Joe Dante has always been at his very best when he’s putting the subversive boot into the more picturesque aspects of the American dream. When he isn’t portraying innocent children getting savaged by carnivorous fish in Piranha or revealing a new age commune to be a pack of werewolves in The Howling, he’s unleashing a horde of cackling Gremlins onto a Capra-esque town at christmas and expects us to laugh hysterically as it’s burned to the ground. However, as the 80s continued and more conventional, family friendly projects arose, I remembering briefly starting to panic: I mean, Explorers and Innerspace are great and all, but had the mean, impish Dante that I had grown up with fully sold out with a Spielbergian flourish?
I needn’t have worried, because just as the decade was preparing to draw to a close, a new movie from Dante emerged – one that managed to drive a hilarity inducing haymarket to the ribs of that most American of institutions.
People, welcome to the suburbs.
Meet Ray Peterson, an overworked American who has just taken the week off to get himself some much needed rest time. However eating into the r&r time is a growing sense of unease due to the arrival of the Klopeks, the reclusive new neighbours that have moved in next door; but while his wife bushes these feelings off as just silly paranoia, some of the fellow dwellers of his suburban neighbourhood not only share his opinion, but positively make him look rational in comparison.
Forever snacking Art Weingartner, who is at something of a loss while his wife is away, locks onto the creepy enigma of the Klopeks like his life depends on it and he’s joined by epically suspicious Vietnam vet Mark Rumsfield as the three fix their eye on the creaking abode and try and figure out ploys to find out what the Klopek’s deal is. However, while teenage dropout Ricky Butler watches on with great amusement, the trio of nosey neighbours soon begin to suspect that the newcomers are actually a clan of ritualistic murderers, and when Walter, one of their other neighbours, suddenly turns up missing, they become certain of it.
Thus a half-assed mission is set in motion to find out exactly what the Klopeks are up to that involves sneaking, breaking and entering, the cutting of power lines and even a spot of property destruction as this over stimulated cluster of idiots go all out to prove their wild accusations.
But despite all the weird things the Klopeks do – which include driving their suspicious looking trash to the garbage can at the end of their drive, installing a furnace in the basement that’s ludicrously overpowered and just genuinely looking weird – surely this is just a case of paranoia running wild, right?
After its release way back in 1989, The ‘Burbs was seemingly greeted with a vast, dividing wall of indifference that frustratingly neglected to recognize one simple fact. The ‘Burbs is a cul-de-sac of awesomeness that deserves to not only be ranked among Dante’s best, but also needs to be hailed as one of the best comedies of the 80s. Essentially taking the type of mystery that Alfred Hitchcock delivered in movies like Rear Window (surely the alpha and omega of nosey-parker crime flicks), merging the sort of distrust of middle America seen in the likes of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and then piling on as much cartoonish slapstick that’s humanly possible – Dante picks apart the notion that the suburbs isn’t a broiling hotbed of secrets, resentments and hypocrisy as the people who live there find themselves desperate to fit in with their neighbours while constantly bitching about them from the safety of a twitching curtain.
Typically, Dante obviously can’t wait to exagerate matters with a possession of grotesque caricatures led by Tom Hanks in full screaming everyman mode as a guy who considers himself the level head on the block when he only dismisses a problem so he doesn’t have to deal with it. For those weaned on Hanks’ Oscar winning roles, it’s easy to forget how frenzied his early, comedy stuff is and watching him gradually come unglued as his civilised outer shell crumbles in the face of this Witch hunt is marvellous.
He’s backed up by a cast that includes Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun and a whole swathe of Dante regulars that include Corey Feldman, Dick Miller, Robert Picado, Henry Gibson and Wendy Schaal and every single one of them is obviously relishing playing these grossly exagerated denizens of the land of white picket fences and ritualistic lawn mowing. However, as broad and exagerated (or, at least, I hope they’re exagerated) as these characters are, they still feel like living, breathing people thanks to the fact that they couldn’t possibly be a bigger personality as the gloriously madcap tone Dante wields with all the subtlety with a flamethrower. Infusing this rubber reality with the melodrama of a Loony Tunes cartoon, if the actors are funny, Dante’s directorial style is even funnier, getting huge laughs from super grandiose dolly shots, crash zooms, low angle shots and numerous other visual tricks that would usually be found in a Sergio Leone western or some super serious thriller.
This means we get a comedy that isn’t just funny because of its performances, it’s funny right down to its core.
Think I’m exaggerating? Even composer Jerry Goldsmith gets to exercise his funny bone, turning in a score that scores just as many genuine laughs as everyone else does, which is crazy when you think about it – I mean, when was the last time a score made you laugh; but the moment Hanks emerges from a burning house during the climax to a stirring heroes theme despite being all fucked up is one of my favorite comedy moments of all time.
So, if I’m so utterly crazy about almost every aspect of this movie, why have I only given it four stars – well, it’s simple, while Dante is unfeasibly close to comedy greatness, the movie trips over itself at the final hurdle that suddenly goes for the more conventional finish, rather than driving it’s original point home. With a quick spoiler warning to be wary of, the revelation that the Klopeks really are mass murderers maybe the more “fun” ending, but in making Ray, Art and Mark actually right, the ending is utterly at odds with the message Dante and co. have been giving us up until now and even justifies all the shitty things our leads have done to reach their skewed conclusions.
However, getting within a stone’s throw from flawnessless still means that the version of The ‘Burbs we have is pretty fucking great and it really should be discussed in the same glowing terms as Dante’s other dark, comedy masterpiece, Gremlins.
The ‘Burbs: it’s a damn funny place, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
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