Transcript

Intro Clip

You know, this doesn't change a thing. Oh, they may think it does. They may think they're off the hook, but they're not. No, no, they're not. Are they, Ray? Now go ahead, tell them. Tell them we got the goods on them, don't we? Oh yeah, you know, you know, someday they're gonna dig up the back of that yard and they're gonna find the rest of that skeleton to go with that femur. Oh, it might not be Walter, but it's gonna be some sort of torture victim. Shut up, Art! Shut up! God, you don't know when to quit, do you? Look at me! I'm a shell of a man because of you, Art. You leave them alone! Soldiers! You leave them alone! Get off their case already! They didn't do anything to us! They didn't do anything to us! All right, so they're different, so they came from the South! Can you blame them? They live next door to people who break into their house and burn it down while they're gone for the day! Remember what you were saying about people in the 'Burbs are 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 peeking in through 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! Nic! We're the lunatics! Us! It's not them! It's us.

Steve

It's 2 Dads 1 Movie Shocktoberfest, a celebration of the spookiest movies of the '80s and '90s. Now here are your hosts, Scary Steve Paulo and Nightmare Nic Briana. Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of 2 Dads, 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we are talking about the 1989 comedy, not horror, scary comedy? Thriller comedy?

Nic

Spooky, yeah, I don't know.

Steve

This is so funny, The 'Burbs. We're talking about The 'Burbs. Wanna make sure we put that out there. Tom Hanks, The 'Burbs. But I wanna say, this is funny 'cause this reminds me of this conversation I had with my daughter who's 8 about the levels of scariness as we approach Halloween, right? It's October, it's Shocktoberfest. Welcome to Shocktoberfest 2, Electric Boogaloo, everybody. But she and I agree that there are levels of kind of scariness. And the lowest one we actually call spoopy. It's not even spooky. It's spoopy. Spoopy. It's like something that's scary themed, like a skeleton. A half-hearted cartoon. Something like that. Or there's like a Halloween cartoon about a square pumpkin that can't roll down the hill or some shit. Like, I don't know, that's spoopy. Then there's spooky, which is sort of like Disneyland Halloween, right? Sort of a haunted mansion. Like, it's spooky, but it's not scary. Then you get to scary, and then you get to horror. Like, that's sort of like the scale we do. So this is much more spoopy than anything else. It gets to spooky. Yeah, it's pretty low end as the scariness goes, but it is definitely within theme, I believe, for our Shocktoberfest month.

Nic

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And yeah, this was my— this was my pick. And, you know, I realized I had not seen this movie. We actually had a request from a listener about—.

Steve

God, it was a year ago, I think.

Nic

Yeah, we get some Joe Dante in the mix. And I'm gonna tell you, this is how far ahead we plan our fucking movies sometimes.

Steve

Like, right now we have stuff listed on our schedule that goes into, like, well into 2027. Like, well into at this point. Just so people know.

Nic

So, uh, but I'm glad to have gotten this one in because, A, you know, again, we have not seen Tom Hanks. This is our first appearance of Tom Hanks, uh, on our '80s and '90s movie podcast. That's okay. There's lots of greats that we've covered. We've had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 4 times. So, uh—.

Steve

I think this is the 4th appearance of Rick Dukakis, by the way.

Nic

Um, so I thought this would be fun. Fun just as like an off-the-beaten-path horror, like a good way to ease us into the month because I know we have some real scary shit we're gonna get into. And, uh, and just to see like how do these kind of light-touch, uh, scary movies hold up. Yeah, you know, they can't show a lot of gore. Are they still able to keep it interesting? Like, is it strictly— is it made for kids or is it just kind of like a watered-down adult movie? You know, so I thought, hey, fuck, let's try this. And also, uh, Carrie Fisher, welcome to the podcast. Oh yeah, I haven't seen her yet.

Steve

Absolutely. And So much fun. Carrie Fisher in her— I really, really like Carrie Fisher in a lot of her non-Star Wars roles from, from the '80s, uh, when she's hilarious. And When Harry Met Sally, which is absolutely a movie we'll do at some point, another Rob Reiner flick, uh, and, you know, post, uh, the Blues Brothers.

Nic

She's great in that.

Steve

So much stuff that she did that's great. And she's fun in this. She really is a lot of fun. And she looks great and, and she's funny. And so we'll definitely get into all the Carrie Fisher, all the Princess Leia action in this one.

Nic

But, and you've seen this one before?

Steve

I have. I've seen this movie. I think I've probably watched this movie like a dozen times between being like 10 and maybe 13. I haven't seen it in over 3 decades, that's for sure, until I watched it this last week. But this was like a big one for me. This was like a really common— we might've had this on LaserDisc. This might've been one of those movies.

Nic

Oh yeah.

Steve

Not positive, but it might've been. I definitely watched this a lot. My brother and I probably watched this a lot.

Nic

If you find it, burn me a copy.

Steve

I'll have to figure out how that works. But yeah, I'll figure it out. I don't think I ever had an LDR drive or whatever, if they even made those. That would've been fun though.

Nic

True ballers.

Steve

They're so big.

Nic

Yeah, that would be nice.

Steve

I think my dad still has all the old LaserDiscs somewhere at his house. I might have to go hunt for 'em. Let's jump into the facts on The 'Burbs. The movie The 'Burbs was released on February 17th, 1989, sort of a Valentine's Day area. Yeah. This time of year, not Halloween or anything, with a running time of 102 minutes. It was directed by Joe Dante, as you mentioned, and written by Dana Olson. The film stars Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, and Carrie Fisher. For the scores, it received 57% on Rotten Tomatoes, just under that fresh threshold, and a 6.8 on IMDb. So in both cases, like not bad scores, but underneath that level where you kind of want a decent movie to be. Uh, and then we get 2 thumbs down from Siskel and Ebert, and I'll just say it, like, this isn't their movie. This is not a movie for, for critics. No, no, no critic is really going to get into this, so it's not surprising.

Nic

It's not about Chicago.

Steve

Right, exactly. Um, on a budget of $18 million, which, I mean, in 1989, that is a fair amount of money, uh, it earned $49.1 million at the box office, 2.7 times what it cost. Which is a mild success, we'll call it. Yeah, definitely a success. Not a huge blockbuster or anything, but certainly wasn't a flop at the box office.

Nic

So oh, and no awards.

Steve

Yeah, that's a good point. Sorry, I skipped right over because I literally wrote the word none. But no awards. There was something. There was a weird thing that I saw that was like, and I don't remember which organization was one of the critics' organizations did like a young best young newcomer type thing, and it's for the kid who plays Tom and Carrie's kid in this.

Nic

Okay, so it's that kid's dad who nominates for that award.

Steve

I guess because he's in like two minutes.

Nic

Yeah, he's no good.

Steve

Anyway, I'm not that he's. Bad. He just doesn't do anything good. And yet he got nominated— not win, not win, did not win— but got nominated for some Best Young Actor, Best New Arrival sort of awards. Let's screw that. No awards activity to mention, in other words.

Nic

All right, well, uh, okay, well, let's kick it off here. So, uh, with The 'Burbs, we're starting, we're starting with like a zoomed out view of Earth from space, and we keep zooming and zooming and zooming into the neighborhood, and we get to the street, right? The suburban street.

Steve

Do you feel like you could tell where they were aiming at? Is that kind of Iowa? Is that kind of where they're at? It's, it's near the Great Lakes or somewhere in the Midwest is kind of all I can tell.

Nic

Somewhere intentionally nondescript. Yeah, yeah, right.

Steve

Center of the country, like somewhere on meanwhile on Earth. Yeah, right.

Nic

And and it's a dark night here, and we've got our character. We've got Tom Hanks. Ray is yes is his name. Ray Peterson and Ray Peterson, and he's kind of like looking out the window, looking at what's happening in his neighborhood. He walks out of his house, and the house next door has this kind of like. Creepy light coming out from under this house. It's like mechanical noise and everything. And as he kind of walks closer, because you can tell, like, dude, he's been wondering about this for a while. Yeah, he walks closer to investigate, and as he like steps on the lawn, this wind picks up and it's all of a sudden like really creepy. And, uh, you know, and then he steps back and the wind stops.

Steve

Yeah, we get in this like, what? In the first moments of this movie, we get the sense that there's going to be a lot of this sort of like magical sort of element to things.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And then it basically disappears and we never get it ever again. But that's okay. They're setting us up for one thing and giving us something else that happens. But, you know, it's basically like this. And he looks up and can see one of his other neighbors from across the street looking at him doing that. And so we're starting to get this idea that like a lot of these neighbors are wary of this house.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

With like, it's the only house with like no lawn. You know, these are all like beautiful little suburban homes with lawns, green lawns out front or whatever. But this one house, this neighbor of Ray's, It's all dirt and gross, and it's like, you know, and the place looks like it's falling apart and all this stuff. It really stands out like a sore thumb on the street.

Nic

Right, every other house, it's like Pleasantville. And then this is the house that George buys in It's a Wonderful Life, that old broken-down house, right?

Steve

I also get the feeling, I don't know if you ever watched this TV series Desperate Housewives on ABC from the early 2000s. I think this street, this backlot they filmed on is Wisteria Lane, I think. I think it's the same. That seems perfectly correct. 'Cause the way the road turns, it would've been years earlier so the houses could be different, but it really looks like That's kind of the same street that it was filmed on. Yeah.

Nic

And you know, now we're now we're in the morning.

Steve

Yeah. Okay.

Nic

And we get the paperboy coming. It's a good way to introduce us to the different people in the neighborhood throwing the paper. We get an old man with a toupee and a poodle.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

You know, I know we have the Dobermans, the official attack dog, the official attack dog of the '80s.

Steve

Correct.

Nic

I feel like the poodle is like the official comedy dog of the '80s. Like you have a poodle. For a reason. It's never just somebody's dog. Yeah, like the dog that Tom Hanks has in this is just a dog to have a dog, right? But the poodle is the official comedy dog of the '80s.

Steve

That's fair.

Nic

And then the chihuahua is the official comedy dog of the '90s. I like that. So, uh, little—.

Steve

When we get— when we get to Legally Blonde, right?

Nic

Yeah, exactly. So we got the poodle in here, and one of the better poodle actors we've seen. I know we had, uh, Silence of the Lambs.

Steve

I think this is the same dog.

Nic

Oh, is this—.

Steve

I think Queenie— Queenie is the same dog as Precious in Silence and also was in Big, uh, Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

Nic

Okay, uh, 3 Queenies, 1 Tom Hanks here on episode 82 so far. Um, so we see that Corey Feldman character, he's like, his parents are out of town, he's supposed to paint the house or whatever he's doing. He's just kind of fucking around listening to music on the porch.

Steve

Yeah, um, it's just flopping paint everywhere.

Nic

Like, it's really bad, really disrespectful to your stereo equipment and everything.

Steve

Great hair though. Maybe the best Feldman's hair ever looked.

Nic

It's big and full and very '80s kind of rocker hair, like, uh, uh, and then there's this like, uh, very like military, you know, retired military but obviously still living that lifestyle guy played by, uh, Bruce Dern. Bruce Dern. And he's raising his flag and everything. And Rumsfeld is his name, right? Uh, so, and he's pissed because that poodle had pooped on his yard and he's going over to like yell. So we get some good action of the, uh, of the hood here.

Steve

Yeah, we're establishing these people, this block. Uh, we've met all but one of the main neighbors to this point. Um, and I will say, like, this is something that, that I never thought that I would be drawing corollaries between this movie and Do the Right Thing, but like the way that this movie exists just on this block for like the entire movie— I don't think we ever get a single scene that is off of this block of houses throughout this movie— is very much like the corner of Bed-Stuy in Do the Right Thing.

Nic

Friday.

Steve

Yeah, Friday.

Nic

Stayed on the block.

Steve

Same, same idea. And it's very— and, and that's very Uh, sort of like Socratic, very, very, very like maybe Aristotelian, like, but it's very like Greek to have this, like, you know, have the, the, the entirety of the play occur in just one place. Yeah, very, yeah, classic. Um, yeah.

Nic

Um, so, uh, Ray's wife, is it Carol? Uh, yeah, Carrie Fisher.

Steve

We'll call her that.

Nic

Uh, Carrie Fisher, whatever.

Steve

Carrie Fisher.

Nic

So, so he's— he has some, uh, time off work coming up, right? And she's like, hey, let's go like Let's take our son, our dog. Let's go to the lake. Let's get you out of here and go relax. And he's like, I don't want to go to the lake. Like, it's going to be annoying. Like, I just want to stay here and have my vacation at home and kind of just like be around the house and get stuff done.

Steve

This is obviously before the portmanteau staycation had been coined or they would have used it. But yeah.

Nic

This movie could have been called Staycation. And he has a good line. He's like, you know, I just want to listen to the ballgame, drink a couple hundred beers, maybe smoke a cigar outside.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So, uh, so yeah, so that's Ray's plan. Like, I don't want to go anywhere this week. I just want to stay here and enjoy being in my home without having to go to work and relax and maybe get some spying in. 'Cause I, 'cause I don't want to— if I leave, all these motherfuckers are going to be talking about me too, you know, the way that this neighborhood seems to be working.

Steve

And we hear that their next-door neighbors with that crazy weird house they saw, they're named the Clopex, uh, and they've been there a month. Like, we get a lot of exposition just in these conversations between, between Carrie Fisher and Tom Hanks. And so, uh, they've been like a month and there's a rumor that the last house they lived in burned to the ground. And I think we hear this from Art. We meet Rick DuCommon's character, Art, who lives next door to Ray on the other side. And he comes over and he basically, he like says, you got anything to eat? And he comes in and he eats like all their food. Like he's having all the breakfast.

Nic

It's like breakfast time, he's eating leftover ribs and stuff like out of tin foil. He first, we first see Art where he's like covered in a tree branch with a rifle and he's trying to get a crow out of his yard and he ends up shooting this ceramic owl instead.

Steve

Out of Ray's yard. Into Ray's backyard and he kills Ray's owl. He's got the crow. Yeah, he's got this little .22 or something he's shooting. Yeah. And then it looks like one of the Clopex, I think, kind of emerges from the house as they're looking at it.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

And, and it's like this younger guy, looks like, you know, early 20s maybe, really crazy looking, The Hills Have Eyes style dude.

Nic

Very much like, you know, in Jumanji where the boy starts to turn into like a monkey or whatever, like a halfway transition thing, or very like Moe's Shrewd-ish.

Steve

Yeah. Okay.

Nic

Um, but yeah, they, they nailed the look on this guy.

Steve

Also what I've always imagined Leatherface looks like under the leather, like it's this kind of style look, you know. Um, so they're, they're looking and he sneaks back. He's getting the newspaper or something from, from the front. He goes back in, but Art and Ray are standing there like debating whether to go up. And across the street, uh, uh, uh, what's his name, Rumsfeld and his wife, who by the way, as a young boy watching this woman, uh, Nancy Shaw is the actress's name, but playing Rumsfeld's wife, like crawl around the garden in these little tiny shorts that even Corey Feldman's character Ricky comments on. Yeah, this was an awakening moment for 10-year-old Steve, like for sure. Gorgeous woman, tiny outfit, that worked for me.

Nic

I, I miss not having seen this as a kid because, yeah, she's fantastic.

Steve

Really quite special.

Nic

So, so the neighbors are all kind of like, you know, like, are they gonna do it? Are you gonna go say hi? So everyone's watching and there's this very ominous music as Ray and Art are kind of walking to the door. Yeah. And then it's zooming in on each neighbor's face as they're watching them, including zooming in on the dogs.

Steve

Queenie.

Nic

Yeah, great work by Queenie.

Steve

It's overwrought, but in the— in a positive way. Like, it's clearly meant to be like facetiously— yes, giving us this extra tension. And it's really, really great the way that Joe Dante did this.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. So they go up to knock on the door, right? And the address, the numbers on the, on the house say 669, right? And they knock on the door and then the last 9 flips over, you know, so it's 666. And then before anyone comes to the door, all these bees start coming out. So Art and Ray are like covered in bees. They're running down the street. Ah, yeah. And Rumsfield's like trying to chase them, spray them with the hose. Yeah, he sprays them way too long, you know. It's like Billy Madison, like, mister, I don't even know you.

Steve

Or like, I imagine like when Tommy Boy— and I'm a maniac. Yeah, maybe when he's getting like hosed down by Rob Lowe, like Yeah, so so that is is good stuff. But at first I thought they were wasps. They make it clear that it's bees.

