This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas.
Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long
celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies
out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream
critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few
quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and
subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some
recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.
Night 6: Horror-Comedy Night
“I love this street.”
The ‘Burbs (1989)
The ‘Burbs is a spooky fun horror-comedy set in a slightly goofier
version of everyday suburbia. Director Joe Dante is right at home in horror-comedy
having previously directed 1984’s Gremlins and 1981’s The Howling, both of
which played with genre conventions and tropes. The ‘Burbs is no different.
With shades of Rear Window, the classic Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters are
Due on Maple Street,” and classic horror movies of the 30s and 40s, The
‘Burbs has a genuine admiration for the movies it draws inspiration from while
also having fun with them.
Tom Hanks stars as Ray Peterson, an average, sensible
everyman spending his vacation just hanging around the house. He gets bored, as
you might imagine, and starts watching his neighbors. Something suspicious
seems to be going on at the out of place old, creepy house next door.
The new neighbors, the Klopeks, are rarely seen except at night and there are
strange lights coming from the basement. Ray and his neighbor friends then
start to speculate that the Klopeks killed the previous owner of the house and
another elderly neighbor that suddenly disappeared.
The cast of The ‘Burbs is a list of great performers
in major and minor roles. Aside from Hanks in the lead, Carrie Fisher plays his
wife, Carol, the voice of reason. The great character actor Rick Ducommun—you may
not recognize the name but you'd certainly recognize his face—plays Ray’s annoying,
not too bright neighbor friend that fills his head with paranoid ideas. Bruce Dern plays the military veteran neighbor that still thinks he’s in the military. Henry Gibson—another great character actor whose face you’d certainly recognize—is
the unassuming, but believably sinister, Dr. Klopek. Courtney Gaines, the
menacing Malachi from Children of the Corn, is funny as the oddball Hans
Klopek. Corey Feldman rounds out the cast as the young cool dude on the block. He also serves as a sort of narrator/guide to the world these people have created
out of their block of suburbia. He invites his friends over to watch Hanks,
Ducommun, and Dern poke around the Klopek house and sits back for an entertaining show.
The ‘Burbs has a pretty broad sense of humor. It draws on horror movie situations for comedy and never takes itself too seriously. Some of the
gags are even cartoonish. When Hanks and Ducommun discover part of a skeleton, the camera frantically zooms in and out on them as they scream in terror. These
goofy moments are all part of the fun.
The ‘Burbs is not
quite a meta horror film, but the influence of horror films of the past is ever
present. The Klopeks being new, potentially dangerous, neighbors from eastern
Europe is meant to be reminiscent of Dracula. Cory Feldman compares what the
street is experiencing to the horror film The Sentinel. The score by Jerry Goldsmith is meant to evoke the grand ominous music of horror films of the 30’s
and 40’s. The only genuinely scary moment in The 'Burbs comes when Hanks has a
nightmare after watching parts the horror films Race with the Devil, The
Exorcist, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 on TV. The characters in The Burbs
are aware of horror movies, so they know how
outlandish it seems that the new neighbors are serial killers. This movie is
heavy on laughs and light on actual scares, so even if you don’t like horror
movies you’ll still be able to enjoy this horror-comedy.
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