The 'Burbs
Short description
The 'Burbs follows Ray Peterson, a suburban resident whose plan to spend his vacation relaxing at home unravels when a reclusive family moves in next door. The newcomers, known as the Klopeks, are never seen during the day, and odd noises and lights from their house keep the neighbourhood on edge. When a local elderly man disappears, Ray and his friends become convinced the new neighbours are responsible and decide to investigate for themselves, though Ray would rather spend his time reading the paper and watching baseball.
Joe Dante directed the film, the eighth of the sixteen features he has made, arriving between Amazon Women on the Moon and Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Dana Olsen wrote the screenplay, and the cast is led by Tom Hanks as Ray, with Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Wendy Schaal and Corey Feldman in supporting roles.
Released in February 1989, the film cost about 18 million dollars to make and took roughly 49 million dollars worldwide, a solid return. On IMDb it holds a 6.8 rating from around 91,000 votes, and on TMDB it also sits at 6.8, from a much smaller base of about 1,400 votes. A critics' rating of 6.1 from 45 reviews places it slightly below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The actors absolutely refused to step in dog excrement, and the props master, Mark Jameson, had to improvise. He mixed together dog food, bean gravy, and a few other ingredients.
- Gail Gordon's (1906-1996) final role.
- The Universal Pictures logo at the beginning of the film is an animated version of the logo as it appeared during the film's production.
- With the exception of the opening and closing shots of Earth from space, the entire action takes place on Mayfield Place, a dead-end street on the outskirts of a fictional town.
- The original script called for Ray Peterson to be killed by Dr. Klopek. However, once Tom Hanks was cast as the lead, studio executives decided that his death would be unacceptable to audiences and ordered the ending to be rewritten. Several alternative endings were filmed – in some, the Klopeks were found with not only bones but also dead girls, and even dead garbage collectors.
- When Peterson's dog brings Art and Ray a femur, you can hear the trainer giving it commands with a whistle off-camera.
- The miniature poodle Queenie in the film is the same one that played the maniac’s dog in Jonathan Demme’s thriller "The Silence of the Lambs" (1990).
- Tom Hanks’ character watches "Race with the Devil" (Jack Starrett, 1975), "The Exorcist" (William Friedkin, 1973), and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" (Tobe Hooper, 1986) on television.
- The scene where Tom Hanks’ character lies on a stretcher and gets into the ambulance was invented by the actor on the spot.
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