Nic

Yeah, I I would have thought it made more sense if it was wasps or hornets, but they say bees. But I don't know, dude.

Steve

I'd be like either way.

Nic

I'm covered in bees, and if someone says oh those are actually hornets, they'd be like fucking spray me with a hose.

Steve

Also, do you remember? This reminds me like whatever happened to the whole Africanized killer bees thing that was supposed to come and like destroy the ecology of the United States? Wasn't this a thing like twenty years ago?

Nic

Yeah, they're coming out with Arabized killer bees now to hit the new fear. They're Iranian killer bees coming.

Steve

Oh boy, um, not looking forward to that.

Nic

So, uh, so Ray goes out, uh, for a walk at night, right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, uh, and he's sneaking a cigar. And Art— Art and the Corey Feldman character there— so they're all such like instigators and shit talkers, especially Art. Oh my God. So as Ray is walking out— and Ray's like his best friend, right? So I understand like kind of joking and talking shit, but you leave your best friends out of it when you're talking to third parties. And he's just like, hey, You know, a lot of people don't know this, or Ray doesn't tell anyone, but he comes over because he's not allowed to smoke cigars in his house. And they're like, oh, hey, Ray, how you doing, buddy? Need a lighter?

Steve

It's, it's kind of dick, but that's all right.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

And this is when Art gives us an interesting town background story, right? About this guy Skip who ran the, uh, the drugstore, the soda jerk, the soda fountain at the drugstore, whatever. And, you know, normal guy, everybody in town liked him, he was friendly to everyone at the, at the soda fountain, whatever. And Ray even is like, oh yeah, I remember this guy, you know, whatever. And he's like, yeah, well, there's this terrible, terrible terrible heat wave one summer and his house started to stink. And everybody was like, why does it smell so bad? And, and basically it was like, you know, the, the— I think the house caught fire. When the firefighters put out the fire, they went in and found Skip's entire family was dead, had been dead for months, just rotting inside the house.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, the whole point is like, you never know what's going on in the 'burbs, man. You never know what secrets people are hiding. And that's the plan here.

Nic

And he said that, uh, that his family had been killed with an ice pick.

Steve

Oh, that's right.

Nic

Oh, and this was about another street. Just kind of funny that they called it Elm Street.

Steve

Yeah, I know, right?

Nic

But one thing about Art telling the story, I feel like, you know, the way he's building the story, it's— there's this crazy smell and nobody knows what it is. And then he's like, and this guy killed his family. And then he tells a lot more of the story, and then he's like, and that smell was the dead bodies. Like, yeah, you fucking said he killed the family a while ago, dude.

Steve

Not the best sequencing of the story. Yeah, yeah, not a great storyteller, Art.

Nic

And if that— look, if that's character choice about Art, the character not being a good storyteller, that's brilliant. I don't think it is. I think it's just kind of out of place.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

One thing I actually, you know, one thing I, uh, I read about this film, okay, is that when it was being produced, it was during a writer's strike.

Steve

Oh, okay.

Nic

And, uh, because of that, you know, a lot of times when things are being made during that time, there's not rewrites and punch-up and all this. So they're relying a lot on like improvised lines, okay, and things like that. So there's a lot in this movie that's been improvised by, by Tom Hanks, by the guy who plays Art, and by Bruce Dern. Okay. Throughout this movie. So maybe it was one of those where he's telling the story and just kind of like rambling.

Steve

Yeah. And you know what, that makes a lot of sense. It comes off like the kind of story where it's like, you know, you know the important information that you need to give it, and you know about how long you're supposed to talk, but you didn't really think through like exactly how to lay out the information. Totally. So the information comes out earlier than you wanted it to because that's what's on your mind. Yeah. Make sure I mention that this guy killed his family with an ice pick. The ice pick's an important and, you know, detail the story. Don't forget to mention the ice pick, right? He's saying to himself. Uh, but yeah, then it kind of doesn't come out quite right.

Nic

Yeah. Um, so it— but this is good, you know, good little bit of background. And Art is just there to kind of get everybody scared and spooked and, and stuff. Like, he's, he's such an instigator. He's like AWACS from Menace II Society, another movie that barely leaves a block. That's true, actually. Um, little—.

Steve

Well, you got the park, you got a few—.

Nic

Yeah, you got a couple minutes, but yeah, they go down So the Corey Feldman character is out on the porch and he's got a couple folding chairs and he's got his girlfriend with him. He's wearing like Michael Jackson's leather jacket.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Another thing that I read about the production, not to drop all these, all these great facts, but so Corey Feldman in real life, good friends with Michael Jackson, and, and he hung out with Michael Jackson's Bubbles, the monkey chimp. Oh, the monkey chimp.

Steve

Yeah, the chimp. Yeah.

Nic

Michael Jackson had So I guess the chimp was hanging around a lot during the filming of this movie. Wow.

Steve

So, uh, that's funny.

Nic

Good old, good old Bubbles, man.

Steve

They couldn't find a part for Bubbles. They couldn't put it— put a chimp in here somewhere. Throw him in there, throw a little hat on him, do something.

Nic

Yeah. Um, so, so the girlfriend's like, what are we gonna do? And he's like, oh, this is the best show. This is the best show in the world. Like, we don't need to watch TV. We don't need anything like that. Like, just pull up a chair. And he's And this is actually a pretty good device of just giving us information while letting it flow into the story. So it's Corey Feldman telling his girlfriend about the different people on this street. Yeah, it's like, yeah, Ray is the only skeptic here. Like, he thinks everything's normal and, you know, this is what Art's doing. And yeah, I thought, I thought that was pretty well done to like catch us up.

Steve

Yeah, absolutely. No, that's— if you're gonna do an exposition dump, kind of the only way that doesn't totally suck is to do it to where there's a good reason that one of the characters needs information.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And the other one has it and it like you and make it make sense without being too, you know, whatever. And it's a great job. And it's— because it's light, also light exposition. It's stuff that we've mostly gathered about these characters already, just confirming like, hey, just so everybody's on the same page.

Nic

So all the kids that are watching this PG movie understand, we're gonna hammer this home.

Steve

Exactly, which is a totally fair choice, you know. Uh, but yeah, they're basically like people watching it. It's like the best, the best show on— that's not on TV. Um, and now there's still— there's more crazy light coming from the Clopex basement. And, uh, you know, they're, they're the, uh, Art and Rumsfeld and Ray, they're all watching kind of from across the street. Rumsfeld's got this crazy infrared night vision scope.

Nic

Like a night vision scope, yeah.

Steve

But it looks like it has a huge— like, I don't know how— this must have been how they worked back then, but it's almost like a big red bulb spotlight thing on the top. I don't know how this thing would work, but it's very weird looking, and it's got an enormous piece to it that wouldn't be on modern night vision stuff. So very odd. But they're watching, and the Clopex garage— it's like a detached garage, right? It's not part of the house. It's an attached garage. The door opens up, Car, really old sedan, right, comes rolling down the driveway.

Nic

He pulls—.

Steve

The young guy again gets out, pulls a huge garbage bag out of the trunk, puts it into the trash can, has to use like a hoe, like a garden tool, like slam down and push down. Yeah, right, all this stuff. And they're watching this, and then just gets back in the car and backs back into the garage. And Ray even says it straight up, he's like, I've never seen somebody drive their trash to the end of the driveway. It is very weird. Super strange.

Nic

Super odd. Yeah.

Steve

Um, but they choose to not go investigate now because everybody's up and like whatever that they— and, and, you know, Rumshield even says that trash ain't going anywhere, we'll check it first thing in the morning, right?

Nic

The trash will be there in the morning, let's check it out. And it is like starting to rain and everything on them too, so they're ready to, uh, they're ready to be done. Uh, Ray real quick is back at his house and he looks out his window into the Clopex yard and he sees 3 figures in the yard. Very aggressively digging holes with shovels and pickaxes. Very grave-sized holes. I mean, suspicious type.

Steve

Very suspicious. Right?

Nic

You're not planting a tomato plant.

Steve

And if you— and if you wanted to do a ton of digging quickly during the rain, it's a great time to do it. The ground's soft, it'll move easier. Like, that is— that is a good sort of thing there. So when the morning comes though, the trash guys are there and they're picking up the garbage and they're— and they're putting it back. And these 2 are very funny. I recognize the skinnier guy more than the—. The—. I can't remember what he was in, but he's been in a bunch of stuff.

