The 'Burbs (1989)

"I hate cul-de-sacs. There's only one way out, and the people are kind of weird."

A quiet street. An average neighborhood. On the surface, things appear to be quite normal. But there's trouble brewing beneath the glossy veneer of the cul-de-sac on Mayfield Place.

Oh, if that isn't an extended metaphor, I don't know what is.

To my recollection, I've only seen this movie once before, and I'm not positive I even saw it the whole way through. I didn't recall anything remarkable about it, but I was eager to give it a fresh view.

Hanx plays Ray Peterson, a suburban family man (his first role of the kind, one that he almost didn't take for fear it would limit the kinds of roles he could play in the future) who, despite the protests of his wife Carol (Carrie Fisher), decides to spend his vacation puttering around the house. It's at this time that Ray notices something off about the eccentric Klopek family who have just moved in next door – strange noises, odd lights in the basement – and starts having suspicions about them. When the old man across the street mysteriously disappears, Ray and neighborhood pals Art (veteran character actor Rick Ducommun) and Mark (Bruce Dern at his finest) decide to take matters into their own hands and investigate the Klopeks at any cost. Rounding out the supporting cast of characters is Corey Feldman as fellow Mayfield Place resident Ricky, who watches the bumbling antics of Ray and pals with avid enthusiasm, but wisely avoids getting directly involved.

At the outset, the premise has such potential – there are so many opportunities for jokes and gags in Ray's growing paranoia, Art's schemes, and Mark's militant tactics that are sadly wasted. There are awkward moments, stilted dialog, and scenery chewing that's almost painful to watch unfold. There's a very good reason for this: the Writers Guild of America strike of 1988, which silenced nearly all of Hollywood's scribes for 5 months. In that time, film and television production was largely crippled without the benefit of new material or rewrites for the old. Studios got around this problem by either hiring non-union writers or outsourcing from other countries (1989's Batman, for example, brought in Brits to polish the script – you've got them to thank for Jack Nicholson's turn as the guy who killed Bruce Wayne's parents). The 'Burbs, in effect, did the former, relying on the actors to improvise much of their own material. Hanx provides his own humorous bits of improv here and there, and while this afforded him and the rest of the cast the opportunity to practice flexing their creative muscles, the lack of cohesion from a single writer's pen results in a rather clunky, disjointed pace throughout.

The "keep calm and carry on" spirit of the production carried far beyond its screenwriting woes, however, as some of the performers were battling as-yet unseen demons behind the scenes. Corey Feldman, who was close friends with Michael Jackson at the time of filming, often had Bubbles the chimp as a visitor to the set, which went about as well as you might expect. Bubbles was confined to Feldman's trailer during filming, and the actor would often return to find that Bubbles had amused himself during the long, lonely hours by smearing his own excrement all over the walls, a routine which eventually got the simian scatophile banned from the set. This literal sh*tshow was the least of Feldman's problems, however. At the time, he was battling an addiction to a veritable buffet of drugs to include marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. The impetus of this, the public would later learn, was the sexual abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of numerous talent agents and studio execs. Interestingly enough, Feldman repeatedly denied that Jackson, who was plagued for most of his adult life by accusations of inappropriate relationships with children, was one of his abusers.

Also suffering from attempts to self-medicate was Carrie Fisher, who famously struggled with bipolar disorder and took copious amounts of recreational and prescription drugs in an attempt to, in her words, "dial down" the manic episodes of her disorder. In a 2001 interview with Psychology Today, Fisher related that at her most severe, she suffered from a delusion that she was the serial killer Andrew Cunanan and, after six days without sleep, hallucinated that she had a golden light emanating from her head. To her credit, Fisher is all poise and polish in this role, with nary an indicator that she is anything but the picture of the ideal suburban wife.

In the age of social media and increased awareness of sex scandals, drug abuse, and mental illness, secrets like Feldman's and Fisher's don't stay buried for long, and with the barreling momentum of the #metoo and #timesup movements, conversations are being held that, if discussed at all, were kept to hushed conversations behind closed doors in decades past.

As a modern-day viewer, it's impossible to view The 'Burbs without thinking of the havoc that lurked just beyond the manicured lawns and impeccably paved driveways of Mayfield Place. It's a testament to the dedication and professionalism of the filmmakers and cast that the film was even made at all, considering the clandestine turmoil that surrounded it. Had I seen it when it was first released, I likely would have written it off as a clumsy effort at best and never bothered with it again. Revisiting it in the here and now, however, I can't help but be impressed with its determination. It's never going to sit high on my list of favorite Hanks films, but having looked at it through new eyes, I can't help but regard it, and its collaborators, with a healthy dose of respect.