Disturbia

The 'Burbs

Director: Joe Dante

Cast: Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Bruce Dern, Corey Feldman, Rick Ducommun, Henry Gibson, Wendy Schaal

Released: February 17, 1989

I had seen this movie a couple times before, but I remembered absolutely nothing about it...probably because it's not that good of a movie. (And probably because it's been quite awhile since I last saw it). It's a bit of an odd movie and is now considered a cult classic, which doesn't surprise me. I read that it was the worst reviewed movie of 1989, which also doesn't surprise me. 

I have to wonder if Marc Cherry got inspiration from this movie to create Desperate Housewives because that's what I was reminded of while watching this. (Though DH is much, much better). The cul-de-sac neighborhood in this movie (which I've already forgot the name of) is very similar to Wisteria Lane from DH. Some odd, new people have moved into a house on the lane and all the neighbors are trying to figure out their big secret (pretty much the storyline for every DH season!). Another reason why I was probably reminded of Desperate Housewives is because both were filmed in the same Universal backlot. (Hey, it's a good place to film if your setting is a cul-de-sac!) The houses are different, obviously. 

Let's meet the neighbors and residents of non-Wisteria Lane, shall we? There's Ray and Carol Peterson (Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher) who are the "normal" people on the block. (Well, at least Carol is. Compared to his friends, Ray is relatively normal). They have a son who doesn't add anything to the plot at all and Ray is taking a week off of work. Carol wants all of them to go to the lake, but Ray doesn't want to go. He wants his vacation to be a staycation. 

Across the street from them is Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern), a Vietnam War vet, and his trophy wife, Bonnie (Wendy Schaal) who is clearly quite younger than him. Next door to them lives high schooler Ricky Butler (Corey Feldman) and his parents, but we never meet his parents because they're away during this time, so Ricky is always inviting his girlfriend or friends over to his house. 

Next door to the Petersons, on one side, lives Art Weingartner (Rick Ducommun) and his wife. We never meet the wife, because, she, much like Ricky's parents, is also out of town for the week. This neighbor was particularly annoying. First of all, he has no common decency for any sort of life. When we first meet him, he has a rifle and is trying to shoot a hawk that's been eating bird food that's meant for the smaller birds. He shoots four times (missing each time) and when Ray comes out of his backyard to see what the commotion is, he turns towards him and nearly shoots Ray! If I were Ray, I would be pissed because I have a young kid and a dog (and the dog was in the backyard, quite near where Art was shooting). Then this neighbor is also a schlub and a mooch. He pretty much invites himself over to the Peterson's house and stuffs himself with food. We see he's cleared a plate of pancakes and eggs while he's given another plate. When Carol passes by him with a bowl of something, he takes a few pieces out without her noticing, but then, in the background, we see her set the bowl down. It was dog food, ha! No wonder he made that face when he ate it. Then he helps himself to some ribs that were in the fridge AND asks Carol if he can eat Ray's eggs when Ray goes to do something. I'm honestly surprised they didn't cast someone who was more overweight. Also, for someone who seems to always be hungry and stuffing his face, they don't really keep that up. You'd think he would always be eating in every scene, but he doesn't. Yeah, we might get a couple scenes where he mentions food, but that's about it. Not that I'm complaining because it was really gross seeing him gorge himself with the ribs. 

And then we have the neighbors who live on the other side of the Petersons. They are very odd. They moved in about a month ago and nobody has ever seen them. Nobody ever goes in or out. They don't ever seem to have any visitors or deliveries. They're not even sure how many people live there. All they know is that their surname is Klopek. Art is super suspicious of them, but Ray just assumes they just want to keep to themselves. In one of the only scenes he has, Ray's son tells them there are three of them and they only come out at night and he saw them digging in their backyard one night last week when he was using his telescope. Oh, yeah, that's not suspicious at all! (I mean the Klopeks digging, not the kid using his telescope). 

Oh, there's another neighbor who lives at the end of the cul-de-sac who is important to the story. His name is Walter and he has a little white dog named Queenie. This dog, a Bichon Frise named Darla, was also in The Silence of the Lambs and if you've ever seen that movie, you would definitely recognize her right away. 

