The ‘Burbs takes place in one of these planned communities where everyone’s house is the right color, has the right landscaping for aesthetic appeal, and the most frequent daily adventures are to a neighbor’s house to chat. Well, everyone except the newest residents on Mayfield Place, the Klopeks. They own a run-down Victorian looking structure and keep to themselves except during nocturnal drives to the curb to beat the hell out of oddly-shaped bags of garbage. Their presence has attracted the attention of everyone in the cul-de-sac, especially Ray (Tom Hanks) and his pals Art (Rick Ducommun) and Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) who are convinced that their new neighbors are Satanists or cult members.
While most everyone else on the block puts up good fronts, the Klopeks don’t socialize, don’t obsess over their lawn, and run what sounds like the world’s largest sander in their basement, usurping all the neighborhood’s electricity. With Ray on vacation for the purposes of relaxing at home and Art and Rumsfield those seemingly aforementioned unemployed types, the three have too much time on their hands as they start spying on their kooky neighbors leading to slipping notes under doors and breaking and entering to figure out their game. The Klopeks though do little to assuage their image when one man goes missing and a human bone turns up.
While the story could have been played either as a straight comedy or for legitimate scares, director Joe Dante melds the two into a farcical romp in suburban life. It’s not altogether humorous unless you can relate to some of the proclivities of suburban dwellers with the nagging wife, the boy-like guy across the street, or the constant wondering of what goes on behind closed doors. Hanks plays Ray with almost-manic tendencies that he has mostly left behind with his more recent dramatic roles. He is the comedy staple of the straight-man, one who is mostly skeptical about the weird happenings but gets caught up in the hysteria leading to some of his old-school freakouts while warring with his neighbors.
Dante made the movie with a tongue-in-cheek approach in mind as the laughs are played way past the over-the-top marker. Ducommun as the trouble-marker and Dern as the suburban commando (apologies for any other horrid movie you might think of there) are not real characters but more of caricatures of real people to expand the story’s absurd nature. Even some of the individual shots are overly-dramatized like the crash zoom-in and zoom-out as Hanks and Ducommun find the bone or the dramatic zoom-in that even the dog gets. The score by Jerry Goldsmith works the same as it goes from plucky, comedic sounds to ominous, Gothic horror music at the drop of a hat.
For some reason, this movie isn’t too highly regarded in the serious critics’ circles but I cannot fathom why unless the notion of suburbs were too foreign a concept. Even Corey Feldman is here as the stoner punk, a role I am convinced led to him becoming Donatello. The ending is a bit on the ridiculous, Scooby-Doo-like side as Dr. Klopek (Henry Gibson) tries to kill Ray but not before confirming Ray’s suspicions and explaining how the previous tenants of the house moved out so quickly. But I’m sure that was largely intentional as well: a ridiculously funny ending to a ridiculously funny film.
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