The ‘Burbs (1989)

Episode 438, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, we are kicking off a month. It was a hundred percent your idea Horror comedy month. I feel like this isn’t the first time we’ve done a horror comedy month, but maybe it is. 

Craig: I dunno. I I, I don’t know if we’ve ever done a full month.

I mean, we’ve definitely done horror comedies. I love. Horror comedies, hence this month. Yeah, I mean, it’s a great idea and I love theme month. So yeah, let’s just 

Todd: do 

Craig: it all. I know you love a theme month. Mm-hmm. I did, and I had several in mind, and I don’t wanna spoil ’em all. I want it to be surprises, but I don’t know if this is the movie that made me think of the month, but.

I knew I wanted to do this one first. 1980 nines, the burbs directed by Joe Dante. What is your history with this movie? 

Todd: Oh gosh. My history with this movie is nothing but lovely. We watched this a lot growing up and we loved it. I remember there being so many little catchphrases from this movie. Yeah. Some of which I kind of forgot until we started watching it.

I know we had it on video, probably recorded off the TV or something, but I do remember this was, uh, this came out at a time when Tom Hanks was still mostly doing comedies. Mm-hmm. I think even though I believe this was filmed before Big, they took a little time to get post-production finished and Big came out.

Before this? 

Craig: Yeah. I think this, I, they were filming this when Big came out. By the time this came out, he was nominated for something. I don’t, best actor, I guess. Yeah, I, I 

Todd: did 

Craig: he, was he just nominated or did he actually 

Todd: win? I just saw nominated, but I’m not sure. I think nominated. I don’t think he won an Oscar until Philadelphia because, right.

I think that’s right. This was right at the edge, right? Like at this point, Tom Hanks was a big name actor, but he was mostly known as a comic actor. Like he was in Bachelor Party and Splash and The Burbs and Big. And he was just doing all these goofy comedies. But everybody loved him. He was really, really good.

And I think it was around the time Big came out because he had a lot more serious heart. Later on, you know that movie’s got a lot of going on in it. I really love his performance in it. And so he had a nice little trajectory to his career. And then, if I remember correctly, because I remember distinctly watching the Academy Awards when he won the Oscar for Philadelphia, where I believe he played a gay man that was.

Kicked out of the military because he had aids. 

Craig: I don’t, I don’t know. 

Todd: And went to court about it. God, I should have looked this up beforehand, but it was something along those lines, and it was a completely serious role. And from then on he started getting more serious roles. And it’s hard to believe, but yeah, that, that, that was the Tom Hanks, that in the early eighties, nobody ever would’ve believed that he was going to grow up to be like the widely respected, serious actor that Tom Hanks is.

It’s like. He can do it all now. Yeah. And it’s really cool. Yeah, he’s really good. Yeah, he’s good in this. It’s full of stars. My understanding is that this movie wasn’t well reviewed when it came out. It had, some people liked it, some people didn’t, but everyone I know loved it and I think that it didn’t take long, especially on the home video market, for everyone else to just sort of unanimously fall in love with this movie.

Craig: Yeah. I was actually surprised to read that it was. Critically panned. It did pretty well because Big was huge and, and Tom Hanks was nominated, so like, it, it, it made its money back at least. Mm-hmm. But it, it was, I think, the worst reviewed movie of that year. And that’s crazy. I don’t get it. 

Todd: What was coming out, what kind of gems were coming out that year?

I gotta go back and look. 1989. Geez. 

Craig: Exactly 

Todd: like 

Craig: I, I don’t get it. I don’t think that I was aware of that at the time because like you, everybody that I knew thought it was hilarious. Like this is a movie, like you said, the same. I think we have pretty much the same experience. I don’t think we had it, but we would get really excited when it would come on, or we would rent it over and over again.

Yeah, because it’s hilarious. Yes. And. It’s also, it is horror. It’s a horror comedy. It leans heavy into the comedy. Yeah. As many of these that I have chosen are going to, so yeah. I hope that’s okay. Dear listener, 

Todd: I like what you chose. I, I’ve just gotta say, we’re not gonna spoil it, but I think that what you chose is a nice series of these, sometimes forgotten, sometimes underappreciated, but actually really lovely horror comedies.

It’s a gonna be a great month. Great month. 

Craig: Yeah, I think so too. And I just wanted to do something fun. I, you know, I wanna laugh. I, yeah, everything feels kind of serious and heavy these days. Yeah. And I just wanted to, let’s, let’s talk about something fun. And this is, and you know, you talk about Tom Hanks, this is kind of prime, Tom Hanks to me.

I love all Tom Hanks. Yeah, every Tom Hanks I love, he seems like just an a gem of a person. He’s a great actor, just he’s an American icon. He’s fantastic. I have nothing negative to say about him, but this is when I like him best. This and big where he’s still kind of playing more into the physical comedy and he’s making bigger comedic choices.

Like there’s one, you know, kind of. If any scenes in this movie are iconic, one kind of iconic scene in this movie where he and his neighbor realize that they’re holding a human bone that the dog has dug outta the yard. One guy’s like Ray, this is Walter.

They both just. Open their mouths wide and just scream, and the camera fast pans in and out, in and out. Like it’s, it’s goofy and it’s meant to be, but it’s so big and so funny that I just can’t help but laugh out loud. And that’s kind of the tone of this movie, and I love it. 

Todd: Oh yeah. I mean, it’s just a fun ride.

Like when you wanna sit down and you just want to enjoy something that is light and you know you’re gonna laugh and you’re not gonna have to think too hard, you’re just gonna love it. There’s just so much to love about. This movie and it’s just about suburban America. It’s almost a parody of suburban America.

