The ‘Burbs *** (1989, Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman) – Classic Movie Review 2981

Director Joe Dante’s entertaining, quietly frenzied 1989 comedy stars the funny and charming young Tom Hanks, who shows his consummate comedy skills as down-to-earth, if overstressed suburbanite Ray Peterson.

His peaceful existence is shattered when he joins a plot by the oddball locals (including Bruce Dern in camouflage underwear as his rabid para-military neighbour!) to discover just who or what his even stranger new neighbours are. The paranoid theory is that the new family are part of a cannibalistic cult. So, one day when old Walter Seznick (Gale Gordon in his final film) disappears, everyone suspects the Klopeks.

Written by Dana Olsen, this is a manic, well-observed nightmarish comedy, which, although it doesn’t deliver many of the big laughs, is always amusing and enjoyable throughout. And, as usual, Dante delights film buffs with lots of movie parodies.

Also in the cast are Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman, Wendy Schaal, Henry Gibson, Brother Theodore, Courtney Gains, Rance Howard and Dick Miller.

The street in the film was shot on location in the Universal Studios backlot on a set that still stands. The movie was entirely shot on the lot. Dante said: ‘There was a lot of temptation to broaden it and go outside the neighbourhood, but it seemed to violate the spirit of the piece. It’s almost the kind of thing that could be a stage play, except that you could never do on stage what we’ve done in this movie.’

Walter’s poodle, Queenie, is played by the same poodle that played Precious in The Silence of the Lambs.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2981

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