When we think about iconic 80s films, we think of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Goonies, or Ghostbusters, and for good reason. Those movies are fun, creative, and serve as a time capsule for what life and film were decades ago. However, there’s one movie that never quite achieved icon status, and in my humble opinion, it should have. This movie, released in 1989, features Tom Hanks just one year after his heartfelt performance in Big and Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher. In this ridiculous dark comedy, Ray Peterson, played by Tom Hanks, is trying to have a stay-cation in his idyllic neighborhood when he begins to notice suspicious behavior from his new, reclusive neighbors. With the help of his paranoid and obsessive friends, he soon learns that suburbia is not as safe as one might think. I present Joe Dante’s The ‘Burbs.
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard about it; most people haven’t. I was introduced to this movie when I was 10 by my mother, who loved the film in her teens, so much so that she went to see it three times in theaters when movie tickets were 10 bucks, including snacks. As a child, I didn’t really understand it, but I wanted to see why my mom connected to it and kept rewatching it. Eventually, I grew to love its absurdity and the exaggerated performances. As I got older, I started to recognize the deeper themes of the movie, specifically the anti-immigrant sentiments and nativism. The film is set in Mayfield Place, a white-picket fenced slice of heaven in middle America, where you don’t have to lock your doors, and everybody knows everybody. The paper boy has his routine; the neighborhood dog, Queenie, selectively fertilizes people’s lawns on command, and the main source of entertainment is speculating on the lives of the newcomers. The main characters, Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks), Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern), and Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun), assume the worst of their new Eastern European neighbors, the Klopeks, without ever having engaged with them on any level.
Hans, Reuben, and Werner Klopek don’t present like the typical American family. They are comically pale, dress in Amish adjacent garb, and “bang the hell out of their trash” when they drive it to the curb. Their anti-social behavior, combined with strange nightly habits, such as unexplained mechanical noises coming from the basement, fueled the neighborhood’s suspicions about them. Because the Klopeks don’t fit the mold for what standard suburbia is meant to look like, they are instantly vilified, showing how many of these communities exclude and judge as a way to justify their own “normalcy. ” The youngest, Hans, is lanky, with bright red hair and a ragged beard to match. Reuben, a much older uncle, is short, stout, and speaks in a deep raspy voice that conveys a heightened level of intensity, or, as Rumsfield describes, “about a nine on the tension scale.” Werner, or “The Doctor”, is the most “normal” and unassuming of the three. The family moved to this idyllic suburb after their previous home mysteriously burned to the ground. They represent the fear of the unknown and the buried complexities of suburban anxieties. Their official introduction to the neighborhood happens to coincide with the strange disappearance of one of the elderly neighbors.
The film was released after the end of the Reagan era, where conversations surrounding anti-communism efforts, the USSR, and the nuclear family were emphasized. It was also a time when foreigners entering a space of conformity, like the ‘burbs, would’ve been seen as disruptive and an immediate threat. To combat this threat, the film uses the main trio, Ray, Art, and Rumsfield, not just as a means to reclaim their neighborhood, but as a representation of three archetypes of suburban anxiety.
Ray Peterson represents the typical American man, who works a regular job, loves his family, and enjoys the occasional cigar. According to the neighborhood teen, Ricky Butler (Corey Feldman), Ray is “grounded in reality and doesn’t want to believe his next-door neighbors are up to something strange, because if he did, he’d have to deal with it.”
Art, Ray’s brash, troublemaking friend, is essentially the nosy, gossiping neighbor who likes to fill Ray’s head with conspiracy theories. Rumsfield, a patriotic ex-marine who still dons his military uniform, considers himself the neighborhood’s first line of defense. Despite the differences in their roles, as the everyman, the conspiracy theorist, and the stickler for law and order, they are united by one thing: they have to maintain the status quo of the neighborhood by any means necessary, including a 3-point mission to investigate the mystery of the Klopeks. This includes rummaging through their trash, an imposed welcome wagon as an excuse to snoop around the basement, trespassing, breaking and entering, and ultimately, the destruction of property. All for the sake of justifying their own paranoia and biases.
At the beginning of the film, Art crashes Ray’s stay-cation to obsess over “half-cocked theories” about the reclusive family, calling them “strange” and “grave-diggers.” Despite Ray’s better judgment, he can’t deny that he witnessed the Klopeks digging in their backyards after dark during a rainstorm. Besides the dinginess of the house and the unmowed lawn filled with weeds, the reasons for this speculation, according to Art, are that “no one goes in, no one goes out, no visitors, no deliveries, what do you think they’re eatin’ over there, Ray?” Rumsfield, on the other hand, has no real justification for hating the Klopeks; he only does so because they’re different. The neighborhood gossip, paranoia, and territorial behavior depicted comedically in the movie may seem harmless and facetious, but considering that the Klopeks are foreigners, you can interpret the film as xenophobic through our modern lens.
At the end of the film, Ray’s self-awareness about the damage they have caused forces him to take stock of their actions. “We run around vaulting fences and peeking in windows and throwing garbage in the street and setting fires and acting suspicious and paranoid! We’re the lunatics, Art! It’s not them! It’s us.” Ray is filled with shame, anger, and guilt, and must reckon with the fact that he was so destructive towards people he never gave a fair shot to.
One could argue that Joe Dante was essentially satirizing the illusion of suburban safety and the idea that dangers lurk outside of our front door. When in reality, we are just as capable of finding darkness digging in our backyards. The ‘Burbs shows what happens when people don’t reflect enough on their personal prejudices, the consequences of letting a mob mentality cloud our judgment, and justify destructive behavior for the sake of protecting their community from foreigners. The ‘Burbs is not the conventional 80s movie. It lacks Ferris Bueller’s boyish charm, there’s no pirate treasure, and there’s no catchy theme song to remember for the ages. But it has character, it’s entertaining, topical, and showcases Tom Hanks’ underrated physical comedy. I believe that the film is iconic in its own way. I highly recommend this unsung horror-comedy. So, if anyone is unsure of what movie to watch on Halloween or is sick of the “traditional” films, grab a lemon phosphate, some binoculars, and stay out of the basement!