morning. A huge key to the comedy and brilliance of this film is the score by legendary film score composer Jerry Goldsmith, who actually uses his theme from "Patton" for Rumsfeld and it absolutely sells the character living out his military dream on the comfort of his front lawn or in some scenes on top of his roof.
An absolutely beautiful scene takes place one evening when Ray steps out to walk the dog and runs into Art and Ricky. They recall their childhood and tell a story about a man named Skip, who ran the local soda fountain. He snapped one day and killed his entire family. Feldman, Hanks, and Ducommun bring an air of seriousness to the scene that reminded me of some of the local legends around my hometown of Oxnard. Everyone has a Skip or something of that nature in their town or even their street. Local legends often serve as morality tales or a way to scare kids into getting them to go to bed early. And just as we're pulled into Art's story, we're pulled back out in a brilliant fashion that is cheap, smart, and perfectly played. Hanks plays the character of Ray with enough sly with to make him come alive and seem like a man we've known for ages. Art is a perfect foil to him as the conspiracy theory believing neighbor. The personality coming from the screen is just too much to handle! The Klopeks themselves are played by Henry Gibson as Dr. Werner Klopek, Brother Theodore as Uncle Ruben, and Courtney Gains as Hans.
Brother Theodore as Uncle Ruben Klopek
The scene where the neighbors invite themselves in is pure comedy gold and dark humor galore as our characters enter the lion's den, the new world (for all of you screenwriter's out there). We find out in this scene that Werner is a medical doctor with an appreciation for art. He says that the Knapps, the previous neighbors moved out in a hurry. Gibson, a normally welcoming presence, turns the creep factor to 11 as the head of the Klopek Clan. Joe Dante takes a regular suburban street and turns it on its side in so many ways that I hardly realize the film takes place on the same street, even after repeat viewings. Like the characters on the screen, the audience gets to live in this world for about two hours and the rest of the world does not matter. By not showing anything away from Mayfield Place, Dante reminds us that the rest of the world doesn't matter for the time being. Our world is comprised of these characters, the street, and the mystery of what happened to Walter.
Maestro Jerry Goldsmith's score, as I had mentioned above, sells this film. His music is light and romantic when need be, but easily twists around makes the Klopeks super - melodramatic with a theme written for high strings and pipe organ, making their appearances comedic and dark at the same time. He approached the film straight, as if we were watching Van Helsing fighting Dracula to the tune of something darkly romantic and evoking Beethoven. Goldsmith's ability to morph his style and sound from one film to the next proves that he was one of the best composers ever to walk the face of the earth and I'm daring enough to say that this is some of his best work.
With a PG rating and a runtime of 101 minutes, you'd think that everything "The 'Burbs" was up against would actually work against the film. However, the opposite is true. This picture is funny, charming, creepy, exciting and most important of all, Joe Dante never tries once to make this movie seem as it exists in reality. It has a very romantic cinematic quality that not many comedies or even horror movies strive for anymore.
8/10
Directed by Joe Dante
Written by Dana Olsen
Runtime - 101 minutes
6.6 of 10 stars on IMDb
46% on Rotten Tomatoes
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