Thursday 16 February 2012

Movie critic: The Burbs

Hello everyone! In my first post I would like to show you one of my favourite films: The Burbs (1989). It is an American comedy horror/thriller film, directed by Joe Dante. My favourite actor is Tom Hanks, who plays Ray Peterson, the main character of the film. Also starring Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman and Henry Gibson. The story is located in Mayfield Place, a cul-de-sac in a fictional town called Hinkley Hills. Ray Peterson lives in a typical American neighbourhood, when some new neighbours come to live in the house next door to him. The new family is so strange, their house is a real mess, nobody has ever seen them, and every night you can hear weird noises from their basement. Their name is the only thing they know: Klopeks. Ray takes a week off from work just to stay at home in pyjamas all day and relax. But he has no normal neighbours, for example the cigar-smoking Vietnam veteran, Lt. Mark Rumsfield, the rocker young boy, Ricky Butler and the silly and greedy Art Weingartner. Once an old man of the neighbourhood, Walter suddenly disappears and everyone starts to suspect the Klopeks. Therefore Ray Peterson and the other neighbours decide to investigate what's wrong with the Klopeks, and the relaxing week-off from work becomes something far from relaxing...
At the end of the film, after Ray has concluded that he and the neighbours were wrong about the Klopeks, Werner Klopek reveales that the Klopek family is a front of a cannibalistic cult, and their theory was true. Ricky uncover a large selection of bones in the Klopek's trunk. The Klopeks are then arrested.
In my opinion, this film is rather a black comedy than a real horror movie. It's not frightful, but very exciting and often funny. I like it because it's not a typical movie.
Here is the trailer of the film and one of the best scenes: