Next to The Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters,
The Burbs is probably my favorite
all-time comedy. It’s one that I’ve been watching and laughing at since I was a
kid — right around the time when I was also developing my love for the horror
genre, which made The Burbs feel
like an ideal way to also get in my comedy kicks. The script, naturally,
conveys that blending of genres (make no mistake, though — this is much more
comedy than horror, with the slightest twang of a western), but it was also
thanks to the sensibilities of director Joe Dante, who has worked in every
genre there is, but who has also directed some bonafide horror classics (the Gremlins films, The Howling).
Because of this, and aside from the obvious
morbidness and murderousness of the plot, The
Burbs is a Rear Window parody
rife with nods and homages to horror titles from The Exorcist to The Sentinel,
and the underrated Race with the Devil.
(Tom Hanks’ character, Ray Peterson, even suffers a nightmare straight out of
that latter satanic thriller.)
Hanks and Rick Ducommun (who
didn’t quite get along during
filming), along with Bruce Dern, make for an absolutely wonderful and hilarious
trio — Hanks’ Ray is the dry and glib straight man slowly sucked into the
mystery, Ducommun essays childlike immaturity with next-door neighbor Art, and
Dern plays, basically, your wacky conservative uncle — a gun-loving military
nutjob with an all-fatigue wardrobe — and he’s a fucking delight. Dern,
especially, wraps his limber arms around his character of Mark Rumsfield,
clearly having a great time playing such a broad archetype. (The actor has
mellowed during his later years, keeping closer to dramatic roles, although he
did appear in another Dante effort: 2009’s The
Hole.) Corey Feldman also appears as a sleuthing neighbor, rejoining Dante
after Gremlins, and basically
playing the Greek chorus for the audience. Wendy Schaal as Bonnie Rumsfield
plays the most undervalued member of the cast, often deserving big laughs that
go unnoticed, especially during the neighbors’ intensely awkward first meeting
with the mysterious Klopeks. Her alarmed or mystified reactions to Hans Klopek
are some of my favorite scenes in The
Burbs’ entirety.
The Burbs is one of those rare pre-90s comedies that never feels
dated, and everything that was funny about it thirty years ago is still just as
funny today. (The frantic zoom-in/zoom-out of Hanks and Ducommun screaming at a
human leg bone, which purposely goes on for just a hair too long, is still one
of the best gags any film has ever had — period.) And there’s every kind of
comedy on display: slapstick, sight gags, and — my favorite — the surreal and
the absurd. The Burbs is at its best
when it’s almost self-aware, such as
the aforementioned leg bone scene, or when our characters recognize the sheer
madness of the conflict in which they are engaged. (“I’ve never seen that. I’ve
never seen someone drive their garbage down to the street and beat the hell out
of it with a stick. I…I’ve never seen that.")
Dante, who has built a career on
horror-comedies, uses perfect timing and dramatic camera angles to accentuate
the more amusing aspects of the script’s concept. At one point, when Art and
Mark appear on the driveway of Ray’s house to collect him so they can continue
their spying on the creepy new neighbors, Ray’s wife, Carol (a wonderful Carrie
Fisher), tells them from an upper balcony that Ray won’t be joining them. Dante
shoots this scene from both perspectives — from Carol looking down on them, and
Art and Mark having to look up. As intended, it presents Carol as the mother
figure, telling two neighborhood “kids” that her son isnt allowed to come out
and play. And for good measure, Art kicks the ground as the two walk off in
disappointment. Meanwhile, Ray cowers in the background half obscured by a
doorway. If The Burbs were to be
directed by anyone else other than Dante (and okay, maybe John Landis), then it
shouldn’t even bother existing. Its DNA is too intertwined with Dante’s ease at
this kind of humor and his willingness to poke his audience in the ribs and
say, “Isn’t this just a gas?”
Hanks had a tremendous run in the
‘80s with a string of successful comedies, including Bachelor Party, Big, and
The Money Pit (I’ve still never seen
Splash — sorry), but The Burbs remains the most underrated. A
combination of its somewhat morbid content and its offbeat humor has prevented
it from being as celebrated as Hanks’ more obvious titles, which is a damn
shame, but new collector’s editions of films like these only prove their
enduring legacy and offer the chance to become reacquainted with yet another
lost classic.