While Ray and Art are in Ray's garage and Ray is showing him something, Art walks out to the driveway and sees a young man (probably in his early twenties) with bright red hair, and, look, there's really no nice way to say this, but he has an "inbred" look to him. He would definitely stand out in a crowd. All the neighbors are witnessing this and we get the viewpoint from the redheaded young man. Ray now sees what the others are seeing and murmurs, "It's my neighbor." But isn't he everyone's neighbor? And soon Ray and Art will get into an argument over that when Art suggests to Ray that he should go over and say hi. Ray replies that he could go say hi to him too. Art tells Ray he's his (the redhead's) neighbor, but Ray tells him he's their neighbor as well, but Art is quick to remind him that he (Ray) shares a property line with the Klopeks. Ray points out they're all on the same block which Art agrees is true, but they all also live in the same town and if the Klopeks ever needed to borrow anything, they would go to Ray's place. Yeah, so while this conversation is going on, the young Klopek ends up going back in the house and they missed their opportunity to say hello. (Though I don't think anything would have happened even if they had, most likely he would have just gone back in his house without saying anything). 

Ray and Art notice that everyone has seen them arguing, including Ray's son. Not wanting to look like he's afraid in front of his own son, both men decide to go up and knock on the door. We get a close up shot of all the neighbor's faces as they watch Ray and Art walk up to the Klopek's porch, including the dog's, which was hilarious. 

As they're walking up the steps to the porch, Art notices there are bars on the basement windows. In a deadpan voice, Ray points out, "They've got holes in their porch, too." He says this right after Ray's foot has sunk into the porch due to rotting wood, I guess. Actually, this movie may be funnier than I'm giving it credit for. Their address number is 669, but when Ray uses the big brass knocker, the nine is knocked down and turns to a six. He knocks again and the number sign falls out of its place and knocks off a light which reveals a bunch of bees. :::shudder:::: They run and with all the commotion they're making, I'm surprised we don't see any of the Klopeks peering out the window to see what's going on.

That evening, Ray takes his dog for a walk. And when I say walk, what I mean is that he lets the dog off the leash to let him go wherever he wants and Ray walks next door to Art's house porch where he's hanging out with Ricky and drinking beer with him. Ricky asks Ray if he's ever seen The Sentinel, a movie about an old guy who owns an apartment "which is kind of like the gateway to Hell" and nods towards the Klopek house. Both Art and Ricky have theories that the Klopeks are involved in something seedy, but Ray doesn't believe any of that. At least not yet.

They each go back to their homes, and, for some reason, Art sneaks over to Ray's house and taps on the widow of the living room where Ray and Carol are watching Jeopardy. He tries to hide when Carol looks behind her, but obviously she ends up seeing him. I don't understand this. Why doesn't he just go to the door? Ray gets up and tells his wife that he'll be back in a few minutes. They get Mark who has an infrared night-vision scope (he has a bunch of these military gadgets that come in handy in the movie) so they can spy on the neighbors because Art is convinced they have a dungeon in their basement. They're going to use the scope to look in the barred up basement windows.

Meanwhile, Ricky has invited over his girlfriend who has the permed blonde hair and the colorful outfit and dangly geometric earrings. You definitely know what decade this girl comes from! He has set up two folding chairs on his front porch to watch what's going on in the neighborhood. His girlfriend (I don't remember her name or if she even had one) wants to watch TV or go to a movie, but he tells her, "This is better than anything on television. This is real. This is my neighborhood." Was Ricky ahead of his time? Was he the first to truly discover not just reality TV, but reality reality? 