Yeah, and you know, I was, I was really thinking hard about this today and I think this is what I love about the movie and maybe part of it’s charm, why it resonates with so many people. It’s no accident that this was filmed on the same Universal Studios back lot that like leave it to Beaver and the Monsters and.

All of these old desperate housewives. Yeah. Up to now. Right. But like all of these sitcoms that all take suburbia and kind of make it this classic notion of what it’s like in suburbia, which we can make fun of when we can make silly, I think it just plays to a fantasy. That we have about what it’s like to live in the suburbs.

I grew up in the suburbs pretty much everywhere we lived, I was with the military family. We moved around a lot, but everywhere we lived, we were either on base, which was its own little suburban experience. It really is. Or off base. We just, my parents bought a house and or rented a house, and we lived again in a street just like this.

At least two of them were cul-de-sacs, just like this nice. But we as kids playing around in these streets had full reign and we always had these fantasies of what was happening with our neighbors. A lot of people we didn’t even know. I even think when I was growing up in the eighties, it still sadly wasn’t like everybody’s outside mowing their lawns and sprinklers and kids just running around playing.

Most people were inside their house, but the kids might be out on the street playing around, coming and going, and I remember when we lived in Michigan, we lived on this. Kind of cul-de-sac. And there was a woman, I think she must have been in high school. I, I, I don’t even know her. She was two doors down from us and we didn’t even know this family.

But at some point while we were living there, I think she got a present from her parents for her 16th birthday and into the driveway pulls a pink convertible. And on the pink convertible. They had put like a decal of the Playboy bunny, like on the back or in the corner, and my friends and I were convinced that my neighbor next door was a a Playboy centerfold playmate.

Craig: That’s funny. 

Todd: We had concocted this whole story about her based on just the fact that she had this. Pink convertible with a Playboy Bunny logo on it somewhere, 

Craig: you know? Well, I mean, that’s the, that’s the whole thing. The movie is based on a very common trope that we see in thrillers and horror all the time.

Really, based on what you just said, the, the notion that you never know what goes on behind closed doors. 

Clip: Hmm. 

Craig: And you know, sometimes everything looks normal, but then you take something like this, that satirizes it and you know, you basically. Have the Adams family move in next door to the Adams family house.

Like, like why is this house on this beautiful street? These people just moved in. It’s not like it fell into this terrible disrepair in the last month. Right, 

Clip: exactly. 

Craig: Inside and out. This place looks like the Adams family house. It’s a joke, but that is the whole premise is that like you, you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.

You don’t really know your neighbors, uh, who are they, what they do, or whatever. And the movie was intended originally to be like a parody of Rear Window, which I can totally see. Mm-hmm. It was written by Dana Olson. I don’t know anything about them. He did 

Todd: memorize of an invisible man. Georgia, the jungle.

Not a lot, honestly, but some movies I kind of enjoyed. 

Craig: He wrote it, but then they filmed it during. The writer strike. And so this is very shady to me. I read that like Dante got him on set by hiring him as an actor, but he couldn’t contribute anything to the script. Okay.

Didn’t happen, huh? But supposedly, as a result of that, most of the movie is improvised. Like they were just rewriting in the moment all the time. And that I think probably. Is great because the cast of this movie is just, it’s great. Capable. Like this. Very capable of this, yeah. Oh, capable. I mean, Tom Hanks, you know, he, he’s an actor.

I, I know he’s directed, I don’t know, I think he’s written, but I’m not sure. However, his wife is played by Carrie Fisher, who is a brilliant writer. Brilliant comedian. Yes. So I’m sure she contributed. Rick Du Cummin was a, a comedian out out of Canada. I, I think. Yep. That he and Rick Moranis and all those famous Canadians came from.

So he’s, you know, he’s, he’s used to improv. That’s kind of what he does. Wendy Shaw, who, I don’t think people would recognize her name. I don’t even know that I would recognize her name, but she was in great eighties things. Yes. And I always kind of remember her the same. She’s always got, you know, kind of ditzy and like big blonde hair and big boobs and, and high heels.

I remember her. As being Martin Short’s grocery store coworker in Innerspace. Oh yeah. Another 

Todd: fantastic movie. 

Craig: Yes. And her boss was played by Henry Gibson, who plays Dr. K Cloak in this movie also. Yes. Then you got Cory Feldman, and then you got Bruce De like, I think of Bruce Dern as a serious actor, and he plays kind of the straight man, I guess.

In this movie, but he’s really funny. Courtney Gaines from The Children of the Corn. Yeah. And uh, can’t Buy Me Love. He was in that too. I mean, he wasn’t huge or anything, but he was, he had been in stuff at this point. It’s a great cast, especially if you grew up in the eighties watching movies. This is an all star cast 

Todd: for eighties kids.

It is. And then directed by none other than Joe Dante, and this is Joe Dante. Through and through. This is his material. He is so about these quirky kind of genre mashups, you know, even the Howling when we did that, which was one of his first big movies and Piana, they’re piranha’s, a comedy horror. The Howling has these.

Odd elements of comedy, definitely these odd elements of darkness and horror. So he’s perfect for this movie. He just has this almost gremlins like sensibility to it. They’re playing with a darkness, but it never gets too dark. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: But when you really step back and think about it. It is actually kind of dark and quirky, you know, and comedy.

He can just do comedy really well. And apparently Hanks was like, look man, he, he’s one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with you. He let us experiment, he let us play, and he really knew how to work the camera so that the story was told through the eyes of the camera. I. Couldn’t say enough good things about it.

And apparently everybody had a blast on this set and it totally shows. 

Craig: Yeah, a hundred percent. It just looks like they’re having fun and it’s all, there’s something quaint and charming about filming this all just on this cul-de-sac, like it almost exclusively takes place. Outdoors and it’s just these neighbors commun, you know, doing What neighbors do they have?

