THE BURBS (1989)
Tagline: He's a man of peace in a savage land... Suburbia.
(Comedy, Mystery, Creepy Neighbors) [PG]
Before the internet, it probably
wasn’t uncommon for you to walk outside (especially in the 80’s) and catch a
glimpse of your neighbors doing shifty stuff. It also wasn’t uncommon to hear
crazy rumors or half-truths. In my
neighborhood, we had a rumor that a chick had literally died in the apartment
we ended up moving into. Down the road was an abandoned house with a basement
(rare for Arizona) and at the bottom, there was rumored to be a ghost and a
wheelchair that rolled around by itself covered in cobwebs.
THE BURBS takes you
back to that era when speculation and rumors ruled neighborhood lore, and
mothers could scream loud enough to call you home for dinner from a block away.
This one takes place in a random but normal suburb. Creepy neighbors
(the Klopek’s) who no one
ever sees move in next to Tom Hanks and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). It doesn’t
take long for the overworked, gossipy, militant, and party-hard neighbors to all be involved in an effort to unmask the Klopeks, as murderers of
the neighborhood’s most hated old man when he goes missing.
Overall we get a pretty good mix of paranoid antics, humor, and a bit of thriller making this movie pretty fun and interesting. Probably my favorite part of this whole movie oddly isn’t any of the main characters, it's Ricky Butler played by Corey Feldman. He literally checks out the neighborhood and rocks out all week, even going as far as to invite his friends over to watch his neighbors lose their minds. It’s all pretty freakin great. A lot of the humor in this one is kinda lost on me probably due to dating and just having a different sense of humor now, but overall this one is a pretty great reminder of the campy awesomeness of the greatest decades in movie history.
Overall we get a pretty good mix of paranoid antics, humor, and a bit of thriller making this movie pretty fun and interesting. Probably my favorite part of this whole movie oddly isn’t any of the main characters, it's Ricky Butler played by Corey Feldman. He literally checks out the neighborhood and rocks out all week, even going as far as to invite his friends over to watch his neighbors lose their minds. It’s all pretty freakin great. A lot of the humor in this one is kinda lost on me probably due to dating and just having a different sense of humor now, but overall this one is a pretty great reminder of the campy awesomeness of the greatest decades in movie history.
I
have to give THE BURBS a solid 5 out of 7.
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Joe Dante is my favorite director and after Gremlins, this is my favorite movie of his. Memorable characters (I'm a Rumsfeld guy) and a great mixture of a (possible) murder mystery and Looney Tunes.
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