The 'Burbs

Plot synopsis:
The film starts on a small cul-de-sac suburban neighborhood somewhere in the USA Midwest. Late one evening, Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) is unable to sleep, and a strange noise from the house next door causes him to go outside. However, Ray just stares at the rather unkempt house as a mysterious wind blows dead leaves around his feet, and several more unexplained noises are heard.The next day, Ray's wife Carol (Carrie Fisher) is non-plussed that Ray has chosen to spend his week's vacation just sitting around the house doing nothing. She attempts to convince Ray to take her and their 10-year-old son Dave (Cory Danziger) up to a nearby lake for a fishing retreat, but Ray refuses to do so. Suddenly, the sound of gunshots are heard in the backyard, and Ray sees his overweight and immature neighbor Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) shooting at some crows with a shotgun.Art then invites himself into the Peterson's home for breakfast, and explains that his wife (who is away for a few weeks visiting her parents) wants the crows taken care of. The crows seem have just shown up recently. Talk soon switches to the neighboring house to the right of the Peterson's. The previous neighbors, an elderly couple known as "The Knapps," have supposedly sold their property to a family going by the name of Klopek. Art eerily explains how the realtor who sold the Klopeks their new home, said their last house burnt to the ground. Art also claims that so far, the Klopeks have not seemed at all neighborly, given that no one has seen them since they moved in several weeks ago. Dave then explains that he saw three of them with his telescope... digging in their back yard one night.After breakfast, Ray opens up the garage, and Art notes that one of the Klopeks, a scruffy red-headed young man, (Courtney Gaines) is standing on the porch. Both egg the other on to say "Hi," but the unnamed stranger quickly goes back inside the house. Next, the two decide to go over and ring the doorbell. This causes a chain reaction that causes a lamp to be knocked aside, revealing a hidden beehive that chases off Ray and Art.Later that evening, Ray goes over to Art's place where he also encounters Ricky Butler (Corey Feldman), a teenager on the block whose parents are away. As strange noises begin to eminate from the Klopek's house, Art tells the story of a Soda Fountain owner long ago known as Skip. One day, a strange odor began eminating from Skip's house, and eventually, a fire broke out. When the firemen went inside, they found that the local Soda Fountain owner had murdered his family with an ice pick, and stored them in the basement. Art eerily explains that: "almost every town has some strange mystery like that... some of which may be happening right under your nose."Ray soon tires of Art's antics and goes back inside to watch television. But soon after, Art gets Ray to come back out, where they meet up with Lt. Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern), a militarist Vietnam veteran who lives across the street from the Klopek's. Rumsfield has given the men use of an infrared night scope, and they take up position behind Rumsfield's garbage cans. As they watch the house, a strange noise is head, and bright lights flash from under the house's porch, before a rank odor permeates the air.Ray is about to go across the street and figure out what's going on, when suddenly, the garage door on the Klopek's house opens up, and the three men see a car pull out, and the scruffy man they saw before emerges. He then pulls out several trash bags, and attempts to stuff them into the already full garbage cans, using a stick. Once the car pulls back into the garage, a rain storm hits, and Rumsfield says they'll investigate what is in the cans further once "first light" comes around. Later that evening, Ray looks out his bedroom window, and sees three hooded figures in the Klopek's backyard, digging large holes.The next day, Rumsfield and Art stop the garbage men (Dick Miller and Robert Picardo) from taking the Klopek's trash and dump the trash into the street, but they find nothing in the black plastic bags. Ray then explains what he saw through the rain-streaked window last night. Art then claims that the supposed bodies that were in the trash bags were taken out in the rain, and buried in the backyard when the guy who drove the car saw them.Soon after, Rumsfield's young blonde floozy wife Bonnie (Wendy Schaal) finds Queenie, a little dog belonging to an elderly and grouchy neighbor named Walter Seznick (Gale Gordon). The group goes over to Walter's house, but when he doesn't answer the door, Rumsfield uses a glass-cutter to enter, and they find the television still on, and a chair turned over. Further investigation leads the group to the kitchen, where Walter's toupee is found on a counter. Rumsfield immediately suspects foul play, but Ray demands everyone leave the house. Ray keeps Queenie at his place, and leaves a little note for Walter, which simply reads: "Walter, I have