Nic

He was in teacher on The Wonder Years. Oh yes, you're right. Yeah, but he's been a child actor. This out to me. But yeah, I wasn't sure, but both these guys I'd seen been in stuff.

Steve

Yeah, the kind of character actors you see and stuff. And so, so they're just like chatting about, you know, I don't know what they're talking about. It's kind of funny, but it's something about, I don't know, like health insurance or something.

Nic

Oh, he wants the guy— he's like, oh, are you gonna, uh— the guy can't do something because he's got a bowling match against something, you know, like something important he can't do.

Steve

It's, yeah, a little chatter back and forth, but, but the neighbors all realize, oh crap, they've taken the garbage. Art comes running out of his house and it's like No, no, no, no, stop, stop, stop. And he starts like digging through the back of the, you know, dumping the trash on the ground and digging through the back of the, uh, of the garbage truck. And Rumsfeld comes out and helps him and all this stuff. And like Ray is out there, they're all looking, and it's like, no, man, there's nothing here. Yeah, they must have gotten rid of it. There's nothing here.

Nic

Yeah. And, uh, and they're being like so rude to the garbage man, just dumping it on the ground in front of their face, you know? And the guy's like, who's gonna pick this up? And they're like, you are, you're the garbage man. We get a my taxes pay your salary, which I always love.

Steve

Classic '80s line.

Nic

Little, uh, little little 2 Dads 1 Movie tip. If you ever get pulled over, make sure you let the officer know that your taxes pay their salary, because sometimes they'll realize it and out of appreciation let you go.

Steve

Nic, we can't do that to people.

Nic

Yeah, we're gonna get our listeners shot.

Steve

The right thing to do is shut the fuck up, never say anything to any cop ever. That's my advice. But yeah, anyway, um, but yeah, so, so they're doing this and then they realize that like Walter isn't there. The dog Queenie runs up to, uh, Rumsfeld's wife or whatever, right?

Nic

And the dog— yeah, clearly like not where it's supposed to be.

Steve

Very weird. Yeah. Yeah.

Nic

And, and she goes over, well, I'm gonna go take Walter's dog back to him.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Yeah, there's no answer at the house. So yeah, everybody immediately like goes in the house.

Steve

Yeah, they just basically break into Walter's house. In fact, Rumsfeld has like cut the, the glass out or whatever. He's like, soldier's way. It's like, dude, that's not— did you work for the CIA? Like, they don't teach soldiers how to like cut glass like that. That's like normal infantry work. Yeah. Yeah, you know, he makes several references to being in Southeast Asia. So he's obviously a 'Nam veteran, right?

Nic

Right.

Steve

Um, but yeah, so they break in and they're kind of looking around, and, you know, there's like a pile of mail at the— near the front door. And then the kid's toupee is like in the kitchen, right? You know, it's actually funny, the wife— Rumfield's wife screams because she thinks it's a rat or whatever, but it's just his toupee.

Nic

And Rumfield's like, nobody leaves— nobody with a toupee ever leaves anywhere without it.

Steve

These old guys, they don't leave house without their hair. And it's like, that's a good point. So, but he says he must have left in a hurry, you know, and whatever that was. Um, and so they go and, uh, Ray leaves a note that says, Walter, I've got your dog. Uh, and puts the note and the, uh, toupee like back to the mail slot and takes Queenie to their house to like make sure she keeps fed and stuff like that. So, which is good. But, but yeah, so there's that.

Nic

And one of the CloPacks is watching as Walter is putting the note through the mail slot, or as Ray is putting the note through Walter's mail slot. That's right, it looks up. Um, so Art, I love it. Him keep— he keeps pushing it. He's escalating this, right? So he's never been more convinced of anything in his life. So clearly Walter's dead. We found his toupee. His dog is loose. Like, he's clearly been killed by the Cloak Factory.

Steve

We saw them dumping that garbage. Yeah, so that must have been— that must have been Walter's body. Obviously there's no other real solution there. It's definitely that. No.

Nic

And then— and Ray and Art now are in the basement with this like demonology book, both smoking cigars. I gotta say, seems like a good fucking time just hanging out with your boys reading about the occult. And, uh, sounds fun.

Steve

Can I find a copy of that book? I actually really want to read it.

Nic

Oh my God. We really do need that book.

Steve

It's like the Necronomicon, just not in human flesh or whatever.

Nic

Like, yeah, exactly. Uh, and, uh, and, uh, Ray's like, oh, you know, my wife said like it's probably, you know, whatever explanation. And Art's like, who listens to their wife? You gotta listen to me.

Steve

So bad. He's such a caricature for sure, but a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and then Ray is gonna go to bed, right? Or—.

Nic

Yeah, he's like, I'm done with this. Like, I'm gonna watch some TV, like whatever. And then everything on TV is this like— there first there's this like hooded kind of like, uh, human sacrifice scene, you know, with very kind of like Eyes Wide Shut looking cloaked, uh, characters. And then there's like something that's clearly supposed to be The Exorcist but isn't The Exorcist. And then Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but not actually it.

Steve

But it's all horror movies, every channel.

Nic

So he can't escape that. And what are the chances with like 4 total channels back then to like hit, you know, Especially because I don't think they tell us what time of year this is.

Steve

They don't make a big deal about it being any particular season. I mean, it's summer-ish, I guess. I don't really know. So it's not like it's Halloween.

Nic

We need a recurring ad like in Halloween III: Season of the Witch, this letting us know how many days until Halloween this is. Oh man. Um, so, uh, so yeah, I, I do love this, that they're just like a couple boys hanging out, making each other more paranoid and drinking beers and stuff. Stuff. Um, Ray has a dream now. He's gone to sleep after watching all this disturbing stuff, learning what he did about the Clopex, the demonology book, the story about the guy who killed his family with the ice pick. I think all this information has entered his brain in one day.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, it's quick. It's all, it's all pretty quick.

Nic

And so, so of course, Ray— there's a gene, uh, dream sequence where Ray's, you know, dreaming, and that chainsaw goes through the wall. His wife is calling to him, you know, and then he's tied down to a giant barbecue grill, uh, with these like creepy horned hooded people. This is another thing where, you know, this is not a horror movie, but this imagery is legit. Like during these couple scenes, it's really actually scary.

Steve

I remember legit being scared of ice picks after seeing this. Like, like thinking of ice picks as— well, because we had one, we had an ice pick in one of the drawers. It was on like a big, uh, had like a big piece of cardboard, like corrugated cardboard. Yeah, it's like a sheath, you know, whatever, so it wouldn't just poke you. But it's like, you know, I always thought, man, that's a super crazy thing now that I've seen this movie, it would be years later when I would see Basic Instinct and see what an ice pick is really for. Um, but you know, uh, this was definitely scary. This is where I think this absolutely counts and fits into our Shocktoberfest setup because it is not really a horror movie in any traditional sense, but it's scary. And especially given that it's PG and it's Tom Hanks and it's Corey Feldman and it's the kind of thing my mom was like, yeah, of course you can watch this. You know, it's not as scary as Gremlins, but it's scary. And it definitely has this imagery that, that can stick with a kid for a while, for sure.

Nic

Yeah. And then, you know, going right from the scary to the goofy shit. So he's, he's on the grill, and then all of a sudden he looks and he sees Walter, the, the missing neighbor.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And he has— he's sitting there holding his dog, and he has this axe, like this very kind of medieval shape, like the axe you buy from Spirit Halloween. Yeah, yeah, right. And it's stuck in his head. And then, great gag, the dog has a smaller axe stuck in it.

Steve

So adorable.

Nic

Really good. And then we have, uh, Art appears, but he's really as Skip, the ice pick guy. And this is a good dream sequence thing where it's, you know, somebody like— I would have a dream and it's like the landlord to my building, but it's Steve, you know? Like that kind of stuff happens all the time. So this is relatable.

Steve

Are you dreaming about me?

Nic

Yeah, man, you're charging me that rent.

Steve

Yeah, um, I gotta get my money. You better pay me, bitch.

Nic

Uh, so So Art comes to Skip and he's all covered in blood and creepy and stuff.

Steve

He's got the ice pick and everything.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. So Ray wakes up like he's, he's horrified. He's done with this. So you do the thing that you need to do when you have a real scary dream is do the comp— watch the most comforting thing possible. So he's watching some Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers, I love it. And, uh, and drinking some OJ and trying to like, trying to get back to normal.