A hum is coming from the Klopek house and it keeps getting louder and louder and it looks like flames are coming from the basement. This all looks very suspicious and surely it has to wake up the whole neighborhood with all the racket that's going on. I would call the police just for the disturbance! Ray is about to go over and inspect it, but the other two tell him to get down and they hide behind garbage cans when they see the Klopek garage door open and the young redhead guy backs out of the driveway to the end where the their garbage cans are situated. He gets out of the car and takes a hefty trash bag that is stuffed full of something out of the trunk and puts it in the trash can which he has to really pack in the receptacle. I think we're supposed to assume there's a body (or at least body parts) in the trash bag, but what kind of murderer tosses his victim out in his own trash? That's just asking to be caught. He then gets back in the car and drive it back into the garage. The three men all agree that it's super weird that somebody would drive from their garage to the end of their driveway to dump their trash. Yeah, no kidding. After Redhead Man goes back in the house, Art wants to investigate the trash cans, but Ray tells him it will look too suspicious if all three of them are going through their neighbor's garbage at 11 at night in the middle of a rainstorm. Mark agrees with Ray and says they'll wait til morning. 

Before he goes to bed, Ray looks out the window and sees his three neighbors, all in hooded cloaks, digging in their backyard. And remember, this is around 11 at night during a rainstorm. This is all very suss, especially considering they're all digging large holes that could fit, oh, I don't know, a body. Why not call the police? I have to admit, I wasn't sure if this scene was a dream or not when I watched it. 

Either they all woke up late or they don't know when their own garbage is picked up on their street because by the time they wake, they see the garbage truck has come and they have dumped both the trash bins at the Klopek house. Both Art and Mark see this and wave to the garbage men, telling them to stop dumping the trash, but when the realize they are too late, they both get in the garbage truck and start digging through it and all this garbage ends up on the street in a huge pile which we will see for the remainder of the movie. It's actually pretty funny that nobody will pick it up and it is just left there. Mark does tell the garbage man to pick it up since he is the garbage man, but the garbage man says he only picks up garbage that is in garbage cans and I have to side with the garbage man here. (Also, how many times can I say "garbage man" in one sentence? A lot, apparently.) He did pick up the garbage, but Art and Mark are the ones who are tossing the garbage from the truck to the street. They should be the ones to pick it up. 

Ray tells both of them that he saw the three Klopeks digging (so I guess it wasn't a dream), and they all come to the conclusion that they took the body from the garbage and buried it in the backyard. (Is burying your victim in your backyard any better than throwing it away in your trash? Maybe slightly better, but still, that's one of the first places they're gonna check if you're suspected of murder! Also, I'm sure the cops are gonna notice if your yard has been freshly dug up.) 

While all this is going on, Mark's wife, Bonnie, sees Queenie, Walter's dog, in their yard, all dirty and shaky. She picks up the dog and wonders if Walter knows that his dog is outside, but when she goes to his house, nobody answers the door. She tells this to her husband and the others (and by this time, Ricky has joined them), so they all go over to Walter's house to see what's going on. Nobody is still answering the door, so Mark breaks in through the back way and opens the door for all of them. The first thing they notice is that the TV is on and a chair is on its side as though there's been a struggle. Other than that, nothing is really out of place, but they continue searching the house. 

Bonnie goes in the kitchen to get some food for Queenie. The guys are in the living room when they hear her scream and they come running. She points to something hairy on the stove, claiming it's a rat. (In her defense, it does look like a rat...I probably would have had a similar reaction too!) Her husband tells her it's just Walter's toupee. Why it's on the stove, I'm not really sure! They think it's odd that Walter would leave his house without his hair and that must mean foul play. 

These two will go on to be in 
Oscar-winning films!

Besides the earlier scene where Art is eating breakfast (and ribs and dog food) at the Peterson's, this is the only other scene where we see him around food. He picks up a plate of cookies and when he does, Ricky (who had been looking upstairs) opens the swinging door and the plate and cookies fall to the floor, everything shattering. Ray tells everyone they need to leave, which they all do. I love that they don't even sweep up the broken glass or cookie pieces. If you're worried about Queenie, no need. Ray takes her home with him, but first writes a note to tell Walter that he has his dog. His first draft reads, "Your dog is at my house. Your window is broken because we all thought that..."  When he realizes he doesn't know what to write after the ellipses, he rips up that piece of paper and simply writes him a new note: "I have you dog" and places is through the mail slot along with Walter's toupee, which he still had. (The reason why he took it, then returned it, is just for the sake of plot). 

