My devilish neighbors

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Movie
German title My devilish neighbors
Original title The 'Burbs
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1989
length 101 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Joe Dante
script Dana Olsen
production Larry Brezner
Michael Finnell
music Jerry Goldsmith
camera Robert M. Stevens
cut Marshall Harvey
occupation

My Devilish Neighbors (Original Title: The 'Burbs ) is an American comedy film directed by Joe Dante from 1989.

action

Strange new neighbors, the three-member Klopek family, have drawn into the caricature of an American bourgeois suburban street. The long-established residents are also rather bizarre characters, including the upright family man Ray Peterson, the retired soldier Lt. Mark Rumsfield, the bustling and proletarian Art Weingartner, the pensioner Walter Seznick and the young Ricky Butler, whose parents are on vacation.

Mysterious noises and bright flashes of light regularly emanate from the Klopeks' cellar at night. They have also already been observed during nightly excavations in their otherwise neglected garden. Since the neighborhood is not entirely at ease with these incidents, no one dares to try to get to know each other. But when one of the new neighbors briefly shows up on his veranda, Ray and Art take the initiative and knock at the Klopeks' house in a kind of test of courage and under the curious glances of the other neighbors, in order to introduce themselves to them. However, they are driven away by a swarm of aggressive bees, which is immediately interpreted as a bad omen . As Ray, Rumsfield and nature at night trying to go to the sounds on the ground, and across from the Klopeks with an infrared - night vision lay in wait, they will witness another eerie light phenomenon from the basement of the property. Immediately afterwards the situation becomes even stranger when a member of the Klopek family squeezes an apparently heavy garbage bag into the garbage can on the side of the road. However, the three avoid taking a closer look at the garbage can immediately and postpone the examination until the next morning. Little did they know that their espionage was registered by their new neighbors. Later that night, Ray sees the Klopeks dig one more time, this time even during a severe storm, in their garden.

When the garbage disposal had already emptied the bins the next morning, Art and Rumsfield rummage through the garbage truck in the hope of finding the Klopeks' garbage bag with the suspected body parts. The search remains unsuccessful, but the residents notice that another neighbor, old Walter, has suddenly disappeared. A new, bad guess is germinating among the neighbors. They break into Walter's house and find “clues” there that suggest an unplanned disappearance. While Art suspects the ritual killers and devil worshipers behind the Klopeks , which Walter offered as human sacrifices, Ray first tries to find a more logical explanation for the events.

The suspicion against the Klopeks is reinforced the next day, however, when Ray's dog digs up a bone under the border fence to the Klopeks property that looks astonishingly similar to a human thigh bone . In addition, Art and Rumsfield aggravate the situation by confronting the Klopeks with their suspicions via an anonymous note. The wives of Ray and Rumsfield, on the other hand, shut themselves off from the seemingly absurd theory of a satanic cult and initiate an attempt at a clarifying conversation between the neighborhood and the newcomers. The rather sluggish meeting, marked by mutual distrust, does not calm Ray, Art and Rumsfield. Quite the opposite: Ray finds Walter's toupee in the Klopeks' house and thus unmistakable proof that Walter was kidnapped and killed by the Klopeks.

The three men quickly forge a plan: In the absence of the Klopeks, Art and Ray want to search their garden and the house during the following day, while Rumsfield is supposed to monitor the street from the roof of his own house. When trying to switch off the alarm system on the Klopek property, Art first paralyzes the entire power supply of the place and suffers a strong but otherwise uneventful electric shock. Rumsfield is also not spared from injuries when he falls from the roof of his house during his surveillance operation. After Ray and Art have in the meantime abandoned their excavation work in the garden, they penetrate the house and discover a huge incinerator in the basement, which they believe to be a crematorium . They suspect Walter's burned remains in the basement floor and are now starting to dig there. Their persistence now seems to be paying off: In the lower basement floor they come across a hollow metal object, which probably contains Walter's corpse. Euphoric, Art rushes out of the house to get his cutting torch. But when the Klopeks return in an unobserved moment and already notice the intruders in their house from a distance, they quietly retreat, only to pull up in front of the house shortly afterwards, accompanied by a police car. Meanwhile, Walter (who is still alive) has also returned home. Rumsfield and Art are horrified to discover their mistake. Ray, however, unaware of the new developments, continues to try to expose the metal object in the basement. While young Ricky tries to stop the police officer to give Art enough time to get Ray out of the basement, Ray damages the metal object while digging, which now turns out to be a gas pipe. The escaping gas ignites and the Klopeks' house blows up.

