Product Description

A suburbanite cancels his vacation trip to help keep watch on his creepy new neighbor. When a grouchy neighbor disappears the watch group descends on the suspect house.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 3-JUN-2003
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3445 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Released on: 1999-05-04
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Amazon.com
Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) would like nothing better than to spend a quiet week's vacation in his suburban home, drinking beer and watching TV. But, spurred on by his two friends' spinning of boyish paranoid fantasies about their reclusive neighbors, the Klopeks, the usually down-to-earth Ray begins to suspect his idyllic neighborhood has been invaded by an evil force, to the point where he and his friends become psychotically nosey. You see where this is going, and you see it from a mile off. Only the general surface-thin plot is somewhat offset by director Joe Dante's fine sense of the absurd, and a host of engagingly played neighbor-types, namely Rick Ducommun as Ray's best friend who's always proposing bad ideas, and Bruce Dern as a sometimes wild-eyed ex-vet who'd love some action. Dante and crew seem to have a knack for keeping these broad characterizations light enough that you don't mind their superficiality. But the best jokes in this unprepossessing film come from composer Jerry Goldsmith's score; Bruce Dern's presence, for instance, is announced by the theme from Patton, and the boys' first approach to the Klopeks' for a meet-and-greet is buttressed by classic strains from Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns. Kudos to the Klopeks, for their evil ways are ably embodied by Henry Gibson, Courtney Gains, and Brother Theodore. In particular, any suburb that finds it's inhabited by the likes of Brother Theodore is in dire need of new zoning laws. But Carrie Fisher's role as Ray's amiably long-suffering wife is thankless, and she deserves better. --Jim Gay

Customer Reviews

Repeat value
The 'Burbs isn't one of those movies you'd see being drooled over by film critics or even audiences, but it is one of those movies that if you saw it on TV every couple of months, you'd watch it.

Joe Dante's weird sense of humor shines on this movie even more than the Gremlins movies. It also offers a cast of characters that are as much relatable as they are crazy. Everyone has weird neighbors, right?

Tom Hanks is in top comedic form in this one offering classic lines like "I've never seen anyone drive their garbage to the street and bang the hell out of it with a stick." Then you have the hilarious neighbor Rick Ducommunn who I feel should have had a better career after this film. Corey Feldman (always a treat) plays the irresponsible teen and Bruce Dern is brilliant as the crazy military reject.

All these characters mixed up in a bizzare murder mystery is pure magic. But what makes this movie have replay value is the little things that you don't necessarily catch while watching for the first time. For example, when Rick Ducommunn comes over to visit Tom Hanks and eats nearly everything in his refrigerator while the audience is engrossed with his tales of terror. Or just the body movement of Hanks when he observes the weirdness of his neighborhood throughout the film. Hilarious.

I may be looked upon as weird for giving this movie 5 stars, but it is one I can always rely on for a good laugh and good quotes.

"NO!" "About a 9 on the tension scale, Rube."
"I want to kill everyone. Satan is good. Satan is our pal."
"Red rover red rover let Ray go over."
"I've been blown up! Take me to the hospital, I'm sick."

Watch this movie and you too will quote these lines forever.

Rick Ducommun=God!
Rick Ducummon is fantastic in this movie! Don't get me wrong, Bruce Dern, Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Dick Miller, Henry Gibson, and Courtney Gains are all great too, but Duccumon so rarely gets a chance to shine. We've seen him as the guy in the manhole("Shut it down now!") in DIE HARD, he's the guy whose pool gets a car crashed into it in THE LAST BOYS SCOUT (plus he starred opposite Brian Bonsall(FAMILY TIES) in Disney's BLANK CHECK). He just is never given an opportunity like he has here and he's great! "The thermostat on a home furnace-is that supposed to go to 5000 degrees d'ya think?" and "My wife is home??!" amongst other classic lines are just pouring out of him here. I can't believe some people don't like this movie. At the very worst it's an innefectual, light comedy. At the very best(my end) it's a Hitchcock inspired, post-modern comic pastiche that also has Corey Feldman in it. This movie is a lot of fun. I've watched it a bunch and it only gets better. One of Tom Hanks later frenitic comedic performances. Dvd includes alternate ending which is nice to see.

Watch Out In Your Neighborhood For The Reclusive Families!
As Art Weingartner says "I'm telling you these people are Satanists. As I sit here, they are Satanists. Look... look, the world is full of these kind of things; black masses, mutilations. Mutilations! The incubus, the succubus - I'm tellin' you, Walter was a human sacrifice."

Such is the hysterical dialog between Art (Rick Ducommun) and Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) when they discover, along with some other people in their suburban subdivision, their elderly neighbor, Walter Seznick (Gale Gordon) is missing in action.

Other neighbor buddy, Vietnam Vet, Mark Rumsfeld (Bruce Dern) decides to help Ray and Art to find out what happened to Walter. They all three are SURE that the weirdo reclusive new neighbors, The Klopek family, comprised of Dr. Werner Klopek (Henry Gibson), Uncle Reuben Klopek (Brother Theodore) and shy Hans Klopek (Courtney Gains)have something to do with the old man's disappearance.

So...complete with night vision goggles, credit cards to slide in the Klopek's doorlocks to break in and various other spy equipment furnished by Mr. Rumsfeld, they start their little spying games.

Men and their wives even plan a little friendly "welcome wagon" visit to the Klopeks (one of the funniest scenes in the movie!)

Corey Feldman as young neighbor teen Ricky Butler, Carrie Fisher as Carol Peterson, & Wendy Schaal as Bonnie Rumsfeld ALL turn in great performances.

Even Nicky Katt from Boston Public plays Ricky's young friend Steve Kuntz!

What happened to Walter? Did the Klopek's have anything to do with the disappearance? WATCH THIS VERY ENTERTAINING MOVIE and find out for yourself!

Happy Watching!