Later, Ray and Art are in Ray's basement (with the door locked so Carol can't interfere) reading a large dusty tome titled "The Theory and Practice of Demonology." Where did they get this book? From the Sunnydale High School library? Art is convinced that their neighbors are Satanists and that Walter was a human sacrifice. I'm not sure where he came up with these conclusions. Yes, it was super suspicious that they were digging holes in their backyard, but that doesn't make them Satanists. Murders? Perhaps. And perhaps they should call the police if they really do think their new neighbors have anything to do with the disappearance of their other neighbor. Art also tells Ray that they need to go to "the religious supply store and get themselves a couple gallons of holy water." What, is he talking about the church? Turns out he is because he then adds his cousin is a priest and he can get them a deal. A deal on holy water? I didn't realize you could buy the stuff. Oh, that reminds me of the scene from The Lost Boys (speaking of Corey Feldman!) when the Frog brothers go into a church to fill up their canteens with holy water to ward against vampires. Hilarious. 

Before they go to bed, Ray does tell his wife about their theory and she thinks it's absolutely ridiculous. That night he does have a nightmare about his neighbors where he's being sacrificed. The next morning, he's watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Well, he's so much not watching it as it just happens to be on and he's staring at the screen. Ha, you could say Tom Hanks was doing research for a movie he would do thirty years in the future! 

When Ray goes out on the upper deck of his house, Art and Mark come running over, telling him they've got a plan. Carol hears them and tells them Ray isn't feeling well and needs to stay home and rest. She knows he didn't get much sleep last night. Their grand idea is to put a note that says "I know what you've done" under the door, then ring the doorbell and run away. That is so childish and what exactly are they hoping to accomplish with that? After they do it, Art runs over to Ray's backyard where Ray is trying to take a nap on a chaise lounge. Art tells him what he and Mark did and Ray can't believe he did that. He is furious because when he wrote the note for Walter and stuck it in his mail slot, he noticed that one of the elder Klopeks saw what he was doing and now he thinks that they'll think that he was the one who wrote and sent the note.

While they're bickering back and forth, Ray's dog, who had been digging in the Klopeks yard (there's a hole in the fence he's able to squeeze through) comes back with a huge bone in his mouth. It's a human femur bone (thigh bone) and this thing is massive. Art even takes the bone and throws it so the dog can fetch it a few times. I'm not sure how neither of them even notice that the dog has it until a few minutes have passed. It's kind of hard to miss, but I guess that's the joke. They finally notice the size of the bone the dog is fetching and Art recognizes it as a human femur bone. I feel like maybe now this is the time to call the police if a human bone is found in your neighbor's yard. But do they? No. Art is now totally convinced that their neighbors are murdering people and chopping them up and burying them in their backyard. He is sure that the bone belongs to Walter. Both of them scream "Nooooo!" and the movie does this annoying thing where the camera zooms in and out on their faces. A few seconds of this would have been fine, but it goes on way too long and was super annoying. They then notice that someone on the Klopek side has tossed a piece of crumped paper over the fence and of course it's the note they had received earlier. 

Carol gets the idea for the two couples (she clearly lets Art know that he is not invited) to go over to the Klopeks and introduces themselves and invite themselves over for "a nice, neighborly chat" and get to know them. Bonnie tells the two guys that they'll (herself and Carol) will "find out more in five minutes of friendly chat than in a month of snooping around." 

The redhead answers the door and they all sort of just barge in around him. We find out his name is Hans and he lives with his Uncle Ruben who we meet next. They're obviously foreign, but I don't think we ever learn where exactly they're from. Mark asks Reuben if "Klopek" is a Slavic name, but he hisses out, "No!" My guess is that they're German. For one thing, their accent sounds German and for another, Hans is wearing lederhosen. 