Fire brigade, ambulance and other police arrive. The moderately injured Ray is questioned and accused of multiple break-ins , trespassing , arson , insults , assault , vandalism and (unjustified) even blackmail . Walter's disappearance turns out to be hospitalization. The Klopeks took care of his mail while he was away. Werner Klopek turns out to be a not unknown doctor. Although the Klopeks' innocence is now evident and Walter is alive, Art continues to abuse them as a murderer. Ray gets so angry about this that he jumps by Art's throat despite his injuries and can only be separated from him with difficulty by the people around. Eventually, he volunteered to get into an ambulance. When Ray met the head of the Klopek family, the pathologist Dr. Werner Klopek is in the ambulance, he apologizes for his actions. Klopek, however, suspects that Ray has found something and tries to kill him in a dramatic fight on the sickbed. In the course of this, Arts Haus was also badly affected. When the two finally crash into the Klopeks' car, the trunk of the car opens, in which several skeletonized corpses are discovered. In the end, the Klopeks turn out to be criminals: They killed the previous owners of their house, burned their corpses in their cellar stove and buried the remains of bones in their garden. However, when they were aware of the ongoing espionage activities of their neighbors, and they feared being exposed, they dug up the bones again and deposited them in the trunk of their car. The Klopeks are arrested. The charges against Ray and the others are dropped. Peace and love for the neighborhood can now move back into the peaceful suburbs.

criticism

“With the means of horror film and parody, pitch-black criticism of the philistine bourgeoisie, the excesses of which expose the horror and neuroses of everyday life. Mostly entertaining, with good actors. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards

Film music

Trivia

Colonial Street as Wisteria Lane in Desperate Housewives (2006)
  • The American Colonial Street-themed street is a full movie set on the grounds of Universal Studios Hollywood . According to the IMDb , it was used as Wisteria Lane of the Desperate Housewives series from 2004 and is u. a. can also be seen briefly in the film Deep Impact .
  • In the kitchen scene near the beginning of the film you can see a packet of breakfast cereals on which Gizmo, the little Gremlin from the movie Gremlins - Little Monsters is shown: Also a film by director Joe Dante . Even Dick Miller (garbage man) starred in this film.
  • In the scene in which Art tells the horror story of Skip the mass murderer, there is a reference to Freddy Krueger : "He lived over on Elm Street ..."
  • Synchronization error at 00:47:40: After Ray's dog Vince dug up the bone in the garden, Ray Petersen (Tom Hanks) addresses his neighbor Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) with his own first name in the movie: "Ray, how do you know?" .
  • There is a break in logic in the film: During breakfast on the first day, Art talks about the real estate agent who sold the house to the Klopeks. At the end of the film, however, you learn of the violent death of the previous owner and the takeover of the house by the Klopeks. A sale therefore seems unlikely.
  • Film mistake: In the scene with the heavy storm, if you look closely, you can see that the flash lamps used by the film crew glow for a long time on the house fronts. In addition, the structures of another film set can partially be seen from Ray's garden in the background.
  • The films that Ray Petersen watches in bed on TV in the evening: "Four in the raging coffin" (Race with the Devil), "The Exorcist", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ My devilish neighbors. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ↑ Nominations and awards according to IMDb