They know each other. They have established relationships. The, the first thing we see is Tom Hanks steps outside of his house at night. I think he’s in his pajamas and he hears weird noises next door, like banging, and when he steps onto the lawn, the wind picks up mysteriously like we’re just. Yeah, establishing tone, this is what we’re doing.

Then immediately, boom, it’s daytime in suburbia, uhhuh, and they establish it the same way. We always establish daytime in suburbia with kids riding their bikes down the street and you know, somebody mowing their lawn or something. I don’t know. I’m making this up. Yeah, but it’s this, it’s the same way that they always set this up and then we start to meet people.

Todd: It’s like panning through the neighborhood. 

Craig: Yeah. Right. And it’s great. I love this as a device. I love this part of these types of movies. Even when the new family comes into town and we, we get acquainted with the town and we meet the people. There’s Walter who appears to be an elderly gay man, though that’s never really an issue and he’s got a little dog.

A little poodle named Queenie played by the same dog from the Silence of the Lambs. It’s a crazy bit of trivia. Yeah. Teenager Ricky played by Corey Feldman, who lives in the Munster’s House and I guess his parents are away for the weekend or something. I was trying to figure out what for, it’s 

Todd: almost seems like he owns the house, but it does seem like it.

He just, but there’s no way ’cause he’s a teenager. No, he’s too young. Either that or he struck at Richard Bitcoin or something. 

Craig: And then there’s Rumsfield played by Bruce Stern and he’s like retired military, still wears his fatigues and camos and stuff. Still raises the flag every morning. Uhhuh, Uhhuh.

And he’s married to Bonnie, played by Wendy Shaw, who I talked about, who’s clearly younger than him. But they actually seem to have a really cute relationship. They do. We meet Carol, Carrie Fisher Ray’s wife, and she’s worried about him. Now I’m not really clear what’s going on here. Right? He, they keep talking about how he’s on vacation, but it kind of seems like vacation in air quotes, and he’s really on edge.

Todd: Yeah, I felt like. When I was a kid that he was overworked, he was on vacation and he was also stressed out about just like living the life that everybody lives. You know, that old trope of, I’m so successful that and every, everything is so normal that I don’t have any excitement in my life where I don’t know where my wi life is going, except ordinary, and so I’m depressed.

Midlife crisis kind of thing. Like, what? What am I coming to? And so, 

Clip: yeah, 

Todd: instead of going out for his vacation, he was going to stay home and have vacation, like staycation, I guess, at home. Try to get things done around the house. Yeah, just relax, relax. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. Sit around and drink beer in his yard during the day.

I guess he spends almost no time doing that right away. Yeah. Well, and that’s the problem, like. They’re bored. I, I think you’re right. I think that this is kind of commentary on, you know, the grind and you know, just living that prescribed life or whatever. I don’t know. I don’t really have any commentary about that, but 

Todd: Well, a general neighborly.

Nosiness too. 

Craig: Well, that’s true, but what I was getting at was he also has this friend Art played by Rick Docu. Now I heard that Tom Hanks and Rick. I heard, like somebody told me, I read it, I read that Rick Docu and like Tom Hanks didn’t get along with him very well, but. He, you know, was a professional about it and I hate to hear that ’cause they worked pretty well together.

Yeah. But it, I, it also kind of worked for their characters because Tom Hanks’ character, who is kind of, like I said before, uptight is generally irritated by Duke Cummins character art. Yeah. So maybe that’s a little bit of life imitating art, but it works well in the movie, but. My point was the two of them, seemingly art’s wife, is out of town for the weekend.

Also, by the way, they have nothing better to do than spy on and theorize about their new neighbors who they don’t know. 

Clip: I did talk to the real estate fraud that sold ’em the place, apparently their last house. It only burnt to the ground. Really? Yeah. A hideous, raging inferno.

Neighbors from hell, whatever it is. I’m sure glad I’m not the one who lives right next door to ’em. I mean, come on, let’s face it. You know these cloaks are strange. I’ve been watching that house ever since they moved in. No one goes in. No one comes out, no visitors, no deliveries. What do you think they’re eating over there, Ray?

Craig: You know, like if they would occupy themselves with something productive or go on vacation rather than just hanging out in the yard, maybe they wouldn’t be so worried about it. 

Todd: Yeah. Which Ray’s wife, Carrie Fisher, is continually telling him, you just need to do this. Go on vacation, we just need to leave.

He is like, no, no, really I’m gonna do this. And there’s a lot of that humor too that I told your so wife who just sits and smiles knowingly nodding at her husband’s antics that she knows are not gonna go anywhere. And she knows they’re overblown and knows her. Silly. That’s that classic sort of woman knows best relationship.

Craig: Yeah. I I, but I love Carrie Fisher so much. Carrie Fisher just has. Something about her that can come across that trope that you’re talking about can kind of come across as like the bitch wife, you know? Right. And And that’s not with Carrie Fisher at all, like No. You’re on her side actually. Oh yeah. Oh my God.

She’s clearly the voice of reason. At every turn. Yes. And, and if he would’ve listened to her all along, they would’ve had no problems. He and art are, you know, suspicious of what’s going on next door. These, these people moved in, it’s the clo, I guess they know their name, but they’ve like seen them digging in their backyard at night.

And the only one that really comes out is. Hans k Cloak, played by Courtney Gaines, who is a child of the corn. Yes. And looks like a child of the corn in leader Hosen. 

Todd: I, I remember being so creeped out, but oddly fascinated by this guy when I was a kid. He’s got like these big, like lamb chops on his, the side of his face.

