The 'Burbs (1989, Joe Dante)

Fresh off his fame of his first Oscar nomination for Big, young Tom Hanks stared in his most absolutely balls out entertaining film.

So Tom Hank's character Ray lives in the peaceful suBURBS with his wife Carol (Carrie "Princess Leia" Fisher) and their son. But they just got new neighbours, the Klopeks, and they're overly weird and let their house rot. Major suburban sin.

Ray's neighbourhood friends are Art (Rick Ducommun) , who plays as the main antagoniser. He's constantly filling Ray's head with horror stories to get him to check out the Klopeks. Mark (Bruce Dern), the solder of the pack who's equally curious and eager for a showdown. And then there's Ricky (Corey Feldman), he plays the comic relief, and that's pretty much all Ricky's there for.

As the film progresses, things begin to escalate as one of the neighbours (Walter) goes missing.  Now suspicions really begin to rise, which leads to the inevitably meeting of the "neighbours from hell" in their home which is... odd to say the least. But once the guys find Walter's wig in the house, they won't stop until they find Walter's "body".

The material feels somewhat like a cartoon sketch and even detached from reality at times and to add on to this, the camera work is downright playful. You sometimes get a Desperate Housewives/Edward Scissorhands feel from the neighbourhood itself here and as for the three main characters, they're full blown children.

You can especially see this in a scene where Art and Mark keep asking Ray's wife if he can come out of the house to (play) help them snoop on the neighbours. It's hilarious.

Mark: "Please Carol, let him come out... come on!" 

Carol: "He can't come out until he resembles the man that I married." 

Art: "We don't have that kind of time!"

The 'Burbs was directed by cult director Joe Dante of the amazing Trailers from Hell channel. A major cinephile who began his career with legendary exploitation producer Roger Corman with films like Piranha, leading to The Howling, Gremlins (his most famous) and Matinee. But this is the film that you can easily find yourself re-watching over and over again, as it never disappoints and never gets old.

And of course in classic Joe Dante fashion, we get (as always) the great character actor Dick Miller, this time as the neighbourhood garbage man.

You really get a sense that you may be entering the realm of horror (mostly with Ray's awesome dream sequence), and the humour is just relentless. It's just such a wacky film, and the kind of film you can recommend to anyone, hell even your boomer parents.

I had been listening to my favourite film podcast (Pure Cinema), and after hearing them share their love for this film, I thought to myself... this would make for an excellent pizza night with my wife. It's now one of my wife's favourite Tom Hanks films. Do yourself a favour and check out the trailer, you'll wanna watch this.

Rating:  B+

Click here for the trailer