your dog." As he slides the note under Walter's door, Ray glances towards the Klopek's house, and sees an old man (Brother Theodore) watching him from the Klopek's second floor window. When Ray says a greeting, the old man quickly shuts the window.That evening, Ray and Art meet in the basement of Ray's house, where Art has found a book on demon worship and Satanic sacrifices. Art insists that the Klopeks are Satanists, but Ray refuses to believe this. The conversation soon leads Ray to have a nightmare in which he is served up as a sacrifice.The next morning, Art and Rumsfield slide a note under the Klopek's door and ring the bell, before running off. When Art tells Ray about this, Ray panics, thinking that the Klopek's now suspect that he slid the note under the door, given the old Klopek man saw him do it to Walter's house the previous day. The conversation soon stops when Ray's dog returns with a bone, that Art soon classifies as a femur, or a human thigh-bone. Art thinks that the bone is Walter. Ray and Art scream until they see a figure behind the fence of the Klopek house (the old man) walking in the Klopek back yard who throws a crumpled up piece of paper into the back yard of Ray's house. Art goes to look at the paper and says that it's the note that he wrote. Ray panics more, thinking that he is now a marked man, while the immature Art still does not comprehend.Soon after, Carol and Bonnie feel that the guys in the neighborhood are acting childish. Carol proposes a simple solution: everyone will go over, knock on the door, and talk to these new neighbors. Due to Art being one of the more off-the-cuff persons, he is not invited.Ray, Carol, Rumsfield and Bonnie go over to the Klopeks where they meet Hans (the scruffy young man Ray first saw on the porch and driving the car). Minutes later Reuben (the old man Ray saw looking at him from the window) whom is Hans' uncle, soon enters. He is very cold and hostile around the guests, especially Ray. Soon after, Werner Klopek (Henry Gibson) enters to meet their guests. Ray is very nervous thinking that the Klopeks will do something to him now that he is in their house.During drinks, Werner is the more friendly and hospitable of the three. He explains that he is a practicing pathologist at a local university and his older brother Reuben (a retired college professor) and nephew Hans (a college dropout) have been traveling with him from place to place for years during his work. Werner explains that they will be driving to the university tomorrow because they will soon be transferring out of the current university he works at, and the family will be moving again. When the extremely wary Ray accidentally spills tea on himself, he runs and accidentally opens the basement door, only to have the Klopek's huge Great Dane dog come barreling out, and into the backyard... where it quickly spots Art, who had tried to sneak in through the back of the house. The dog chases Art off, but not before he sets off a burglar alarm while climbing over the Klopek's backyard fence.The group leaves the Klopeks and go to the Peterson's house. While Art and Rumsfield still see the Klopek's as psychos and they are hiding something, Ray (who is now strangely calm) claims he agrees with Carol and Bonnie that the Klopeks are all right. Ray then ushers the two men into his study, and then reveals something he found at the Klopeks and hid in his shorts: Walter's toupee. Ray explains that he had slipped the toupee back inside Walter's house the previous day, but when the dog came out of the Klopek's basement and everyone was out on the back porch while the dog was chasing Art, Ray found the toupee in the Klopek living room wedged in a stack of mail... which was addressed to Walter. This leads the three to believe that the Klopeks are trying to cover their murderous trail. Ray explains that the Werner had mentioned that they would all be going to the University the next day, and the three plot to investigate the Klopek's house and back yard, intent on finding Walter's corpse.The next day, after Mark Rumsfield watches the Klopeks, along with their dog, drive away, he gets ready by putting on military fatigues and arming himself with an assault rifle. At the same time, Ray sends his wife and son off to visit her sister, claiming that he and Art are going to play golf later on in the day. Carol is clearly suspicious to Ray's sudden change in behavior, but she leaves anyway. Once they are gone, the three men leap into action. They first attempt to disable the Klopek's alarm system by disabling the power to their house which activates the trip-wires around their backyard fence. When Art, dressed as a maintenance man, climbs up a poll to cut the power, he accidentally cuts the main circuit cable for the entire block (and probably the whole neighborhood) and gets electrocuted and falls from the poll, but the power to the Klopek alarms is disabled anyway. While Rumsfield sets up a "command post" on top of the roof of his house to watch for the Klopeks in case they return, Ray and Art scale the