Steve

And I think actually, I think we skipped it, but I think Carrie Fisher and the son, they've already left, right? Was they leave the day before or about to leave? Because I feel like at this point they're about to— they're about to leave. Okay, so he sent— that's right, he sends them off, uh, because he and, and, and Rumsfeld and Art, they're gonna basically go into the, uh, uh, Clopex house, right? Isn't that—.

Nic

Yeah, so, so first—.

Steve

Oh no, that's right, they haven't gone to visit yet.

Nic

Yeah, Rumsfeld and, uh, Art come over to get Ray, you know?

Steve

That's right.

Nic

And this scene I think is, is really funny the way that they play it, because when they come to ask, uh, Carrie Fisher, like, can Ray come out and play, basically? And she's like, she's like, no, he's done for the day, he's not feeling well. And then they're like, oh, and they're like kicking the, kicking the ground in front of him, acting like a little kid who was told like he can't use somebody's slingshot, you know?

Steve

Bruce Dern shoving his hands into his pockets. Like, it's actually cute. Bruce Dern is never cute, but this was cute.

Nic

Yeah. Uh, so nice little touch there.

Steve

Yeah. And then Vince, uh, Ray's dog, is digging in the backyard, and, uh, Ray's sitting back there napping. Trying to get a damn nap because he got no sleep 'cause of the nightmare the night before. And Art comes and like wakes him up, right? And he's like, I was napping. Like, I'm sorry. How are you doing? But Vince, the dog, walks up with a bone and like initially I think Art grabs it and like tosses it to him, like, or Ray does or somebody. And the dog goes and gets it and brings it back. And then they realize what it is. And it's, you know, like a human femur is what he says. It is the cleanest bone I've ever seen in my life.

Nic

Seriously.

Steve

The idea that it might have been recently retrieved from a body is ludicrous. Like, it's absolutely ridiculous. Like, that's Walter. It's like, no, dude, you saw Walter at most— you saw him 2 days ago. That's the longest ago that you've seen him, or, you know, the worst it's been. There's no way that, like, it's been cleaned off that much.

Nic

No, absolutely not. Um, oh, and, uh, so Art and Rumsfeld, uh, right before this had left a note. They rang the doorbell at the Clopex house and they left a note that said, I saw what you did.

Steve

I know what you did. Yeah. Um, so we got him now, buddy. It's like, no, you don't.

Nic

So, uh, so they're screaming, right? They pick up the bullhorn like, oh my God, this is Walter!

Steve

The camera like zooms in and out on them.

Nic

And it zooms in and out until they're done screaming, and then it stays on them, which again, nice touch, Joe Dante.

Steve

Very funny.

Nic

Uh, and they look and they see a figure on the other side of the fence throw something over, and they walk up and, oh shit, this is the note that we left under there, or put in their door. They threw it back over to us.

Steve

Ray's sort of like, well, in Ray's Ray's like, you left a note, but they saw me leave a note for Walter, so they're gonna think I left your note. And then when they throw it over Ray's fence into Ray's yard, it sort of confirms, yeah, they do think Ray left that note, you know what I mean, kind of thing. Um, so they all decide— they chitchat with the wives a little bit, Rumsfeld and, and Ray. They talk with their wives and they decide, let's, let's all go over there. She even says that— Rumsfeld's wife says, I'll make brownies. Bonnie, I think her name is. Bonnie will make brownies. We'll just go over there and we'll just— we should have done this a month ago and just said hi. This is ridiculous.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You boys are being crazy. And, and it's so funny, like the Bonnie character, Mrs. Rumsfeld, she like fast changes her outfits a few times. There's a few scenes where, you know, she's wearing one thing and then it cuts to them doing something else and like a pretty small amount of time has passed and she has a completely different outfit on, which I think is kind of funny, especially because Carrie Fisher's character seems to wear like one or two things the entire movie long. Right. It's kind of funny. But, um, but so they all go up and they decide, let's knock on the door, let's talk with some people. But again, they like, I think Bruce Dern, the same, falls through more of the like—.

Nic

Yes, foot just falls through the deck.

Steve

Yeah, drops the brownies.

Nic

It's a mess, like whatever.

Steve

But eventually, like, you know, an old man, not the young guy that we've been seeing, answers the door, I think, right? Or does the other guy answer?

Nic

The same guy answers, the redhead guy, right? That's right.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

Who they, they get— his name is Hans.

Steve

Hans.

Nic

But then once they're inside, this, this very funny looking old man, uh, Uncle Reuben, comes in and joins the party.

Steve

Very strange looking guy. Uh, good. There's a great moment where Rumshiel picks up a picture and there's like this blonde woman in it. He goes, well, who's this? And he He goes, it came with the frame. Yeah, it came with the frame. I love that.

Nic

Really nice. Uh, and meanwhile, Art is sneaking into their backyard.

Steve

That's right, right.

Nic

So while this is happening, he's trying to sneak into the backyard. A very awkward silence while they're all kind of hanging out here inside the Addams Family home. Like, it's so bad in there, and just like inability to make small talk, and everyone's kind of looking around. And finally, Hans comes out with some refreshments for everybody. Oh, thank God.

Steve

Gross.

Nic

And, uh, and it's a bowl of pretzels and a can of sardines. And he's going around and he's only offering the sardines. He's just using sardine, sardine, sardine. And I have to say, I gotta point it out when I see it. Oh, uh, great Foley artistry on the sardines. They made them sound so disgusting. Sardines aren't even that gross. Sardines are good. And, uh, I mean, that guy's sardines aren't good, but sardines are fine. And, uh, it was, it was funny that they made it seem like so crunchy. This is like, they nailed it. I mean, uh, very anti-sardine. The sardine lobby was not happy with this movie at all.

Steve

I can do soft-shell crab, you know, where you're like eating part of the shell while you eat the meat. Something about sardines and the fact that the bones are still inside and they're just so tiny you can eat them, like, freaks me out.

Nic

Sardines are, uh, fillets.

Steve

Oh, is it only ever fillets? I thought the whole point of sardines was like—.

Nic

Yeah, you're not eating the whole fish. Okay, well, in cartoons you are.

Steve

I was gonna say that. Yeah, yeah, but I bought some at one point and they had the head off and the tail off, but for some reason I thought— I didn't realize they were filleted.

Nic

No, you're not eating the whole, uh, the bone and stuff.

Steve

It's a whole concept.

Nic

Pick up— when I— when I burn my Gross Point Blank CD for you, I'll bring you some sardines too.

Steve

You know what, I don't need the CD that bad. That's okay.

Nic

Okay, just the sardines. Oh no. So Ray, and then the way that, uh, the way that Ray responds to eating the sardines, it's like he's like coughing, sneezing, and dry heaving at the same time, but in such a miniature way to not be discovered. Like, I don't understand what he's doing.

Steve

I can't tell if he's like allergic to something, if it's causing an allergic reaction, because he says something about dust.

Nic

But just, just trying to choke it down without looking like he's choking it down.

Steve

So strange.

Nic

Yeah. Um, and they're asking— they're trying to ask Uncle Reuben about, you know, the people who lived here in the house before, like what happened to Uh, and Reuben references his brother, the doctor, right? My brother, the doctor. Just the two of you who live here? He's like, no, the three of us. My brother, the doctor.

Steve

My brother, the doctor. Like, he's so aggro. Um, and so the doctor, the brother doctor, does come up from, from the basement at one point and comes in to like shake hands and whatever. And it looks like his hand is all bloody.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

He shakes Ray's hand, it's red, and like all this stuff. And then we like sort of cut to moments later or whatever, and he talks about, oh, I'm so sorry, I was working on my painting. Sorry about the red paint.

Nic

And the doctor played by, uh, Henry Gibson, who— he's been in a bunch of stuff. He's in The Blues Brothers. Uh, he looks like a little adorable little elf in this movie. He's just such a cute little guy in this movie.

Steve

Big doe eyes. Yes, really.

Nic

Uh, so they're, they're hanging out now, uh, that the doctor's here. So they've got the 3 Clopaks and the 4 of them, and there's like classical music playing, candles lit in a way that's like a roaring fire, like the most blazing group of candles I've ever seen.

Steve

It's crazy. It's got to like 30 candles tightly together and they're all lit and kind of firing off together. They're like all thin and it just—.

