The 'Burbs (1989)

Tom Hanks has a week off work, a new neighbor who drives his garbage to the end of the driveway, and a firm plan to stay home and drink "a couple hundred beers." That's The 'Burbs (1989), Joe Dante's suburban paranoia comedy and the kickoff to Shocktoberfest II: Electric Boogaloo. It's Nic's pick, off a listener request from about a year ago (the schedule runs well into 2027, so get your requests in early), and he'd never seen it. Steve wore it out as a kid, a dozen or so viewings between ages 10 and 13, possibly on LaserDisc, and then didn't touch it for three decades.

Is it even a horror movie? Steve consults the official scale he worked out with his 8-year-old daughter: spoopy, spooky, scary, horror. This one mostly lands at spoopy, though the ice pick stuff left young Steve legit scared of the one sitting in a drawer at home.

From there it's a happy stroll down one very nosy block. Nic crowns the poodle the official comedy dog of the '80s (the chihuahua gets the '90s), and Steve's pretty sure this particular poodle is the same dog from The Silence of the Lambs. Nic's research turns up a writers' strike that left Hanks, Bruce Dern, and Rick Ducommun improvising a whole lot, plus the news that Bubbles the chimp was hanging around set, courtesy of Corey Feldman's friendship with Michael Jackson. Steve would like to know why nobody threw a little hat on him and found him a part.

Also on the docket: Nic's tip for talking your way out of a traffic stop (do not do this), Nic's dream where his landlord is Steve, a surprisingly thorough sardine debate in which Nic defends the fish and Steve learns something about fillets, and Steve's actual research into whether a basement furnace needs to go to 5,000 degrees. (A crematorium runs about 1,800. So, no.) And Nic lands on a real truth: the most inaccurate thing in cinema is how long it takes to dig a hole.

Does a childhood favorite hold up after thirty years away? What does a first-timer make of it? Pull up a folding chair. It's the best show on the block.