back fence of the Klopeks back yard and begin digging all around the yard looking for any dead bodies.Meanwhile, Ricky, seeing the action unfolding before him, calls several of his friends and they come on over to watch the events unfolding as if watching a drive-in movie. Rumsfield is annoyed by the literal party in the front yard of Ricky's house next door.As the day wears into the hot summer afternoon, Ray and Art, after having dug several holes in the Klopek's back yard where Ray supposedly saw them digging, finds nothing. Ray suggests they check inside the house. Finding the back door locked, the frustrated but determined Ray breaks a back window and unlocks the back door. The two of them venture to the basement where they find a large old furnace. When Art turns it on, it creates a blast of flames which makes them realize that the furnace (with a thermostat temperature of 5,000 F degrees) is no ordinary furnace. Ray suspects that after killing Walter, the Klopeks burned his body up in the furnace and buried the bones in a patch of earth ground of the basement. Ray and Art again begin digging the ground of the basement to look for the body. Ray continues digging for a few more hours as he hits ground water and then finds something metal when he hits with his his pick axe.As nightfall comes, Rumsfield, still on the roof of his house, notices a car pulling up in Walter's driveway where a middle aged couple gets out and to his shock, a frail-looking Walter, using a walker, exits the car. Ricky, watching from his front porch and Art, exiting the Klopek house from the front door into the street, also see Walter alive and are all in shock. But none of them notice the three Klopeks returning to their house. Seeing the lights from the basement on when the whole neighborhood is dark, they quietly drive away and return a few minutes later followed by a police car, which they are then spotted. Rumsfield tries to warn Ray on the CB radio he has, but Ray is still frantically digging and doesn't hear Rumsfield's warning. Art runs back inside the Klopek house to warn Ray, while Ricky tries to stall the Klopeks and the police by literally jumping in front of their cars to get them to stop.In the Klopek basement, when Ray finally tries to clear the ground water away from his find, he hits it again with the pick axe and bubbles start appearing in the groundwater and he realizes that he just hit the underground methane gas line and he warns Art to run when he returns to the basement. Ray struggles to get out of the hole as the gas begins flooding the whole house... while the Klopek furnace is still running. Outside, as Ricky and Rumsfield try to stall the Klopeks and the policeman from entering their house, Art runs outside yelling that they hit a gas pipe when seconds later the entire Klopek house explodes in a huge mass of flames, in which the spire of their roof lands on the policeman's car. Thinking that Ray is dead, Art is revealed when a partly burned Ray emerges from the burning Klopek house.Some hours later, Carol arrives back home to check up on Ray and sees fire trucks, ambulances, and a huge crowd in front of the Klopek house. Carol finds the shaken Ray being treated for his injuries. Nearby, Art talks to a police detective (Franklin Ajay) who tells Art that Walter was at the hospital for the last three days when on Monday night he apparently had a heart attack in which he called his daughter and son-in-law who live a few miles away where they took him to the hospital. The reason why Walter's mail and toupee were in the Klopek house when Ray found them is that Walter's son phoned the Klopeks to ask them to pick up Walter's mail in which the toupee got mixed up with the rest of the magazines and letters when Ray slipped it back through the mail slot of Walter's house.While Art claims that sooner or later the rest of the skeleton to the femur bone will be found eventually, Ray explodes at him claiming that because they never found anything, that the Klopeks really are innocent of any crimes and they have been really immature and over reactive the entire time. When Art still fails to comprehend Ray's explanation, he attacks Art, and has to be retrained. Angry and exhausted, Ray gets into on an ambulance stretcher and demands that they take him to the hospital for further treatment of his injuries.While in the ambulance, Werner Klopek enters, but he is now suddenly cold and suspicious to Ray. Werner tells Ray that he may have fooled Art and the others with his speech about Klopeks, but he cannot fool him. The confused Ray doesn't know what Werner is talking about, and the doctor mentions about Ray investigating his basement and found a skull in the furnace (which Ray didn't prior to Art turning the furnace on). Werner thinks that Ray knows all about the bones and the skull in the furnace and tells Ray that the femur bone that he found indeed belonged to a murder victim whom was Mr. Knapp. Werner tells Ray that they took the house and killed both Mr. and Mrs. Knapp after they refused to sell it to the Klopeks