You know, where his, he’s grown at. He just looks like he doesn’t take very good care of himself and is scared of his shadow and is a werewolf. Mid transformation, basically. Well, yeah, 

Craig: Ray, but, but, but they, they just, you know, art and Ray just stand around in the yard staring at their house talking about it, and Carrie Fisher, Carol just keeps saying like, either leave them alone or go over there.

Mm-hmm. Like, there are, there are very rational ways. To deal with this. Yeah. But instead they act like big dumb dumb men, which you know, and they eventually get the military guy rumsfield in on it too. And then it just becomes a series of. Silly things, but that are all funny. But I don’t really know how to go about them.

I don’t feel like 

Todd: I, I think there’s an escalation here, but even from the get go, the things that are happening do feel rather odd. Like you’re trying to convince yourself that there might be a rational explanation for it. Just in the way that it’s filmed. Maybe it’s overblown, but No, not really. Like there’s one point during the rainstorm, and I think this is the thing that starts to kick it off.

They see the garage door opens, this guy haunts, drives their car like eight feet. To the edge of, to the end of the driveway, pulls a big plastic bag out of there, stuffs it in the garbage can, takes a shovel and bashes it down harder into the garbage can, looks left and right, gets back in the car and backs it back into.

The garage and what they should do is go right over there and check it out, but they decide to wait until morning. 

Craig: Yeah. But there’s been an escalation up to that point. Like they’ve already like gone up on the porch and I don’t remember if they knocked on the door, run the doorbell, the, yeah. Well, and this scene that you’re talking about, the three men.

Are on one of their rooftops spying on this guy with an infrared scope. So like, oh yeah, it is already, it’s already escalated on their side too. But you’re right. This stuff is shady. And that was a hilarious performance by Courtney Gaines, which again, was another improvised thing. Like he was just supposed to take the trash out.

Yeah. And he, he just starts bashing it and bashing it, and b, like you can see him getting physically like work. Up, fucked up. And it’s really funny and it looks crazy and, and it’s supposed to look crazy. But then they find Walter’s dog running around and the whole joke is that Walter’s dog, oh wait, no, no.

Hold on. You can’t. You can’t skip. You were talking about the trash and they should have just gone and looked in it right then. I don’t even remember why they explained. Oh yeah, they don’t. But there’s a great, they’re gonna look at it in the morning and the next thing we see is them like, I think running out.

Because the garbage truck is already there. Yep. And ah, good old Dick Miller, the garbage man. Yeah. Dick Miller and Robert Picardo. Robert Picardo, I don’t know from a lot of things, but he was in inner space too. Lots of inner space. Another 

Todd: Joe Dante 

Craig: movie, Uhhuh. 

Todd: Joe Dante has his people he likes to work with.

And Dick Miller being, being probably in maybe every single one of his movies. 

Craig: Yeah. 

Clip: Go away. Wednesday night, I’m gonna leave you. This seminar could change your life. Vicki, the man is a great dealer and I’m a great bowler. And Wednesday night we’re taking on rose plumbing. You really should expose yourself to this guy, Vic, guy.

He understands para forces the healing capabilities of crystal and the, the laying on of hands 

Craig: if you want, try laying on some hands. They’re funny. It’s, you know, you’re watching a Joe Dante movie. This is your Dick Miller moment. Like, yes. It’s just a, it’s just a fun little back and forth. They have some stupid conversation about like when garbage becomes.

Public property or something, uhhuh. But it’s a funny scene because those three dumb dumbs all come running out of their houses in their pajamas, jumping into the garbage truck, pulling all the garbage out into the street. And then I, I didn’t notice until the very end of the movie, but that, that garbage just stays on the street.

The rest of it, the movie never moved. 

Todd: That was so funny. Every now and then, like a car drives over it or they have to step over it when they go in and I’m like, days go by and I’m like, there’s nobody gonna.

That was great. But yeah, you’re right. So that happens. And then they notice the dog running loose and they get worried because Walter would never let his dog just run loose. And so they go over to his house to return the dog, and when Walter doesn’t answer, they break into his house. 

Clip: Mm-hmm. 

Todd: And they find some chairs overturned and the television on, and Walter’s toupee.

Walter’s not there. 

Craig: Right. And they think that’s shady because a bald guy would never leave. The house without his toupee, which is Oh, fair enough. True. 

Todd: Unless he has two toupees. They didn’t really think about that Fair. So they leave a note for Walter, which the minute he wrote it and post fast in there, we have your dog.

I thought that just sounds like a of note. It totally 

Craig: does. 

Todd: Yeah. Leaves the toupee and they actually slips it back through the mail slot too, and then sees, you are always seeing the cloak, watching them from the roof, from their house or from the window or something like 

Craig: that. Yeah. Like from behind gauzy curtains, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then for some reason, Ray is reading about Demonology. I don’t, I don’t know how we got here. I don’t either. Either. I guess because art is convinced that Walter was a human. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. I 

Todd: did. Why? He says he just jumps to it really fast. 

Clip: Ray, do you want him to take your family, kidnap ’em, tear their livers out and make some kind of satanic ate?

No, I’m not going to listen to this. Ray, you’re chanting. I’m not going to hear this. Now I’m listen to unconscious chanting. You’re chanting. Hear this now. I wanna kill everyone. Satan. Good. I’m not going. Satan is our pal. 

Craig: But you talked about how there were like phrases from this movie that as kids, we repeated this one, my cousins and I, I don’t remember when it stopped because we used to do, I went to Caleb.

Everyone, Satan is good. Satan Pal. Pal. So did we

all. The time. Yes. So funny. Another ad-lib. Yeah. Oh God. But Ray’s freaking himself out watching horror movies like The Exorcist and Texas Shades on Massacre two, and then he has a crazy nightmare, which is hilarious. Yes, this is, this is, I think Joe Dante, he just has this sensibility, just this. Dark comedic sensibility, and like you said, I totally agree with you.

