The ‘Burbs

PLOT (spoiler alert!!!):

The movie opens at night, on Mayfield Place, a cul-de-sac in the fictional suburban town of Hinckley Hills. Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) awakens to strange noises coming from his mysterious new neighbors’ house and goes outside to investigate. On his way back inside, he sees the cigar-smoking Vietnam veteran Lt. Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) watching the Klopeks’ house from his bedroom window. The following morning, Ray watches Queenie, Walter Seznik’s (Gale Gordon) dog, defecate on Rumsfield’s lawn. Moments later, Rumsfield comes out and accidentally steps on it, causing a scene with Walter. Later, Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) almost kills Ray while attempting to shoot some crows, then invites himself into Ray’s home for breakfast. Ray and Art attempt to speak with their new neighbors, the Klopeks, but are thwarted by an attack of bees.

That evening, Art and Ray spy on the Klopeks. They, together with Rumsfield, watch Hans Klopek (Courtney Gains) drive his dilapidated Pontiac from the garage to the curb, then pull a large, heavy garbage bag from the car, place it in a garbage can and bang it with a stick. During the night, Ray watches the Klopeks digging in their back yard with pick-axes in the middle of a rainstorm. The following morning, Art runs out to check the contents of the garbage truck as it is collecting the Klopek’s can from the previous night. He is soon joined by Rumsfield and Ray, but their search in the hope of finding human remains is futile.

Bonnie (Wendy Schaal), Rumsfield’s wife, finds Queenie running loose and wonders if Walter went away and forgot to feed her. Ray, Art, Bonnie and Ricky (Corey Feldman) go to Walter’s house and Rumsfield lets them in. Inside, they find Walter’s toupee. Noting that the television was left on and a chair was turned over, Art and Rumsfield begin to worry. Ray collects Queenie and leaves a note for Walter explaining that he has his dog. The following night, Ray and Art have a meeting in the Petersons’ basement and theorize about Walter’s disappearance.

The following morning, Rumsfield and Art write a note to the Klopeks and slip it under their door. Art goes next door to tell Ray of the deed, which upsets him. As Ray talks to Art, Ray’s dog Vince brings to them a bone he dug up from under the fence. Art identifies the bone as a femur, and believes it to belong to Walter. At the request of Carol (Carrie Fisher), Ray’s wife, she, Ray, Rumsfield and Bonnie pay the Klopeks a visit. Art, intentionally not invited, snoops around in the Klopeks’ back yard while the visitors meet Hans, Reuben (Brother Theodore) and Werner (The Doctor) (Henry Gibson) inside. Later that evening, Ray has a meeting with Art and Rumsfield and reveals that he found Walter’s toupee in the Klopeks’ basement the previous day after he had earlier slipped it back through Walter’s mailbox. The trio agree to investigate the contents of the Klopeks’ back yard when the owners leave in the morning.

As the Klopeks leave for a meeting at the university, Carol and her son Dave (Cory Danziger) go to visit Carol’s sister, Evelyn, leaving Ray free to explore the Klopeks’ backyard. Their first order of business is to disable the Klopeks’ security system. The result ends up almost electrocuting Art, but ends up disabling the alarm while also cutting off the power to the entire neighborhood. Art and Ray then jump over their fence into the Klopeks’ yard while Rumsfield watches the proceedings from the roof of his house. After hours of digging and finding nothing incriminating, Ray and Art venture into the Klopek house, where they discover in the basement a furnace with a capability of reaching a temperature of 5,000 degrees. Ray then begins to dig into the loose soil that constitutes the basement floor, believing there may be dead bodies buried there.

That evening, the Klopeks drive back to their home, only to reverse out when they see lights on in the basement. Not long after, Rumsfield, Art and Ricky are perturbed to see Walter return home. Then the Klopeks return with the police and Art tells Ricky to delay them while he goes into the Klopeks’ home and rescues Ray. Ray hits a gas line with his pick-axe while continuing to dig out the basement floor. He yells for Art to flee right before the house explodes into flames with Ray still inside. A few minutes later, a disheveled Ray emerges from the flames just as his wife returns from dropping Dave at her sister’s house.

Art talks to an officer, who explains that Walter had a medical problem and his family took him to the hospital. While away, Walter had made arrangements for the Klopeks to pick up his mail. When Ray had previously slipped the toupee back through the mail slot, it got picked up with the mail and newspapers. Ray is read the charges against him and ignores them in favor of admiring Carol’s new hairstyle. Ray then snaps at Art and gives his “We’re the lunatics, not them” speech, before lunging at Art and then throwing himself into an ambulance on a gurney.

As Ray is about to conclude that he and the neighbors were wrong about the Klopeks, Werner Klopek joins Ray in the ambulance a short while later. Werner, thinking Ray must have seen the skull of one of his former neighbors in the basement, attempts to murder Ray to collect his skull too, revealing that Art was right all along about the Klopeks. Hans assumes the role of the ambulance driver, but crashes into the Weingartners’ house during the three-way struggle. The gurney, with Ray and Werner aboard, rolls out of the ambulance and down the street. Ray makes a citizen’s arrest on his would-be murderer as Ricky uncovers a large selection of bones in the Klopeks’ trunk. The Klopeks are then arrested and the charges against Ray are dropped

REVIEW:

 When I was growing up, I remember seeing the trailer for this flick and wanting to see it. For some reason, I never had the chance, and over the years, forgot about it. I wonder why. Anyway, after all these years, I was finally able to watch The ‘Burbs.

I suppose you’re asking yourself, was it worth the wait? Well, I won’t go that far, but at the same time, I won’t say it wasn’t. If that has you confused, then you’re ready to watch this film.

The plot revolves around paranoid, nosey neighbors living in a suburban neighborhood and are skeptical of their new neighbors who just moved in because they haven’t bothered to come out and say hello. How rude, right?

Well, for some reason, I wouldn’t be surprised if some people in my neighborhood thought the same about me since I don’t exactly socialize with them. Then again, same goes for them.

They say this is a comedy, but I didn’t really find myself laughing. There were a couple of guffaw moments, at best. Having said that, this isn’t exactly a horror or drama flick, either. Not really sure where one would categorize this.

Something about this story that is odd has to be the way they shoved the twist at the end in there. It was pretty much assumed by everyone that was the case, but they could have very well ended the film and left it a mystery without adding an extra 5 minutes or so of forced footage in there. That’s just how I saw it, at least.

Tom Hanks does his usual schtick of being a lovable guy that everyone will just about bend over backwards for.

Corey Feldman is actually in a movie without Corey Haim that isn’t The Goonies.

Carrie Fisher, although in a small supporting role, has never looked better, outside of her bikini from Return of the Jedi. On top of that, she commanded your attention when she was on the screen.

Who knew that Wendy Schaal, who voices Francine on American Dad, looked as good as some of the characters she has voiced?

Henry Gibson is great, as always, except for that last scene that I mentioned, of course.

So, what do I ultimately think of The’Burbs? Well, I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would, but I did find myself riveted either by the sheer audacity of these guys or by the fact that this very thing could happen in any neighborhood on any given week. Is this a great film? No, but it is pretty good and worth watching if you ever get the chance.

3 out of 5 stars