THE 'burbs'
US, 1989, 101 minutes, Colour.
Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Ric Ducommon, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman, Dick Miller.
Directed by Joe Dante.
The 'burbs is an oddball American satire on suburbia and suburban paranoia. It was directed by Joe Dante, whose rather eccentric but enjoyable films include Piranha, an episode in Twilight Zone: The Movie, The Howling, Gremlins and The Explorers.
Tom Hanks is agreeable in the central role, an ordinary person whom we can identify with, becoming quite paranoid about the neighbours. Ric Ducommun is excellent as the obsessed neighbour. There are good supporting performances from Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Corey Feldman.
The film was made on the Universal backlot, and all the action takes place in the one street. Obsessive preoccupation with the suburbs is the theme and media and information as well as past experiences and suspicions fuelling wariness into something quite mad.
The ending seems to undermine the overall effect of the film but it may mean that we ought to be suspicious but not paranoid?
1. Enjoyable and interesting American comedy? Offbeat? The suburbs and lifestyle, paranoia? Particularly American or not?
2. Tom Hanks, personality and presence, persuasive paranoia, his speech at the end?
3. The suburbs, the Universal lot: the street, inside houses, the stunts and special effects? Dream sequence? musical score and songs?
4. The title and the tone? The look of the suburbs, ordinariness, style, obsessive, paranoia? Neighbours? Differences? The significance of Hanks's final speech about paranoia? The look at the street, the paper boy and his arrival, the range of people: the look of the houses, the lawns, values? Walter and his dog, its doing its business on the lawn? Mark and Bonnie, the Vietnam background? Ric and his painting, Art and his eating, Ray and Carol and their son as ordinary citizens?
5. The sinister attitude towards the Kopeks, the boy and his hair, the explosions at night, Ray's dream sequence and their being sinister and murderous? The disappearance of Walter? The fence with its alarm? The audience sharing suspicions or not? Sharing curiosity? The talk, going to the door, 666, the bees, the holes in the verandah? Putting the note under the door and running? The aggravation of fear?
6. All coming to visit, the intrusion, everybody being nice and eating, Mark testing the house, the red paint on the hand, Ray's discovery with hairpiece? The decision to raid the house? The elaborate raid? The Kopeks as victims of neighbourly suspicion?
7. Ray and Carol, Ray and his holiday? At home? Carol as the sensible person in the film? The boy? Ray as idle, looking at the neighbours, out in the pyjamas? Art's arrival, his stories, eating everything? Fomenting suspicions? Mark and his suspicions? The digging at night, Walter, his absence, the dog, the note under the door? Reading the Satanist books? Seeing The Exorcist and the other films on the television? Ray tormented by the human sacrifice in the nightmare? His decision to visit, suspicions? His trying to be polite during the visit? finding the hairpiece, arranging the golf and getting Carol away from the house, the elaborate raid, searching the house, the final explosions? His speech and
his condemnation of Art, trying to choke him? His being with the doctor, the doctor attacking him and the fight? His suspicions being right? The ending and his going away for a normal holiday?
8. Art and his character, alone, nosey, eating everything, telling stories, calling Ray 'chicken,' urging him to go to the house, the Satanist, fomenting the suspicions, the raid and his cutting the wires, the end and his taking his stance? His house being crashed into and his wife returning? The film condemning his attitudes?
9. Mark and Bonnie, the background of Vietnam and aggression, Bonnie and her sexy style, nice manner, especially during the visit? Making the brownies? Mark and his search and destroy, treating people as soldiers, suspicious of the house and testing all the pipes, etc? Getting ready for the raid, the gear, the infrared, keeping the lookout, falling from the roof? Stances at the end?
10. Ric and his observing, his girlfriend coming to watch, inviting all his friends for the grand finale?
11. The comic touches, in suburbia, in the house, the visit to the neighbours, the sinister aspects of the neighbours, the brother, the boy, the sinister doctor and his experiments? The final getaway and the car filled with bones and skulls? The dogs and the bones? The raid on the house, the mayhem of the finale? The spoof and the critique?