He kind of knows just how far to push it. He also keeps it light enough that you can laugh at it comfortably. Right. Right. Yeah. You know, bad things can happen to people, you know, in gremlins a lot of people died. Yeah. But it was okay to laugh ’cause it was silly. Yeah. 

Todd: Old woman flies out the window. Yeah.

Jesus 

Craig: Ray’s nightmare is silly. But it’s funny. I, I just have on my notes, he’s barbecue. 

Todd: Yeah, on a giant Weber grill, which slowly reveals itself as they’re tying him down and, and standing around. I’m going, I want to kill everyone. Say as good say as my v. He gets to in a state of mind, and then I think they’re talking in the backyard.

And Ray may even be going, oh, this is ridiculous. This is stupid. We need to stop bothering our neighbor. We need to get to vacation and all that. And there his dog is digging in the backyard by the, by the fence. It separates his property from the clo and his dog brings over a bone, which he brings to Ray, which Ray just absolutely picks up and tosses back.

That was really funny. The dog retrieves it brings it back eventually. Art looks and says Ray. What do you have there? And he’s like, oh, it’s just a bone. He’s like, that’s not just any bone. That’s a human femur bone. And they all walk towards slowly, everything builds to this moment. I love the buildup for this joke.

The camera gets low. The music, by the way, the score from Jerry Goldsmith is wonderful. The music gets really intense. It dawns on them. Suddenly he dug it up from underneath the fence,

Clip: Ray. Ray, there’s no doubt anymore. This is real. Your neighbors are murdering people. They’re chopping ’em up. They’re burying ’em in their backyard. Ray, this is Walter. Ah, 

Todd: and then totally break the moon with that. Zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out of them screaming and. We thought that was the funniest thing in the world.

Craig: It was hilarious. I, to this day, laugh out loud. Every time I see it, it is so funny. 

Todd: I saw this with Liz for the very first time. She had never seen this movie before and she laughed out loud. Here we, it’s such a bold choice too, because I do not think even the wackiest comedies are not gonna go this far as to do this camera move.

Yeah, it’s pretty bold choice, but it. It so works. 

Craig: I know it just does. I don’t know how to explain it. It just, it, the, the tone is just perfectly balanced. ’cause it is dark too. We’re talking about dead people. Of course, this happens even after, at some point Carol won’t even let Ray go out to play with his friends because he’s getting so worked up about things.

And in that time, stupid art puts a note. Under the CLO door and runs away like he like ding-dong ditches and his note, his note just says, I know what you’ve done. Like at this point, they are actively tormenting these people. Oh boy. And I, and I think, again, voice of reason Carol keeps saying that, but. It.

They’re big dumb men. So, but right after that big scream, one of the clo throws the note crumpled up over the fence onto their lawn, like at their feet. So they know. They know. They know, they know. Right. 

Todd: And at the meantime, you feel a little bad for Ray because Ray. Kind of getting framed by his friend’s antics.

Yeah, because Rayen slipped that note under the door. Right? But they tossed this note off on Ray’s lawn. And so you can also see that Ray’s kind of at a pickle here too, where he’s their literal next door neighbor and he doesn’t wanna be targeted next. 

Craig: But I do love this part where the wives. Finally step in and both of them are very level-headed and they’re like, let’s just go over there.

The women kind of lead them over there. The men, you know, trailing behind them and they try to be neighborly. I think I. Bonnie has like brownies or something, has made them brownies and they, they knock on the door and somebody answers. This is somebody we haven’t seen before, I think. Ruben Klo. Yeah.

Played by Theodore Gottlieb, who I know nothing about, but he looks like he’s kind of like an Igor, like he’s, he’s kind of short and squat and, and hunches his shoulders and kind of tilts his head and looks a sc very suspicious looking and. Everything in this house is cuckoo. Crazy. 

Todd: It’s just an old fashioned house in a neighborhood where all the houses are modern Uhhuh.

It looks like you said, like the Adams family house. Just dark wood, ornate, gothic decoration everywhere. Not even all of the. Furniture, I think is uncovered and all he does is just stare at them uncomfortably while they sit around and try sort of to make conversation. 

Craig: And Hans serves them on a platter, sardines and pretzels.

And watching Tom Hanks pull out a sardine out of the tent and lay it gingerly across the pretzel and put it in his mouth. Oh, that was so funny. That 

Todd: was, that was hilarious. I’d forgotten about that. Bit sardines and pretzels. But it’s fun to watch the women as they start to come around to, oh, they, this really is weird.

Craig: Yeah. But it’s also hilarious. I, I think that Carrie Fisher and, and the other lady whose name I can’t think of, played it very well. You know, they are. Suburban women. They are trying to be neighborly. They are trying to be polite. Yes. Now they realize these guys are weirdos, but not necessarily dangerous.

Dangerous or what, you know? Okay, you’re right. They’re weird. Let’s be nice and get this over with and get outta here. But it, it was fun to watch. I, I felt like they, as silly as the situation is, they played it as straight as possible and I mm-hmm. I thought it was. Really funny. 

Todd: And then we meet the doctor who comes out again, like you said, played by Henry Gibson.

By the way, did you know that Henry Gibson played, uh, the Voice of Wilbur in that Charlotte’s web cartoon? I absolutely did not. I love that movie so much. He looks, it’s so good. He looks so sinister, but he’s the least odd of all of them, and I like what, what’s happening here? Everyone, but art is trying to be tiptoe and tap dance.

Around these guys and they’re just all kind of stunned. And art is like, so the body’s downstairs, huh? So what do you got going on in the basement? Huh? Maybe a little something weird. Maybe we should go down there. He is just outwardly trying to provoke these people. And he sneaks around the back while they’re all talking.