and they apparently cooked the bodies and ate them... implying that the Klopeks are a practicing cannibal cult.Ray makes an attempt to escape, but realizes that Hans is driving the ambulance as Werner attempts to stab Ray with a hypodermic needle to kill him. In the struggle, Ray manages to grab at Hans who loses control of the ambulance and attempting to avoid hitting a pizza delivery van, runs the ambulance into Art's house at the end of the street. The ambulance back doors fling open and the stretcher with Ray and Werner still struggling on it falls out and rolls down the street which ends when they hit the Klopek's car still parked outside the remains of their burned-out house in which the car trunk pops open. Now with witnesses around, Ray claims that the Klopeks are indeed murderers and part of a cannibal cult. Ricky happens by and points out to everyone that the trunk of the Klopeks car is filled with hundreds of human bones and a few dozen human skulls. (It is implied that most of the bones belong to human bodies stolen by the Klopeks from morgues and various college pathology labs for personal consumption) The police arrest Werner and Reuben, but Hans is nowhere to be found. Rumsfield finds Hans attempting to escape, but chases him and captures him.With Ray in the clear and the fire trucks and police leaving the scene, Ray and Carol are glad that he is all right and they agree to leave tomorrow to take the remainder of Ray's vacation at the lake. When Art approaches and tells them about the media circus coming to the neighborhood over the next few days to investigate the 'Klopek Cannibal Cult', Ray and Carol are not interested in staying around. Just then, Mark and Bonnie Rumsefield tell Art that his wife is home early and his house is on fire from the damage caused by the ambulance still lodged in the front door of his house. Art is shocked and devastated... but its mostly about his wife being home.While Art goes to try to explain what is going on to his wife, the fire trucks return to try to put out the fire to Art's house. With another crowd gathering to watch the action, Ray and Carol go to their house unnoticed, except by Ricky in which Ray tells him to "keep an eye on the neighborhood" while he is away for his vacation. Ricky agrees as Ray and Carol enter their house for the night. Ricky, breaking the fourth wall, looks at the viewers and replies" God, I love this street!" He then goes back to talking to his friends as well as the two garbage men as the image backs away from the street, and area to an overhead view from space as to where the movie began.

Tags: comedy, mystery, gothic, intrigue, insanity, psychedelic

Review:
Included in this terrific cast are Tom Hanks, who plays the skeptical neighbor of the new family on the block (a bunch of oddballs who never leave the house); Rick Ducommun, who plays the gluttonous friend of Hanks, who is convinced that the new neighbors are brain sucking murderers; Bruce Dern, the ex-soldier who hasn't quite left his miilitary roots behind him; and last, but not least, Corey Feldman, who plays the dopey teenage neighbor who basically watches the events of the movie unfold from the comfort of his front porch.
The chemistry between everyone of the characters is simply impressive, and much of the humor of the film can be found in the often ludicrous way the director portrays their interactions.I urge anyone who has seen this film before to watch it again, this time paying little attention to the story and focusing on the superbly acted characters..
The fact others don't share that opinion doesn't bother me, but I am glad to see reviewers on this site who appreciated this black, very underrated gem.I always get a big kick out of this film, no matter how many times I see it.I credit a little-known actor for making this so entertaining to me: Rick Ducommun.
I think he steals the show from well-known stars Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher and Corey Feldman.
Too bad, but I bet he had a lot fun making it, along with the rest of the cast.Ducommun and Dern are the hilarious wackos who try to help straight-laced Hanks find out about the really-strange neighbors he has next door.
Fisher is Hanks' always-complaining wife and Feldman is the teen across the street who watches all the lunacy from his porch, getting his getting nightly entertainment from these crazy adults.Director Joe Dante, of "Gremlins" fame, does a good job entertaining us in here, too, and providing some fun camera-work.
This is a great example of what Tom Hanks was doing in his former career of a comedic actor, before he returned to serious acting.The story follows three incredibly nosey suburbanites, spying on their new neighbours the Klopek's as they expect them to be murderers.Winning performances all round, but especially from Hanks.
He is well supported by the likes of Carrie Fisher, as his wife, and ex-army man Bruce Dern, with Henry Gibson giving his usual solid performance.A greatly funny movie which leaves you wondering why Hanks ever turned his back on comedy..