Nic

It's like almost a Roman candle.

Steve

Yeah, it's like, it's like a campfire on your kitchen table. Yes, yes.

Nic

Uh, and the doctor explains to them they, they've moved every year for the last 4 years, you know.

Steve

Um, oh, and they say, and tomorrow we have to go back to the university to discuss another transfer or something. Like, they might be getting— they might be moving again. But the boys here, especially, you know, Rumsfeld and Ray, they hear, well, they're going to be gone tomorrow. They're gonna be out of the house tomorrow.

Nic

Yeah, and Rumsfeld is really like instigating during this, right? So he's like, he's saying very accusatory things to them. And, uh, you know, they— I think they say something about, oh, it's great to meet all of our neighbors. He's like, well, not all the neighbors. We don't know where Walter is, right? And then Ray spills his coffee all over himself. Good physical comedy by Tom Hanks as he gets up and, yeah, uh, freaks out. So, uh, Uh, they open the basement, or is Rumsfeld— he keeps trying to get them to show, show him the basement.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. And I think, uh, Art has been snooping around towards the basement in the back or whatever, that kind of thing. But yeah, but Art, like, Ray or somebody opens the door. Who opens the door to the basement? I don't actually remember now, because whoever does it, the— this huge Great Dane comes bounding out of the basement door. I mean, enormous dog.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And it's just running, and then it runs into the backyard and catches Art snooping, right? And then Art has to run away from, from that dog, and he trips over these wires that are on top of their fence that then turn on an alarm and all these lights. So it's clear they have their fence line sort of wired for alarm, the Kopecks do.

Nic

And they all see, like, they see Art on his way back over and everything. And yeah, so good, good giant dog chaos scene.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Um, and, uh, and Ray's gotta, like, you know, kind of talk to the— talk to the boys and be done with it. This is what his wife tells him. Oh, right.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

All right, like, this is crazy. Yep.

Steve

Like, these people are fine. They're weird, but they're just people.

Nic

They're normal people. He's a doctor. He's a painter. It's been explained.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Tell your friends it's over. And of course, you know, it's not over.

Steve

No, no, no.

Nic

Because Ray discloses to his friends, he's like, hey, look what I have. Yeah. And they're like, yeah, that's Walter's toupee. We saw that earlier. He's like, Yeah, but I got this from the Clopex house.

Steve

In the Clopex house.

Nic

I put this in Walter's house earlier, and now it's at their house. Like, what the fuck? They're leaving town. Like, when they leave, we're going in.

Steve

We gotta go check it out because he's, he's in that backyard. As he says, he, he— they buried Walter in that backyard. Yeah, when I saw them digging that night or whatever, they had seen us put the— they knew we saw them put the trash out, and so they changed gears and they buried Walter in the backyard. So we got to get back there. So that's what we're gonna do. So he sends Carol and the son off to the cottage, the lake house, whatever they've been talking about, some place they've been— she's been trying to convince him to go. They're just gonna go. So they're out of town, and this is like, this is the day where it's all gonna happen. So they see the Klopecks leave in their car, all 3 of them drive off. You know, it really doesn't make a lot of sense. I feel like Reuben could have stayed behind if the conversation had to be between the doctor and the university.

Nic

Right.

Steve

You know, Hans could have driven, been his driver, and Reuben could have stayed behind and avoided all this problem. But he didn't. Uh, he heads up, and it looks like the first thing that they need to do in order to make sure that, you know, this is going to go down the way they want it to is Art is going to go up the electrical power pole and, and cut off some of the power to their house to disable the alarm system.

Nic

Which, you know, again, sometimes, you know, movies are fiction, and sometimes they're teaching you good real-life, uh, information.

Steve

Which one's this?

Nic

All you need to do is get a pair of, like, standard branch climber, uh, trimmers, And climb on up that pole. Like, don't even worry about it.

Steve

Garden shears. Don't ground yourself. Don't worry about it.

Nic

So Art goes up there, and of course, you know, once he cuts it, he falls off there, and he falls through the roof of the shed.

Steve

On Ray's side. Yeah, Ray's shed. Yeah.

Nic

And he's been electrocuted, and he's saying how, like, you know, his fillings have heated up, and he's hot to the touch. And this lasts, like, longer than it should, which I think makes it funny. Yep, and during all this happening, the Rumsfield is up on his roof with like a sniper rifle and stuff. Corey Feldman's just watching, and oh, he's invited friends over too. Yeah, he's got like friends over, including Nikki Cat. Oh really? Yeah, he's he's one of the long-haired friends.

Steve

Oh nice! Oh, I didn't recognize Nikki. That's great. I love Nikki Cat.

Nic

So let's see. Raynard are in the yard there, and they're digging. They're going inside, and they're also saying, like, okay, well, we're gonna check inside.

Steve

Well, it's— they're digging and it's hot. They're kind of like, we're not finding anything. It's hella hot out here. Let's go inside. They probably moved Walter. You know, he's like— Art makes this kind of thing. He's like, well, they probably saw us, knew that what we know that they know, so they probably dug him back up and moved him and buried him in the basement.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

All right, man, you just want to go inside where it's not hot. That's fine.

Nic

You just want to grab something out of their fridge. Uh, and when they go to break in the door, uh, Ray says to Art, he's like, do you have a credit card to help me? Help open the door. And then Art's wallet has been melted, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles style.

Steve

So it's perfect.

Nic

Um, so, uh, yeah, in the basement they find once again they have a super Freddy Krueger slash Grosse Pointe High School style furnace in there.

Steve

It's crazy.

Nic

Uh, which has a temperature gauge that goes up to 5,000, which seems like that'll get you there.

Steve

I, I did a little research because I had to. I'm like, yeah, 5,000 seems just— even for like a crematorium, it seems ridiculous. So I looked it up, and a crematorium furnace that would just completely ashifies bone and everything, right, they hit about 1,800 degrees. 5,000-Degree furnaces do exist. They are very specialized pieces of equipment for like melting platinum, like for doing like really heavy metal work. Yeah. Very hard metals and melting them down. So it's like to have something that would go 5,000 doesn't even make sense necessarily for for this, but it also, if it's also just intended to be like, we know this is crazy high. Yeah, it definitely covers that. But like a 5,000-degree furnace would like on its own burn the house down. Yeah, exactly. Just the sheer temperature.

Nic

There'd be nothing to bury. There'd be, yeah.

Steve

You certainly would not end up with bones being left over. That's for sure. Like, yeah.

Nic

5,000 is like what the Terminators were fighting in at the end of T2. That's like what he drops himself into. That's probably not even 5,000.

Steve

Yeah, that's probably like 3,000 or 4,000 degrees. You know what I mean? This is crazy. But it gets the point across.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

So they see this and this convinces them that like, this is what they're doing. They're killing people here. And sure enough, it's a basement. It's like a dirt floor basement. So they just start digging and they're digging. I mean, and they get down fast. Like Tom Hanks is in this pit that he's digging up to his head seemingly, you know, I mean, I get that the day has passed and it's getting dark out, but like this takes a long time to dig like this.

Nic

Oh my God.

Steve

And so, but—.

Nic

The most inaccurate inaccurate thing in cinema is how long it takes to dig a hole.

Steve

Oh my God, 100%. And it has to be, or else movies would just suck. You could never have a movie where anyone digs anything for any reason.

Nic

Digging a hole.

Steve

Oh, they did a movie, it was called Holes. Shia LaBeouf was in it. Yeah. Um, and the Clopex are returning. We see their car.

Nic

So they see that like the, the lights in their basement are on in their house.

Steve

Yep. And they back out of the neighborhood.

Nic

Yeah. And, uh, and what Art and Ray are being like, we found Walter, because they're convinced that this loose dirt they're digging out Like, it doesn't matter if we're there yet. Like, he's, he's here.

Steve

Well, and they hit some metal at some point. It's like, oh, that must be it, you know?

Nic

And, uh, and Art goes running out of the house, you know, to tell everyone. Meanwhile, Walter—.

Steve

Yes—.

Nic

Is actually pulling up into his driveway. He's arriving back at his house. He's been gone somewhere.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And he's there.

Steve

So he's been driven home by like 2 younger people. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And Art is freaking out. He's like, oh shit. He's like, Ray, get out of there, get out of there. The Clopex, after they saw this, are coming back now with the cops following behind them.

Steve

Which is the right move.