I think their dog cuts gets, gets loose and chases up. Yeah. They have a great 

Craig: big, great Dane. Mm-hmm. 

Todd: Yep. And that’s what kind of ends the whole, the whole thing. 

Craig: Right. They all uncomfortably leave after that commotion. And I think the wives go home and they’re like, see, you guys are big dummies. They’re just weirdos.

Leave them alone. And all the men are left standing in the street. And Ray reveals. That he found Walter’s toupee at the CLO house. 

Todd: Mm-hmm. 

Craig: I’m not sure if I get that. How did it get there? 

Todd: They said that they were taking in the mail for. At the end. Okay. That’s later. Yeah, later. But it’s something at this point in the movie though, you’re, you’re drawn back in, you know, you’re like, wait a minute.

There’s no way there’s a good reason for that toupee being at the cloak, right? Because we saw him put that toupee back into Walter’s 

Craig: house. Obviously I can’t remember seeing this movie for the first time, but I don’t, I can’t imagine that there was. Ever any doubt in my mind that there was something sinister going on over there.

Sure. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: I can’t imagine. What a letdown the movie would’ve been if it turned out to be nothing like there. There’s no way this is going nowhere. It’s true. Um, it’s true. So, so these were just, it felt fun. Like, ooh, we’re getting new clues like Right. It’s satisfying. Of course. You know, they feel so proud of themselves for being right.

Clip: As soon as that car leaves in the morning, I’m going over the fence and I’m not coming back till I find a dead body. Nobody knocks off an old man in my neighborhood and gets away with it.

Craig: So they set this whole plan into motion. The for for reasons unknown maybe. Maybe they told them during the visit that they were. Leaving. Yeah, because they kind of explained the, the doctor said that his work keeps them on the move. I, I, I, I think he’s a professor or something. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: He says they’ve moved four times in four years and they’re getting ready to move again.

Todd: Yeah. He said, we’re, and tomorrow we’re gonna have to leave and go to a meeting to discuss yet another move. And they’re like, oh, that’s a shame. But this is a turning point for Tom Hanks’ character for Ray, because now he’s like, totally. Sold and a man on a mission who’s gotta do a thing. 

Craig: Right. I don’t remember how he convinces his wife and son to leave.

That’s a little sha, but he does. Yeah. I don’t, I 

Todd: didn’t buy that, honestly. Uh, she is way too smart. Yeah. To believe that he is not gonna be up to no good suddenly wanting to send them away and suddenly coming around on all this stuff. 

Craig: I, that I guess if you wanted to, you know, I, I, I, I guess you could say maybe she thinks that his curiosity has been satisfied ’cause they’ve been over there, but.

Again. No, she’s too smart. She’s, nah, 

Todd: he’s too shady about it 

Craig: too. Yeah. He’s like, me and me and art are gonna go play golf and then art comes over with a golf club in his hand in like a full golf and he’s like outfit. He’s on the cold. Golf. Yeah. I can’t wait to be golf. I’m gonna be golfing all day. Just golf, golf, golf, golf, golf.

Like, yeah, Carol is way too smart to fall for that. 

Todd: I love that. Art also has like a full on uniform for everything that he’s doing. So he comes over in the golf uniform and then the rest of them go to go to work. They’ve got this plan that they’ve put together that we’re about to see unfold, that we don’t know exactly what it is yet, and part of it involves him having to climb the.

The power line in the backyard and cut the power to their house. And at the time he goes to do that, he’s got like a hard hat on. He, he’s got suspenders. Yeah, he looks like, 

Craig: like coveralls. Yeah. Yeah. I also think that it’s his, it’s, it’s so funny to me that the movie. Tells you this is it, this is act three, because Right.

Ricky Corey Feldman literally calls all of his friends over to his house to watch the show. Yes. Like it’s, it’s the movie telling you get out the popcorn folks, the show’s about to start.

It starts with him going up and cutting the power line and getting electrocuted. Uhhuh getting shot off the pole on falling through the roof of a shed, and it’s shenanigans from this point on, 

Todd: it’s total shenanigans and I’m totally on board. Oh yeah. And I’m right there with Ricky, literally across the street.

And it just makes you think it would be so fun to be in this neighborhood. Absolutely. Because everything’s happening on full display. But yeah, they go in and so they break it. Well the first thing they start doing, I think they’re digging in the backyard forever. They dig like six or seven holes and can’t find anything.

While art is keeping watch right across the street from the roof, 

Craig: not art arts. Isn’t art the one that’s with him? I’m, it’s the military guy. Rumsfield. Rumsfield. Rumsfield. Yeah. Yeah. He’s, 

Todd: yeah. They decide they need to go in the house and so they break in the house and they go straight to the basement.

Conveniently, they took the dogs with them. Yeah, and there’s a giant furnace down there, which can only be for one thing. It’s got extra. Pipes and power and stuff rigged to it, and it all starts to make sense to them. They’re like, well, yeah, well, no wonder the, the, the lights go out in the neighborhood.

Every now and then we get these brownouts and there’s all this stuff, like, there must be serious power coming into this furnace, and what more could this furnace be, but a crematorium? And so. They decide they have to start digging. 

Craig: Yeah, I guess, I guess they think they’re burying the bones down there now.

Right? So Tom Hanks is, is digging the power, meanwhile is still out on the whole block from where they, where they cut it and the CLO slowly pull up. The street, see the light in the cellar and then leave again. Now, I don’t know. It seems to me like nobody saw them. Yeah. I know that at that point, Rumsfeld had, al had fallen off the roof, so I, I don’t think that anybody saw them, but Correct.