They're all sitting awkwardly in the living room (Carol and Bonnie on one couch, Ray and Rueben on the couch across from them, and Mark is standing against a wall) when Hans brings some (odd) snacks on a TV tray: a bowl of pretzels and a can of sardines. When offered, Carol takes some pretzels and Bonnie tells him, "I'm trying to cut back." When Ray is offered the food, he looks at Carol and she nods, so he takes a pretzel, then takes a sardine out of the can with his fingers (and it makes the most disgusting squishy noise) and places it on top of the pretzel and proceeds to eat it. By the look on Tom Hanks' face, I don't think he was acting! 

Mark knocks on the wall and floor to show them what a good, solid house they have and after he knocks on the floor with his foot, he hears a thud knock back. The Petersons and Rumsfields are startled by this, but this seems to be forgotten (for now) because Ray starts having an allergic reaction to the dust in the house. They soon meet the third resident of the house, Dr. Verner Klopek (Henry Gibson), who is Reuben's brother. He comes up from the basement wearing gloves that are covered in a red substance. When he shakes Ray's hand, we're supposed to think it's blood, but I knew it was paint. No one is that out of touch that they would shake hands with somebody while wearing bloody gloves. That is disgusting. 

The doctor tells them all how he was just mentioning to his brother how he wanted to meet all his neighbors (they sure didn't make any efforts to do that!) and now they're all at his house. Mark tells him that all the neighbors are not there and at first I thought he was talking about Art, but he actually meant Walter and tells the Klopeks they don't know where Walter is. Mark cuts through the chitchat and wants to know what the weird noise is coming from the basement. Carol quickly gets up and says she think they should go. Mark tries to get Ray on his side, telling him to tell the Klopeks that he also saw/heard the weird light/noise coming from the basement the other night, but Ray just runs towards what he thinks is the bathroom. When he opens the door, a huge Great Dane comes bounding out. The Petersons and the Rumsfields decide it's time to leave and they all convene at Ray's house. Art joins them too, because, of course he does. Ray says that the Klopeks may be eccentric, but he doesn't think there's anything nefarious going on. He tells his wife and Bonnie that he wants to talk to the guys alone. This right there should have been a red flag to Carol, but she and Bonnie just let them be. Once alone in the den (with the doors closed), we soon discover that Ray was lying about the neighbors and he definitely think there's something unsavory going on with them. He takes out Walter's toupee from his pants and tells them he found it after the dog was released. He doesn't understand how the Klopeks have this since he put it back in Walter's house. Not only that, but he found it wedged between some magazines all addressed to Walter. They surmise that means the Klopeks went back inside Walter's house and got the wig. 

The Klopeks had mentioned they were going away tomorrow for the whole day, so Ray wants to play CSI and he's "not coming back till [he] finds a dead body." He also adds, "Nobody knocks off an old man in my neighborhood and gets away with it." 

To make sure Carol doesn't find out what he's doing (because he knows she won't approve), he tells her he's going golfing with Art. He also gets her to get out of the house and visit her sister with their son. He seems very eager to get her out of the house and even Carol can sense that. He tells her he think it would be good for her to get out of the house "after the week [they've] had." 

Ricky sees that his neighbors have something big planned so he starts calling his friend and girlfriend to come down because "it'll be live" (although they're gonna have to wait awhile before they see anything, ahem, explosive). At least they can look forward to the pizza dude! 

In a really stupid move, Art climbs up a telephone pole to disconnect the wires so no alarms go off. He somehow manages to cut the right wire, but he gets shocked and ends up falling into a shed (making a comical human-shaped hole in the roof). By all accounts, Art should be dead. 

While Mark is keeping a lookout on his roof with his binoculars and Walkie-Talkie, Ray and Art are digging large holes in the Klopek's backyard, which seems to be mostly comprised of dirt. I've never seen a backyard with that much dirt and no grass at all. They're making no progress with finding anything and decide to check the house because it will be cooler. They'll start in the basement and work their way up. Art theorizes they didn't find anything while digging because the Klopeks probably dug up the bodies and are now hiding them in the basement. According to Art, these Klopeks sure move their bodies around a lot. First, they put them in the trash receptacle, then they move them to the backyard, now they're in the basement. 