Nic

So they've called the cops, and Ray's inside the house.

Steve

He's inside the house. He's still down in the basement. Art's outside, uh, and, uh, Ray hits something that starts bubbling up the, like, mud that he's standing in, and he realizes he's broken the gas line, which is like— that was buried really— I don't know that they bury gas lines that deep under houses, but there you go. So he tries to run out, and before he can even get out of the house, the house explodes. And when we were talking about the $18 million budget, I really feel like this was a huge chunk of it because this was a big house and it burned and it blew up that set.

Nic

Not a model. Like, this was a good— a very good scene.

Steve

Very realistic. Yeah, very good practical effects.

Nic

You know what's weird? At the very beginning of the movie, when it's kind of like showing the street and like zooming down, it looks very much like that house is a model.

Steve

It is. The whole street is for that zoom.

Nic

Okay, that— that's just for that scene.

Steve

They zoomed in because this is all on a backlot. In fact, there's even a point where they're supposed to be in the Midwest. Where it zooms in on the map of the US is definitely somewhere in the Midwest. I guess I think ballpark it around Iowa. Yeah. And they zoom in and they see this house. It's definitely a model of the neighborhood, but the actual movie is filmed clearly on a Hollywood backlot, right? So when Art— or actually, when Rumsfeld is up on the roof, what you see behind him is so clearly Southern California, the way the hills are and the buildings in the distance and stuff. It's just like so clearly not the Midwest. There's too many hills in the distance, you know?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So flat out there. Like Iowa, I don't think there's a hill in Iowa, for Christ's sake. Like, you know, and so it's— to me, that's a funny little like thing. But yeah, so they— I don't know where—.

Nic

There's not a W Hotel in Davenport, Iowa.

Steve

Exactly right. Yeah, yeah. Bloomington, Indiana doesn't have like the Capitol Records building in the background. Yeah, like, uh, but you know, so wherever they blew this house up, I don't know if it was like a model and then they burned the real one to get the effect or what it was, but there was some combination of model and large-scale sets, full-size sets. So that's gotta be where some of the expense is, 'cause this explosion's fantastic.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

The house really does look fucking demolished at the end, and it's actively burning, because then everybody now is freaked out. Now the whole neighborhood's out, the cops are there, Carol and the son have come home, like all this, 'cause they were just gone for the day apparently. Like they didn't go away, they just went to like visit family or something. And everybody's freaking out. And then I think it's Rumsfeld's wife said something like, something's moving in there. And Ray just destroyed, his clothes are shredded, whatever, but he's able to stumble out of this house. He somehow did not get blown up even though he was always, at all times, he was in between the source of the gas and the exit because he only travels from the source of the gas to the exit. So how does he not blow up?

Nic

And the spark, you know, I'm sure the spark from his pickaxe could have ignited that. It's like, yeah, I think the idea is all that happens is your clothes get kind of torn.

Steve

I guess the gas filled the basement, and then if that furnace was even on at all that would be enough to them, but it would take a minute. Like, it wouldn't happen right away, I guess. Like, I don't know. But anyway, he survived. Nobody, nobody dies in this movie.

Nic

He survived it, and he walks out, and we've got, you know, this really triumphant music as Ray comes out alive.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Um, and, you know, he's like, uh, and Art's like, you found it, right?

Steve

Tell me you found it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

Uh, and Carol and, uh, and the son return.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So everything's kind of happening all at once. There's all this chaos in the neighborhood. And, uh, and Ray's kind of having this realization. He's like, oh, we're the fucking crazy—.

Steve

Yeah, we're the psychos. They're not. They're just normal.

Nic

They're just regular people, and we cannot like contain our fucking curiosity and our need to like poke in everybody's business. Like, we're the psychos. We should be apologizing to everybody, right?

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

Uh, and then he has kind of a funny meltdown. It's really good where he's like, he's He's like, I've been blown up, take me to the hospital. And he, and he like flings himself on the gurney and then he gets up and he picks up the gurney and throws it in the ambulance and gets on it and just—.

Steve

He gets onto the gurney and nobody's wheeling him into the ambulance. He's like, I'll fucking do it myself. He throws the gurney and he jumps in. And Carol's like, okay, well, I'll find out what hospital they're taking you to and I'll meet you there. And she goes, okay, okay. You know, and so, and, but then as he's sitting in there, Dr. Klopek gets in. Basically just admits that, you know, he's like, you must have found my skull, my skull. And he's like, he didn't find a skull. He doesn't know. Like, it's one of the Napps, 'cause, you know, we killed them and all this. He basically admits to everything. And he's got this syringe. He's gonna, you know, inject something into, into, uh, uh, Ray's neck or whatever to kill him, I guess.

Nic

Yep.

Steve

And we find out that Hans is the one driving the ambulance. Like, so Ray and the doctor are struggling and fighting and, and they're able to like make it hap— make enough chaos within the ambulance happen that Hans gets like pushed and, and whatever. And it ends up driving into Art's car. Bart's house. Yeah, basically. And, and, and whatever. And they get out and he makes— he's like, citizen's arrest, citizen's arrest, I'm arresting you, citizen's arrest! And the doctor tries to play dumb. Um, but yeah, yeah.

Nic

And, uh, and during this scene, uh, you know, that Corey Feldman and his friends are just like cheering the party on. He's like, oh, the pizza dude's coming! So during this ambulance sequence, the pizza truck crashes and like 60 pizzas roll out of the side of it.

Steve

It's like Why would there be that many pizzas in one delivery truck?

Nic

But anyway, uh, and then we see in the Clopex car there's like a full trunk of human bones. Just not even a tarp over it.

Steve

No, nothing.

Nic

Just completely chilling. Just loose skeletons in there.

Steve

Not in a bag. Um, which just exonerates all the bad behavior of the entire neighborhood. Yeah. Right? Because they were right. So it's like, yeah, dude, these were evil killer people. Good job.

Nic

Jack Bauer was allowed to torture them. There you go. Because he admitted to this thing.

Steve

Yeah. The ends always justify the means, as we have learned from this movie.

Nic

Uh, so the Clopecks are, are arrested.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

And, um, and, uh, Art wants Ray to stay. Art's wife arrives. I don't think we even know that Art has a wife until the end here.

Steve

Oh, he mentions something about her at some point.

Nic

He acts very much like every, like, angry divorced guy friend that I have. Um, and, you know, they end up, uh, he goes back into his house and, uh, his wife's— oh, he says to Art, he's like, hey, uh, your wife's home and your house is on fire. And Art's It's like, my wife's home. Oh no, he's all pissed.

Steve

This is such an '80s thing, by the way, that just doesn't— didn't really track into the '90s as much. But the whole Married with Children, like, hating your wife thing, I feel like died out by the mid-'90s. But it was so peak comedy in Hollywood at this era.

Nic

Oh my God. Uh, and then we end with Corey Feldman doing a God, I love this street, which is such a cheesy-ass way to end.

Steve

And that's The 'Burbs.

Nic

But that is The 'Burbs.

Steve

Um, all right, Nic, man, give us your— give us your, uh, your rundown here. How did this movie touch you?

Nic

So, uh, so the thing I mentioned earlier about the, the writer's strike I think was interesting. Um, and I guess, uh, you know, there were issues with getting this made, like a limited amount of time or whatever. Um, there were actually 3 different endings that were filmed for this movie.

Steve

All right.

Nic

Uh, so we have the one that we used where Dr. Clope Dr. Klopek sees Ray in the ambulance. They crash, the Klopeks get arrested, get discovered as being murderers, right?

Steve

Okay.

Nic

Version number 2 was that it turns out there's nothing. Yeah, the Klopeks didn't do anything, and Ray's the crazy one, and it kind of ends with him having that realization.

Steve

Oh my God, are you serious?

Nic

Right?

Steve

That's hilarious.

Nic

And then version number 3 was that Dr. Klopek actually kills Ray. Oh, in the ambulance at the end, and they drive off, you know, with him and, and the use of his body. So I thought that was kind of interesting because like, how different—.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Would this have turned out? Because I love—.

Steve

I—.

