The ‘Burbs (1989, Dir. Joe Dante)
Synopsis:
In the quiet little cul-de-sac of Mayfield Place, Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) and some his neighbors have become concerned about the new family, The Klopeks, who have moved into the house next door to Ray. They hear strange noises coming from the Klopek‘s basement and see them digging in the garden and taking their garbage out in the dead of night. When Ray’s elderly neighbor, Walter, is suddenly nowhere to be found, Ray and the others begin to suspect the Klopeks might have murdered him. But are the Klopeks really up to no good, or has Ray and the other neighbors distrust of new people simply gotten the better of them?
It’s become traditional for me to post about a horror movie, or horror-related film, around the time of Halloween, however this year I‘ve picked this vastly underrated film, which mixes comedy with a bit of horror, as well as dash of social commentary.
I‘d be the first to admit that it can take me a while to „warm up“ to certain films and this movie, which I first saw on video in my early teens at a friend’s house around the time of it’s release, left me cold. Not only that, it also had so little impression on me that for many years all I would remember about it is the stunning opening shot where the camera passes seamlessly through the Universal Pictures Logo and down through the planet until we reach the nondescript suburban neighborhood where the film takes place. It’s basically a reverse version of the famous Powers Of Ten short film made by Charles and Ray Eames back in the 1960s. When this film was released in 1989, at the dawn of the CGI revolution, this shot was breathtaking and it still holds up today. In a way, it’s unsurprising that this was all I remembered from the film, as does almost overpower everything else in the film. Fast forward several decades and I happen to spot a DVD of the film at bargain price and bought it on whim. After watching it several times as an adult, however, I came to adore the film and now rank it up there with director Joe Dante’s very best work.
Watching it from it from the perspective of an adult, it’s easy why so many of the film’s most brilliant moments, the grown ups acting like children and the movie homages to everyone from Hitchcock to Sergio Leone went over my head, but these are precisely the moments that I most love whilst watching the film today. I love the reactions of Ray’s neighbours, Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) and Art (Rick Ducomunn) when Ray‘s wife, played by the always wonderful Carrie Fisher, tells them Ray „can’t come out today“. They skulk away like two scolded children, with Art scuffing and kicking his feet as he walks away – such a great reaction. Or the fabulously awkward scene where the neighbours go round to the Klopeks to welcome them to the neighborhood.
These are just highlights, however in a film full of wonderful performances from Dante regulars like Corey Feldman, Wendy Schaal, Robert Picardo and the late, great Dick Miller (who passed away at the beginning of this year aged 90), as well as a wonderfully performance by Altman regular, Henry Gibson as the creepy Dr Klopek. It’s a shame, in a way, that Tom Hanks now only seems to want to do serious roles, as watching this, one is constantly reminded of what an incredibly gifted comic actor he was at the beginning of his career. His performance here as Ray, a typical everyman, who has the same problems as most of us is spot on. His onscreen marriage to Carrie Fisher‘s Carol (the two of them had previously worked together, two years earlier, in the disappointing spy comedy, The Man With One Red Shoe) is touchingly believable and also a good reminder that Fisher was far more than „just“ Princess Leia.
If the film’s cul-de-sac of Mayfield Place looks familiar to you, then it’s with good reason. Filmed on the Universal Pictures backlot, the same street had been used for both the Munsters and Leave it to Beaver tv series before later on becoming Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives. All of which are mentioned in this clip from a retrospective documentary made for the recent Arrow Video Blu-Ray:
Dante’s regular musical collaborator, the wonderful Jerry Goldsmith, is once more on hand to provide another fabulous score, full of nods to Bernard Herrmann‘s scores for Hitchcock and the classic Universal horror films of the past, with the score’s use of organ and even referencing his own score for Patton, in the scenes featuring Ray’s neighbor Rumsfield. I always get the sense that Goldsmith must have really enjoyed scoring Dante’s films, working with a cine-literate director, who gave him plenty of freedom and opportunities to have fun and which shows in the scores he created. People often mention Goldsmith‘s score for Gremlins but I think his work here is far superior.
Ultimately, there’s a lot of reasons for discovering or re-discovering this vastly underrated film from a director, who Hollywood now seems to have forgotten about: Great cast, wonderful performances in a well made, well written film; with sharp editing photography and music. In a way, this marked a downturn in Dante’s career, with later films such as Matinee, Gremlins 2 and Small Soldiers failing to find an audience in the way his earlier work did. I‘d place this among the very best of his films along with The Howling, Gremlins and Explorers and well worth getting to know.