In a hilarious scene, we see Ray try to break into the house by using a credit card, but he ends up just breaking the card. Luckily, it was just a credit card from a particular store (you can't tell where it's from, but I'm pretty sure it's a made up one) and Art tells him, "It was a sh*t store anyway." Ray just covers his hand with some kind of cloth and breaks the glass and reaches in to unlock the door from the inside 

It's a good thing they start in the basement because there they find a huge, old furnace. One might even call it an incinerator. It is ridiculously big for the size house they have and they notice about forty batteries are connected to it. Art turns it on and it starts whirring and making the same loud noise they hear every night so now they know what was making all that racket. Ray finds a big pile of dirt near the furnace and surmises that they must have burnt Walter's body in the furnace, then buried his bones right there. He grabs the shovel from Art and starts digging. 

It's nighttime now and and the Klopeks have just turned onto the street in their car. Even though Mark and Ricky and all of his friends are outside, none of them see their car. The Klopeks notice their furnace is on, so they know someone is in their house (and probably have a good idea who) and they turn around and leave. 

By this time, Ray has dug a huge hole (pretty sure Art isn't even helping; he's just standing next to him) and they hear a clink when the shovel hits something metal and they get all excited because they think he must have hit a crypt and Walter's body must be in there. I'm not sure where they even come to that conclusion. They don't even know what they've hit and they definitely don't have an evidence that Walter is dead. Right now, the only evidence they have of any kind of foul play going on with the Klopeks is the femur. I don't know, I feel like if your dog dug up a human bone in your neighbor's yard, you might want to call the police unless there was a valid reason for a human bone to be in their yard (not sure what good reason there would be, though!) Art calls Mark on the Walkie to tell him they've found Walter, but he kinda jumps the gun with that because they haven't! They haven't found jacksh*t!

While Mark didn't see the Klopeks from his vantage point on the roof, he does notice a car drive to Walter's house and lo and behold, Walter gets out of the car with some assistance from his daughter. (In a later scene, we find out that's who is with him in the car). Mark calls Ray on the Walkie to tell him, "Guess who's not in the basement? Walter!" But Ray doesn't hear him and just keeps digging and mud and sludge cover up the Walkie. 

Ricky also sees Walter has come back and when Art comes outside (to get Mark, I guess), he points Walter out to him. Things get even worse when the Klopeks have returned and this time they have a police car following them. Now all the neighbors notice that they are back. Art tells Ricky to keep them preoccupied so he can go get Ray. Ricky jumps on the police car's hood and tells them all these people are at his parents' house eating their food. (Hmm, I thought he had called the PIZZA DUDE!)  

Just as Art comes down to the basement, Ray yells at him to run because he's hit the gas line. Art runs out of the house screaming that the house is gonna blow and it does just that. Because Ray was struggling to get out of the hole he had dug for himself (literally and figuratively!), he was still in the house when it exploded. By all accounts, Ray should be dead and that's what everyone thinks until Bonnie sees movement in the house. Very slowly, Ray stiffly walks out the front door. His clothes are all tattered and shredded, his skin is all ashy, and one of his eyes is closed shut. I love the way he sort of just slides down the front steps.  

We next see Carol come back (though she seemed to have left their son at her sister's because he's not in the car) and she sees a burning house, firetrucks, police cars, and a huge crowd. Despite everything, she doesn't seem too mad at her husband who could have died and he's lucky nobody else got hurt with that explosion.

One detective tells Ray that he's looking at counts of destruction of private property, destruction of public property, three counts of criminal trespassing (not sure why it's three counts), harassment, assault, vandalism, plus Walter thinks the note he received from Ray about his dog was a ransom note (even though it didn't specifically ask for money so I don't know why he would think that; though I will admit the note was a little ominous!) and he had dognapped Queenie. 

Speaking of Walter, another detective tells Art that Walter had been in the hospital and his daughter and son-in-law had taken him there. I'm guessing they were over at his house and something happened (I think they said it was his heart) when he was watching TV and thats why the chair was knocked over. He also mentions that the Klopeks had been picking up his mail which I thought was odd for a couple of reasons:

1) The Klopeks have not talked to anyone at all since they've moved to this neighborhood, and now they're getting someone's mail? That doesn't make any sense and it's just there for the plot.

b) Walter is only gone for what? Two days top? Why does he need someone picking up his mail? Hell, I've been gone for over a week and I just let my mail pile up! Luckily, I don't get that many catalogues. 

