Gary Hays | Through the Shattered Lens

1989’s The ‘Burbs takes place in …. well, it’s right there in the title.

Welcome to the suburbs! It’s place with big houses, green lawns, and neighbors who often don’t have much to do other than watch each other and gossip. Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) lives with his wife, Carol (Carrie Fisher), and is friends with Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) and Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern). Ricky Butler (Corey Feldman) is the local teenager. It’s a nice neighborhood …. at least, until the Klopeks move in.

The Klopeks are viewed with suspicion from the minute they show up. They’re from a different country, they always seem to be burying something in their backyard, and Dr. Werner Klopek (Henry Gibson) is oddly stand-offish. When Walter Seznick (Gale Gordon) disappears and the the Klopeks are seen around Walter’s house and with Walter’s dog, Ray and his friends start to suspect that their new neighbors might be ritualistic murderers!

Oh, how I love The ‘Burbs. The film’s portrait of the suburbs as being a hotbed of paranoia may be a familiar one but it doesn’t matter when you’ve got actors like Tom Hanks and Bruce Dern throwing themselves into their roles. As always, Hanks is the glue that holds the film and its disparate parts together, giving a likable performance as a man who goes from being the voice of reason to being convinced that his neighbors are cannibals. Bruce Dern gleefully sends up his own image as a paranoid Vietnam vet but there’s also a sweetness to Dern’s performance that really makes it stand out. Dern’s character might be a little crazy but he does truly care about his neighbors.

Just as he did with Piranha and The Howling, Dante balances humor with suspense. He does such a good job of telling the story and getting good performances from his cast, that even the film’s big twist works far better than one might expect. It’s an 80s film so, of course, a few things explode towards the end of it. The film’s character-based humor is replaced with some broader jokes but no matter. The Burbs is an entertaining trip to the heart of suburban paranoia.

As the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

“You know what they say, Sam! Everyone wants a piece of a medical student.”

“That’s sick, Punk Rock Dan.”

So say two radio hosts towards the end of the 1986 film, Evil Laugh.

Evil Laugh is a slasher film that was directed by Dominick Brascia, the actor who appeared as Joey, the most annoying character ever, in Friday the 13th Part V. Joey was the fat kid who got on everyone’s nerves by offering them a chocolate bar. Eventually, he made the mistake of approach axe-crazy Vic while Vic was holding an actual axe. “You know I’ve never chopped wood before but it looks like fun,” Joey said. “LEAVE ME ALONE!” Vic shouted. “Okay, Vic …. but I think you’re way out of line.” Vic responded by burying his axe in Joey’s back and I imagine audiences cheered. Seriously, Joey was that annoying.

Evil Laugh actually contains some references to Friday the 13th. One of the potential victims, a medical student named Barney (Jerold Pearson) is a horror movie buff who points out that the reason that Jason keeps coming back to Camp Crystal Lake is because everyone keeps having sex. Unfortunately, none of his friends listen to him.

Barney is one of a group of med students who are spending the weekend at an abandoned orphanage. Years ago, an employee named Martin was falsely accused by the orphans of abusing them. Martin’s father committed suicide from the shame and Martin went on a killing rampage before setting the place on fire. (And yet, the building still stands without so much as a burn mark.) A doctor has decided to reopen the orphanage and, in the tradition of Steve Christy and the counselors he got killed at Crystal Lake, he has recruited a bunch of med students to help him get the place ready to go. The doctor has already been killed by the time the med students arrives but they get to work anyway.

The cool thing about this movie is that there’s a cleaning montage. Everyone really gets into cleaning. I could relate to that. Another cool thing about this movie is that there are a few moments when it reveals itself to have a sense of humor. Barney is a horror fan and is constantly pointing out that everything that is happening is like something that would happen in a slasher film. Barney’s friends are dismissive of him and, as a result, things don’t go well for them. The deaths are all memorable. As well, the film’s ending worked surprisingly well. Finally, the last cool thing about this movie is that, towards the end, one character got to wear the really pretty black kimono. As soon as the movie ended, I decided to order myself a new black kimono.

That said, I don’t want to overpraise Evil Laugh. It had its moments and I think it can be argued that it had more “good moments” than the average low-budget, independently-made 80s slasher film. At the same time, some of the acting truly is unfortunate and it does seem to take a while for the film to really achieve any sort of narrative momentum. For every scene that works, there’s another one that’s just downright boring. Evil Laugh is not an overlooked classic but, again, it has its moments.