I recently rediscovered a childhood favourite of mine, The Burbs, and I have to admit that age has not in the least bit dulled the film's razor sharp wit and acid tongued dialogueTom Hanks plays Ray Peterson, an overstressed suburbanite who's decided to spend his vacation lounging around the house in a vain effort to relax.
Of course he finds his efforts hindered by the constant presence of his somewhat excitable neighbors Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) and Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) who suspect the new family in the neighbourhood, the Klopeks, of being mass murderers.
The premise is basically the set up for another of Joe Dante's (who directed both Gremlins and its remake in all but name, Small Soldiers) bedlam filled romps through suburbs in which he casts a sideways glance at all things American dream.Quite frankly, my nostalgia for this movie makes it hard to find fault with it.
Meanwhile the Klopeks are unveiled as characters perhaps a little too late in the story for the audience to truly develop any kind of opinions about them.Despite some small problems however, The Burbs remains an extremely funny movie with some terrific dialogue and almost universally good performances from its cast.
If Dante had it to do over again, he surely would have come up with something more suitable (and humorous).Of course THE 'BURBS is not for all tastes, but if you like the pre-PHILADELPHIA Hanks and are in the mood for something completely different, you won't want to mi.
We later bought the video, and more recently the DVD, and over the years since it's release I've watched it countless times (the exact number probably somewhere in the 50s or so) and have never grown tired of it.While managing to be both suspenseful and funny at the same time, the film also does a great job after capturing the day-to-day life of a small suburban street, with a variety of characters so simple and life-like, it seems like they could actually live on your own street.
The cast is an excellent combination, with everybody working great together, particularly Bruce Dern as the Vietnam vet who always has the right tool for the job and Tom Hanks as the average guy who's curious about his strange new neighbors, but not enough to really want to bother finding out more about them.
Tom Hanks, Corey Feldman, Courtney Gains, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Brother Theodore, Henry Gibson and Rick Ducommun did a great job!
In so doing, he also makes fun of suburbanites who seem to make it their business to know everybody elses' business.Tom Hanks stars as Ray Peterson, your typical 'burb dweller, who ends up severely stressed out when his nutty neighbors - Bruce Dern as ex-military man Mark Rumsfield and the late comedian Rick Ducommun as nosey instigator Art Weingartner - spur him to action.
Tom Hanks character is not really suspicious at first till his crazy neighbor and a paranoid one convince there is something up with the new family in the burbs.
You get many funny scenes as these guys try to find proof that the new family is as strange as they look and are in fact up to something as the poodle a man who lives in the neighborhood shows up dirty and the neighbor ends up missing.
The movie plays out rather good and is funny for the most part, at times it becomes a bit to dark as most black comedies tend to do.
The cast is very funny and I think this is like the only movie I have seen Carrie Fisher in besides the Star Wars trilogy.
All is well in suburbia until clues pop up that might reveal the new neighbors, the Klopeks, as murderers.With any other talent behind the film, this could have been a very dark comedy.
Dante also has fun with visuals, notably in a hilarious dream sequence that Ray has.Everything comes together to make this film work, including a great score by Jerry Goldsmith, that is part suburban comedy and part horror, complete with organs culled from a funeral march.
This film is far from perfect, but it's fun diversional comedy and reminds of the great comic actor that Tom Hanks once was before becoming Oscar's golden boy..
I think the cast was a pretty good choice, especially Tom Hanks who's doing a great job as usual.As a comedy movie i would rate it 10 out of 10 because i could watch it again and again and again without getting bored of it.
Anyway the burbs is well worth checking out, Tom Hanks is as good as ever and Bruce Dern is brilliant as a nutty ex-soldier.
Tom Hanks; Rick Ducommun; Bruce Dern; Carrie Fisher; Brother Theodore.Normal guy Hanks and his Joe six pack friend Ducommun decide to investigate their reclusive new neighbours.
We can see that Tom hanks already shows his personality and potentiality like actor in 1989, although the film does not help so much.
Even though it displays many of director Joe Dante's recognisable trademarks—dark humour, quirky characters, cartoonish violence, Dick Miller (all of which usually guarantee me a good time)—I still struggle with The 'Burbs.
Quite simply, it's protagonists, a trio of paranoid suburbanites, aren't all that likable: their pointless lives consist of petty squabbles with family and neighbours, and when a strange family from Eastern Europe moves into their neighbourhood, the persecution of outsiders.Despite very little evidence to support their feelings of distrust, Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks), Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) and Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) launch a campaign of intimidation, based purely on the fact that their neighbours are different.
