Review of The 'Burbs (1989) by James S — 05 Dec 2011

Almost two decades before spying on your friends was the exclusive domain of Facebook, Joe Dante directed this blackly comic take on Rear Window.

Bored Tom Hanks on leave from work becomes increasingly obsessed with the goings on of his new neighbours, The Klopeks, much to the exasperation of his wife Carrie Fisher and egged on by his other lunatic neighbours. The Burb's takes the issue of suburban paranoia and wrings its neck for pure comedy value with a lavish touch of horror as well. For every slap stick moment of Hanks and co falling over something, there's a bone chilling curtain move and mysterious figure at the window. It's the sort of thing that Dante excels in as a director.

Hanks was in his pre-Forest Gump days here so wasn't afraid of making a fool of himself for fear of upsetting the Academy, and his descent into obsessive madness is highly entertaining. The Klopeks themselves are suitably Addams Family for this kind of movie and manage to be both amusing and quite creepy is equally good measure. Brother Theodore is a hoot while Courtney Gains has managed to find himself in a film which si actually scary, unlike Children of the Corn.

The theme of voyeurism is something an audience can well relate to but is often used for the excuse of parading flesh in movies (Sliver, for example). This is the kind of curiosity the viewer can identify with. It's a movie for anyone who looks up when they hear a car turn into their road with the old message of knowing what curiosity did to the cat behind it.

The one irritating thing about The Burb's is Corey Feldman's character who was presumably slipped in there to give the teenagers in the crowd something to relate to. The film could have done without him.

The Burb's manages to pull off horror comedy without having to resort to gross blood and guts effects, or lesbian vampires, and remains a powerfully creepy movie some 20 or so years after it's original release. You may never speak to your neighbours again but they're probably sociopaths with garden fencing issues anyway.