They see that somebody, they see that somebody’s in their house and they leave. Meanwhile, we see. A car pull into Walter’s driveway and somebody helps Walter out of the backseat. Mm-hmm. Like, he seems to be not well, like something has happened, but he’s there and alive and, and I, I guess, I don’t know.

Again, I, I wish that I could remember how I felt. When I had first seen it because the CLO come back with the police. Yep. They have called the police because they somebody is in their house. Yep. As the police are pulling up, Ray hits metal and I think we hear a hissing and he realizes he’s hit the gas line and he tells art to run and art runs out the door screaming, I don’t know, gas, gas or something and the house blows up.

Todd: Yep. Oh my God. 

Craig: The, the whole house explodes. 

Todd: Yeah. This is a real, it’s, I mean it’s kind of a classic gotcha reversal, right? Where now we’re just questioning everything. Wait a minute, Walter’s fine. They haven’t found a thing in there. Nothing. Now the house is exploding. The cloak went and got the cops. The clo called the police, right?

Yeah. So it’s like, oh my God, it’s. It’s kind of a funny ending. You know, you’re thinking it’s ending because then Ray miraculously manages to walk outta the house. And I remember how I felt when I first saw this. I thought Tom Hanks was putting on the performance of his life and it was absolutely hilarious.

It’s so funny. He is just this stunned, beaten man who is, it’s like he’s finally come to his sense, but he is dazed and. Art comes up to him and is still on about the clo and he just goes off on this guy, 

Clip: get out their case already. They didn’t do anything to us. They us. Alright, so they’re different. So they, the steal you blame them.

They live next door to people who break into the house and put it down. Well, the confident day. Remember what you were saying about people in the burbs. Alright. People like skip people who mow their lawn for the 800th time and then snap. Well, that’s us. It’s not them. That’s us. We’re the ones who are vaulting over the fences and picking into people’s windows.

We’re the ones who are throwing garbage in the street and lighting fires we’re the ones who are acting suspicious and paranoid. Ice we’re the lunatics us. 

Todd: In the process of this, he just grabs the gurney, throws it in the back of the ambulance, jumps on 

Craig: himself and is like, take me to the hospital. It’s so funny and at least I don’t know how much of it, but at least that gurney part was improv.

Oh, it’s so, and it’s, it’s, it’s so physical and so funny. I mean, he’s, he’s manic. Yes, he’s absolutely manic and he throws it in the back and then throws himself onto it. Like the mattress doesn’t even have time to settle. Like he’s, he like, it’s, it’s kind of folded underneath him and he’s just, ugh. You have to see it.

But it it, oh, he does such a great job. His physical comedy is, is hilarious. It really is. That whole outburst is absolutely hilarious. I also thought it was funny, even before that outburst, Carol comes home with the sun and instead of. The typical thing that would, you know, you would have the panicked woman like, oh my God, what’s going on?

What’s going on? She’s more like, oh my God, what now? 

Todd: Almost like she half expected this to happen anyway. Yeah, 

Craig: and, and that’s, I I, maybe the cops explain to them that the CLO had been picking up Walter’s mail and they picked up the to pay by mistake, which that, that. Tracks. Tracks because he put the, 

Todd: to pay in the, the mail slot when he Right.

Put it back. Yeah. You think the movie’s over, 

Craig: you think the movie’s over and Ray Ray’s in the back of the ambulance and Dr. Keck gets in the back with him and Ray’s like. I am so sorry, sir. I am, I am, I’m really sorry. And I promise, as soon as I’m out of the hospital, I will help you, like build your house 

Clip: or something stupid like 

Craig: that.

But he’s being totally apologetic and, and completely admitting that he was in the wrong, and Dr. K Cloak looks at him and says, you saw one of them, didn’t you? And he’s like. What He’s like, you saw one of my skulls, didn’t you? And, and then he gives, you know, the evil villain speech where he, you know, tells him that they killed the previous owners and this is what they do.

And then he tries to, he has this great big comically large. Needle and he’s trying to inject Ray and the driver in the ambulance turns around and it’s Hans and the ambulance takes off. And I don’t know why. ’cause I don’t, is anybody in pursuit or anything? I, 

Todd: no. The ambulance 

Craig: just drives into a house. It just didn’t, I don’t even know whose house that was.

Todd: Yeah, it was definitely Art’s House, which felt fitting. Art needed to get a little pain in all this, 

Craig: but when, when that happens, the stretcher rolls out of the back. This is so funny. It’s so stupid. It’s hilarious, but it’s just hilarious. Yeah, it’s dumb. Um, and Ray and the doctor are fighting, you know, struggling on this.

Stretcher as it rolls down the street. And eventually, I guess when it stops, Ray like grabs onto the doctor and says, citizen 

Clip: arrest, citizen arrest, citizen arrest. I’m making a citizen arrest

Craig: man. But the doctor, the doctor then is playing all innocent and I don’t even know how it happens, but they’re all standing around the family, the clo. Car and somehow the trunk pops open. Mm-hmm. And it’s all full of human skeletons and bones. Like 

Todd: what do the clex do? I mean, what? Do they just kill people?

Yeah. Who cares? And just mass murderers or something. I don’t know. Sure. Why not? 

Craig: Whatever. 

Todd: They’re arrested immediately. Charges against Ray are immediately dropped and then of course we’re gonna go away for a long while and he’s turns to Ricky and is like you watch over to the over the neighborhood when we gone, where we’re gone.

And Cory Feldman does this kind of stroll away and breaks the fourth wall, looks right at the camera and says, God, I love this neighborhood. It spins around, starts to walk away through the chaos of the cops and everything. Ah, 

Craig: fitting end. I just, somebody says, I don’t know if it’s rumsfield, or somebody at some point says, do not mess with suburbanite.