Tom Hanks,Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducoman (spelling?), Corey Feldman, and all the other actors, are at their best.
It's got to be admitted that Tom Hanks hasn't made a bad movie, and though some are better than others, The Burbs is probably one of his best comedies.
Carrie Fisher is his wife Carol, Bruce Dern and Rick Ducommun play Mark Rumsfield and Arthur 'Art' Louis Weingardner respectively, and Corey Feldman, the little kid from "Gremlins" plays Richard Butler, the teen-next-door.
Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Rick Ducummon, Carrie Fisher, Henry Gibson, Brother Theodore, and Corey Feldman of STAND BY ME are all victims of this wacky and hilarious satire.I highly recommend this film to anyone with a general interest in movies or if you just like to laugh a lot.
Now, don't get me wrong, the whole story is something strait out of a horror movie and the film's plot moves along like one, but the laugh factor is oh so very high, that this comedy is destined to become nothing short of a masterpiece in the genre.
If I ever meet Tom Hanks, I will shake his hand and tell him that my two favorite movies of his were "Joe Versus the Volcano" and "The 'Burbs".
I didn't know who he was when I saw this the first time, and he hasn't been in any really big roles, but he is extremely funny as Art.The story is predictable, the acting is not Academy Award winning, but this movie is everything I expected.
This movie makes fun of them with a select cast headed off by Tom Hanks and capitilizing on one man's paranoia and idiot mistakes.
I like Tom Hanks much better back in the 80's than I do today, and I love him in this movie.
We feel Art's pain when nobody believes him and he has to get the other neighbors help to discover why the Klopex are so secretive.The way that director Joe Dante has the character play make us feel like they are in their own neighborhood.
Corey Feldman's a riot as an air headed teenager who invites all the "dudes" over to watch the antics and eat pizza, Laugh-In's loony little poet Henry Gibson is a shockingly sinister mad scientist, and Wendy Schaal in short shorts would make any movie an uplifting experience.Watch this endearingly funny film and you'll find yourself agreeing with Feldman, who sums it up perfectly in the last line: "I love this neighborhood!".
With "The 'burbs," one can add Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, and Rance Howard - Ron's dad - to the list.)Anyway, the other cool touch was seeing the long-haired heavy-metal-listening kids in the movie.
The 'Burbs isn't one of the greatest movies ever made, but I think movies like this definitely have a place in the world of film because it's fun.
It has an incredibly lame story, good actors (like Hanks, Bruce Dern, and Carrie Fisher) who are wasted, and who look embarassed to be there, and a plot that goes nowhere.
I watched this movie solely because of the fact that it stared Tom Hanks, one of the greatest actors Hollywood has ever seen.
Bruce Dern plays a great role as well as the ex-soldier,there is not one thing i would like to change about this movie , i recently bought the DVD and it will be treat to watch the "uncut" version.
The cast is great, it has beautiful production designs and a fantastic score that is very clever---but it has a bad script.The jokes are there but they aren't funny--after a while it becomes a chore to watch this movie.
I was dozing off during the last half!The only thing that keeps this watchable is the good acting by the cast--especially Tom Hanks (who is always good), Carrie Fisher, Henry Gibson and Bruce Dern.
When the strange new neighbors move in next door, Tom Hanks and his neighbor friends like Bruce Dern and Corey Feldman start searching for answers.
These movies are funny, hold sentimental value to the watcher, and are easy to watch over and over again.Now onto precisely why I like The Burbs' soooo much.
Tom Hanks is great in this movie also and some of the stuff he says like "I believe a man's furnace is his own business.", is priceless.
Tom Hanks is great in this movie also and some of the stuff he says like "I believe a man's furnace is his own business.", is priceless.
It's proof enough to me that movies like The Burbs will live on in the minds of millions as people's favorites of all time.
It's proof enough to me that movies like The Burbs will live on in the minds of millions as people's favorites of all time.
This is one of my most watched films of all time.The whole cast is perfect & the characters are so memorable & the neighbourhood is beautiful & full of fun.Ray peterson (hanks) is hilarious as the stressed out neighbour with maybe murderers next door?