Nic

So having never seen this movie before, I kind of thought like, and I had regrets leading up to this, like, oh man, why did I fucking pick this? Like, I could have picked a lot of different stuff. And, uh, and I really, uh, enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. Like watching it as something that's not supposed to be a horror, it's just something that's like neighborhood hang type movie. Yeah, you know, like we talked about, we've seen those recently. I had a good time with it. I could. I liked Ray and Art just kind of hanging out and feeding into each other's like worst habits and paranoia and stuff like that. It's two guys who are bad influences on each other who are like best friends, right? Like oh, we're gonna smoke more cigars. We're gonna drink more beers. We're gonna get into more conspiracy stuff. Stuff if we hang out together versus like going to the lake with our family or going wherever Art's wife went.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, the cast was pretty good. Carrie Fisher, I don't think they gave her enough to do. Like, they didn't really give her a lot to do. But I— there was a funness to this movie, and, and it had a uniqueness that I did enjoy. Uh, it's not the greatest movie in the world, and I think, um, you know, I, I don't know if it's for everybody, but But it's, it's broadly like entertaining and, uh, a lot of cartoony type stuff that I really liked. Although it didn't show Ray like fully blown up with like the, the coal black face and his hair sticking directly straight up, but it was pretty close to that.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Um, but I did have a lot of fun with this movie, uh, and I'm gonna give The 'Burbs a 3.5 out of 5. I think that this is— it's worth checking out. And it's just crazy to see how different the Tom Hanks stuff was at this point in his career versus, you know, what were you— the, the very dead serious kind of run that he went on.

Steve

Yeah, this is very pre-Philadelphia Forrest Gump, and he's an Oscar-winning actor kind of thing for sure. This is the Money Pit, Big, Bachelor Party sort of era of Tom Hanks' career.

Nic

Yeah, which is, which is great too.

Steve

Splash, Bosom Buddies. Yeah, um, very cool. Okay, so 3.5, that's good stuff. I—. So this is funny, the fact that you just, you just gave me new information. I didn't know that they had like 3 sort of designed endings and they went with this one, because when I watched this movie this time, again, I'd seen it a ton as a kid, did, but not in a long time. And my wife would back this up. Like, I literally turned to her and I said, you know what would have made this a much better movie? If they had just ended after Tom Hanks's freakout and the Clopex never actually did anything wrong. Yeah, this would have been a better movie this way, even if they didn't like tell us they did nothing wrong, but they just never explicitly showed it. Yeah, never revealed that, that yes, the neighbors were psychos, not the Clopex. Like, that would have been a better movie in my opinion. And then you mentioned a third one where it was like Clopec actually kills Ray as they drive off. That's also, to me, a better movie than the way this ending ended. By having all of Art and Rumsfeld's and Ray's activities basically washed away as okay because the Clopecs are killers—.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Like, kind of fucking takes any teeth out of this this movie could have had. Um, I thought I would really, really enjoy this looking back on it. I watched it, uh, this week and it was fine. This movie's There's nothing wrong with it. It's not that interesting. Not enough happens to really make me like go, oh cool, you know? And it's like, I do like some of the hang stuff and some of the, you know, bro-y— like, I mean, look, the Brewster and Rick DuCommon, Tom Hanks trio is very funny and really does a lot of great stuff. Like you said, feeds off each other. There's all that. Um, but I just like, I don't love the like sort of message of the movie. Like, like Art's little thing when he's talking to the press at the end about, ah, you know, watch out for the people in the 'burbs. We're not gonna take anymore. We're not just gonna, you know, we're coming for you crazy people. And it's It's like, what a dumb thing.

Nic

Yeah, 'cause we don't want— like, I, I see what you're saying. Like, if the movie was to kind of skewer the idea of these, like, overly nosy neighbors, then the ending doesn't serve that in any way.

Steve

Correct, exactly. Like, if this was basically— these guys are the proto-HOA, and everything that HOAs do horribly is, is rooted in Ray and Art and Rumsfeld— that to me is a funnier, more interesting movie where they just blew up a neighbor's house because of their suspicions of, like, their xenophobia, basically. That to me is a better movie in this.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Um, so, but I have to rate the movie that exists, obviously. Uh, and I, you know, again, it's fine. I'm a 2.5 out of 5 on, on The 'Burbs. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not one I'm gonna run out. I'll probably, honestly, if I never see this movie again, I probably don't care, you know, that kind of thing. Um, but that puts us at collectively at 6 out of 10 on The 'Burbs. Uh, and I think that's about right, you know. It feels like a 6 out of 10 movie to me.

Nic

You know, I'm surprised that my score was as high as it was, and I wouldn't expect it to be that for everyone. Yeah, I think this is just about, you know, a down the middle, like, yeah, if the opportunity arises, go ahead and watch it, but don't, you know, don't make a side quest for it.

Steve

And if you think— if you, like me, kind of watched it as a kid, you think you've got nostalgia for it, watch it again, see if it holds. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I think I've just gotten to be a little bit more of a film nerd and kind of interested in, like, storytelling and stuff, so that a movie like this, the issues I have with it aren't the sequences and little bits. Those are all great, all the little comedy, all the little you know, lines and the jokes, those all work out great. I don't love that the story told us like a shitty story, in my opinion, right? Where it's like, there's no good lesson to learn from it. There's no kind of point to it. You know, at the end of the day, the only thing that's really changed about that street is that there's a house that's been blown up on it. Like, that's right. The other characters have not really changed in any meaningful way. Like, nobody has an arc. Like, nobody, you know what I mean? There's all this stuff. So it's like, those are the kind of things that kind of keep me from liking it.

Nic

We need a de maire on this street.

Steve

Something.

Nic

Something like that. Yeah. Oh man. Okay, well, 6 for The 'Burbs. That's good. Well, uh, Steve, we're continuing, uh, into Shocktoberfest 2, Electric Boogaloo. And, uh, you know, I'm keeping it lighthearted. I'm sure we're gonna continue. Uh, what, what kind of, uh, wistful jaunt through the horror genre do you have?

Steve

I got a little— I got a little happy-go-lucky movie. And I'll be honest with you, it's really not a traditional horror. I'm not picking a traditional horror movie. It's very lighthearted. No serious topics. Uh, uh, you know, even the gore is like okay. There's no point in this movie where you're gonna see something and go, oh God, that's definitely not gonna happen.

Nic

You're not gonna make the sardine noise.

Steve

No, no, definitely not. Um, no, we're going to go— this is from the late '90s. This is a David Fincher film. This is a movie about a couple of detectives. You've got the old detective, the young detective, you know, the classic kind of setup in that way. Um, and, and it's a serial killer movie, so we're kind of in that Silence of the Lambs adjacent world when it comes to to like quote scary movies, right? Um, but I'll be fair, I'm being a little facetious. This one's definitely fucking scarier than Silence of the Lambs. Uh, it is all about a serial killer who seems to be killing people by theming his kills of the 7 deadly sins. And, uh, we're gonna watch Se7en. And, uh, and I'm gonna put this movie into the— I'm gonna put this episode information in using the original spelling of the movie's title, which was S-E-7-E-N.

Nic

Mm-hmm.

Steve

So there's how they stylized the, uh, the title. I always appreciated that. Later releases just changed it to S-E-V-E-N, which is dumb. Yeah, but yeah, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey. This is the movie we're gonna watch next week for the continuation of Shocktoberfest 2. We're gonna watch Seven.

Nic

I can't wait. I, I think I saw it when it came out. I have not seen it forever. I'm excited though. This is definitely on my list of ones I want to see soon.

Steve

Yeah, this for me, like, I, I know I saw it, you know, close to when it was released, another couple times in college, maybe once more in the last 15 years. So I've, you know, it's, it's been one I've gone back to a few times. And it's, it's, it's very good. I think this is gonna be good.

Nic

Wait, have we had Brad Pitt yet?

Steve

Oh no, I don't think we have.

Nic

What are we doing?

Steve

I don't know that we've had Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, or Kevin Spacey yet.

Nic

Holy shit.

Steve

And that's, that's, that's a lot of movies between those 3 guys, right? Yeah. So we're gonna, we're gonna break this up. And, and David Fincher. And I think that this was one of the first scores that Trent Reznor did. Maybe there was definitely some Nine Inch Nails on the soundtrack. I don't know if he composed the score or not, but I— but this was, you know, Fincher and Reznor worked a lot together over the years on movies. So, so yeah, so that's what we're gonna watch next week for the second week of Shocktoberfest. We're gonna watch Seven.

Nic

Beautiful.

Steve

That's a wrap. So if you like what you hear, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show. Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again, this has been The 'Burbs, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.