It’s, that was hilarious. I also thought somebody, somebody says, I, I think it’s ra, but somebody says, art, your wife’s home and your house is on fire, right? God, yeah. It’s just, it’s a. It’s a, it’s a funny ending. A satisfying ending that, you know, I, that I read that, that the, the bones in the trunk were an insert shot.

They, they didn’t know what to put in the trunk. Oh. At one point they had the bodies of the trash guys, Dick Miller and the other guy. Oh, at one point they were gonna be in there at one point it was. Full of dead cheerleaders, which would’ve been odd. I, yeah, I think the bones was probably the right way to go, especially probably since we had seen Bones before.

Todd: Well, they apparently shot three different endings. Right? 

Craig: Something like that. Joe 

Todd: Dante was like, none of them really worked, but you know, the first, the first test screening they did, the audience didn’t really like it, so they did make some tweaks, but apparently the script originally had Ray dying. 

Craig: Yeah, but I don’t think they ever shot that.

No, no, no, no. I think they thought, no, nobody wants to see Tom Hanks get killed. 

Todd: No. And they were right. That would’ve made it very dark. Yeah. And taken a real goofy comedy and like had a real weird dark ending to it just wouldn’t have worked. 

Craig: I can only imagine the, the script probably was significantly darker.

But you get, you know, you put Joe Dante on it who already has this kind of dark comic sensibility and then you. Fill it with a bunch of really, really smart comedic actors and writers and basically give them free reign. Yeah. You’re gonna get some good stuff. Mm-hmm. And, and it may vary significantly from the source material, but if you’re getting, you know, I never know how to feel about that either.

The writer was on. Set. I, I hope that he was cool with it. I, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be. I would think it would be so great to be able to work with these kind of people on something that you had written and, and to, to be able to see them play with it and come up with fun, cool ideas that maybe you hadn’t thought of.

Yeah, I can’t imagine how cool that would be. So I hope it was a positive experience for him. But this is one of those, maybe it was kind of a happy accident that the writers or writer, or. Kind had to be hands off. 

Clip: Mm. Um, 

Craig: yeah, because of the strike. 

Clip: I could see 

Craig: that. I, I think, yeah, sometimes, you know, sometimes maybe there should be like a producer’s strike so that, 

Clip: so that directors 

Craig: and, and writers can really go with their real vision without the influence of the money, right.

In whatever. In this case, I think. I, I don’t even wanna say it’s lightning in a bottle, because Joe Dante’s done lots of stuff that I’ve thought was innovative and funny and fun, and, and still, I get my horror fix too. I love horror comedy. I get that chocolate right in my peanut butter. I’m, I’m ready for it.

Well, we got a lot more of it coming up this month. I know. And I’m excited. I think it’s gonna be super fun. 

Todd: Oh, you guys are gonna love it. And like I said, there’s some stuff in there that’s gonna surprise you. Maybe some stuff you’ve never even heard of before and maybe some things you’ve forgotten about and need to be reminded of how cool they really were or not.

I don’t know. We’ll see. You know, when you revisit these older movies, that meant a lot to us when we were kids. I’m always a little nervous about it. Me too. I was honestly a little nervous going into this one. I thought, Hmm, am I gonna reevaluate this? This, you know, if it’s not gonna be quite as fun. And aside from saying maybe the pacing is just a tad bit slower than a modern comedy would be.

No, I was just, I was just laughing from moment to moment and just really enjoying the ride. The whole, 

Craig: I couldn’t rec, yeah, I couldn’t recommend this movie more. I don’t know. I mean, if you’re, if you’re a fan of horror, if you’re a fan of comedy, if you’re a fan of Tom Hanks, if you’re a fan of Carrie Fisher and, and you’ve gotta be at least one of those things, right?

Yeah. If you haven’t seen it, and I get it, it’s a, it’s, it’s not Joe Dante says. Even though it was critically panned and didn’t do as well as they had hoped it would do. You know, at the time they just kind of threw up their hands and were like, huh, whatever. Move on to the next thing. That’s fine. But he said that over time, this is the movie that comes in second only to gremlins as the movie that people ask him the most about and that people are the most excited to talk to him about.

And I get it ’cause it’s super fun. And I imagine that a lot of those people are like us. They saw it when they were kids. This movie, you know, I don’t think it’s scary. There are dark elements like human bones, human skeletons, that kind of thing. But I, this is fairly family friendly. Yeah. No fright night, you know, at all.

No, right there, there’s no, there’s really no violence or gore really. So, again, I, I, I could go on and on, but basically, uh, it’s one of my favorite movies, frankly, from when I was young. It, it’s kind of hard to find, surprisingly. I know it doesn’t seem to be streaming on any of the major platforms, and I would’ve bought it, but I, I couldn’t even find any place to buy it digitally.

I was able to watch it. It was so annoying in five minute clips on YouTube, they weren’t even stitched together, so every time one would end, I would’ve to click over to the next one. And so that was annoying, but whatever. I didn’t care. It was still a great movie. I would do it again. 

Todd: Well, one down. Four more to go.

What a great way to kick off Horror Comedy Month. Friends, thank you so much for listening and if you have a, a friend or somebody you know who loves horror comedies as much as we do, what a perfect time to introduce him to the podcast. Just. Send them to chainsaw horror.com or just have them Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast.

We also have a weekly newsletter that you can sign up for on our site that lets you know what’s coming up and what we’ve done gives you a little bit of news for the week in horror. Just consolidates that for you. We have a Patreon behind the scenes. We just finished doing the book Clown in a Cornfield, and we’re moving on to another Christopher Pike book.

If something like that interests you, go to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast, get access. To that plus a whole bunch of other stuff. Uh, mini sos uh, the full unedited versions of our podcasts and interviews, written things that we do, and just general access to us for five bucks a month. Until next time, I’m Todd.

And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.