Bruce Dern is Fantastic as the paranoid ex soldier Mark Rumsfield who is hilarious & we have the comic genius Rick Ducommun.R.I.P who plays Art wiengartner who is the nosey busy body & we have carrie fisher as carol Peterson & wendy schaal as bonnie Rumsfeld & Corey feel as ricky butler & some great little cameos from the likes of Joe Dante legend DICK MILLER (who i thank Joe dante's films for introducing me to this great man), The Kloepeks are HILARIOUS & May or my not be evil!!!
The film is from the perspective of Ray Peterson, played by Tom Hanks, as he tries to enjoy his time off and deescalate the neighborhood snoops, Mark and Art played by Bruce Dern and Rick Ducommun respectively.
Strange happenings and the curiosity of the neighbors soon have Ray Peterson (played by Tom Hanks), Mark Rumsfield (played by Bruce Dern) and Art Weingartner (played by Rick Ducommun) cross the line and start snooping into the Klopek's business and trespass unto their property.Writer Dana Olsen put together a very entertaining story that contains elements of mystery and comedy, and mix them together quite well.
The lead roles are played by Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern and Rick Ducommun, whom all carried the movie quite nicely.
But there is an equally impressive support cast which includes names such as Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman and Henry Gibson.There is a lot of funny situations throughout the movie, and I always find myself well amused and laughing throughout the course of "The 'Burbs".If you haven't already seen "The 'Burbs" then I can warmly and strongly recommend that you take the time to do so, because this is a classic in its own..
Set in an suburban neighborhood in Des Moines, Iowa, this film follows Ray Paterson (played by Tom Hanks), a lazy man in this thirties taking a week off from work to lay around the house and possibly spend time with his wife Carol (played by Carrie Fisher) and his son Dave (played by Corey Danziger).
When a mysterious family of demon worshippers moves next door, Ray's paranoid neighbor Art (played by Rick Ducommun) and his army-retired neighbor across the street Mark Rumsfield (played by Bruce Dern) grow incredibly suspicious them, fearing they might be sadists.Although Tom Hanks is more of a veteran in the non-comedic territory particularly when looking at his work in films like 'Philadelphia', 'Saving Private Ryan', and 'Forrest Gump', he has still demonstrated evidence that he is capable of showing his comedic side (even if his comedic works don't come as memorable).
But throughout the time Tom Hanks, Rick Ducommun, and Bruce Dern come on screen, there are only less than a handful of moments when they are successfully funny.
Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) is on a week-long "staycation" in his house, and he wants to meet his new neighbors, the Klopeks.
Directed by Joe Dante (of Gremlins fame), and featuring some of the biggest names from the 1980's, it's a movie that still is still hilarious from a somewhat gentler political time.Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher play the central family unit during a weekend holiday, representing the ideal American family living somewhere in unknown suburbia.
Ray Peterson (Hanks) is off from work and becomes obsessed with the strange new neighbors, the Klopecks, with a fair amount of goading from his friends (played hilariously by Rick Ducommun and Mock Films Blog alum Bruce Dern).
The characters are hilarious, the story is good, the neighborhood is great, and the comedy is fun.
Surrounded by Carrie Fisher's demanding wife Carol, Bruce Dern's army obsessed ex-lieutenant Mark Rumsfield, Ray's obnoxious best friend Art and Corey Feldman's typically loud mouthed teen Ricky, The 'Burbs succeeds most completely at creating an interesting and oft relatable bunch of figures in an at times downright bonkers story.
Tom Hanks (Ray) delivered one great acting performance he was so funny in this film!
Watching Tom Hanks spying on his neighbors in this film was hilarious and he did very well getting into character.
It certainly seems like the Klopeks are up to no good but by the end of the movie it's largely irrelevant as the big reveal comes and goes with no explanation or real connection to the story.What The 'burbs does have going for it is manic energy between the cast and a lively, inventive, and massively fun score by Jerry Goldsmith.
I think what also makes it feel semi-unique is the great cast of common 80's actors and the stereotype roles they play.Lets be honest the only reason to watch this movie is because of Tom Hanks, Corey Feldman Bruce Dern and Carrie Fisher.
This film also stars Bruce Dern, Rick Ducommun, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman﻿ and Henry Gibson.
But what makes such an underrated film like the Burbs so good?