They also have this weird explanation for the wig where they said the doctor got the wig mixed up with the newspapers. Huh? How does that happen? They should have just said they took the wig to keep it safe at their house, I don't know! It really doesn't make any sense why they have the wig, but again, Ray had to find it at the Klopeks to move the plot forward. 

Art is still convinced there's a body that goes with the femur they found (I mean, he's not wrong), but Ray has had enough and starts defending the Klopeks. He's very convincing and I find myself siding with him as he yells at Art, "They didn't do anything to us" and he can't blame them for keeping to themselves because they "live next door to people who break into their house and burn it down while they're gone for the day." Uh, it didn't just "burn down", it exploded! He says they are the one who are being unneighborly. "We're the ones vaulting over fences and peeking in people's windows. We're the ones throwing garbage in the street and lighting fires. We're the ones acting suspicious and paranoid. We're the lunatics. Us! It's not them!" What he is saying is 100% correct; they are the ones who acting more suspicious (although that femur is still pretty suspicious!) than the Klopeks, who, at this point, are just eccentric. 

Ray is so fed up and just wants to go to the hospital, so in a hilarious scene, he picks up a gurney and pretty much throws it into the back of an ambulance, then flops down onto it. The doors close and while he's laying in the ambulance, Dr. Werner Klopek comes in and Ray apologizes to him and tells him once he gets out of prison, he's going to help him rebuild his house. (Yeah, right). The foreign doctor just ignores what he's said and tells him that he may have fooled the others, but he doesn't fool him. Ray has no clue what he's talking about and Werner tells him that when he was in his basement, he must have looked in the furnace. He then goes on further to say, "You saw one of my skulls, didn't you?" What the actual f*ck? This guy is giving a lot away when he doesn't need to. Maybe there are more delicate ways to go about this than admitting that you have skulls in your furnace! (Also, how did Ray and Art miss that?) We'll soon learn in a few minutes that this is not his first rodeo (i.e. murder) so I don't know why he's being so dumb here. Well, I guess he is planning on killing Ray by injecting him with something, so it really doesn't matter if he knows that Werner is a murderer or not. 

Oh, yeah. Surprise! The Klopeks were a family or murderers after all! That's the big twist. Obviously, they did not kill Walter, but they did kill the Knapps, the elderly couple that lived in the house before the Klopeks did. Since the Klopeks already live in the house when the movie starts, we never meet the Knapps (well, for one thing because they were already dead!), but we do hear about them through snippets of dialogue. In an early scene when Art is telling Ray about how secretive and weird the Klopeks are, he defends them (I bet he regrets that now!) by saying the Knapps also weren't conversationalists and they didn't even say goodbye when they moved (and now we know why!) When the two couples are meeting the Klopeks, Mark mentions he didn't even see the Knapps move, but one of the Klopeks insist that the moving truck was out all day. The only thing we really know about the Knapps, besides that they weren't too chatty, was that they were an elderly couple. Werner goes on to tell Ray that they "took" the house from them and that he had offered to buy it, but they had refused to sell because "You know how old people are. They grow so attached to things." Well, at least now we know the femur belonged to one of the Knapps. Also, I'm pretty sure you can't just kill the residents of a home and move in there...I'm no real estate agent, but I feel like there are usually papers to be signed. Also, did the Knapps have no family members who were worried about them? Unless they were a couple who never had children, so I guess it's possible. 

When he takes out the huge syringe, Ray starts to get up and tells him he thinks he forgot his wallet, but the murder doctor pushes him back down and it is revealed that Hans is sitting in the driver's seat and starts driving the ambulance erratically through the neighborhood while Ray is struggling with the doctor to keep him from sticking him with the syringe. Hans ends up crashing the ambulance in the front of Art's house. When that happens, the back of the ambulance doors open and the gurney comes rolling out with both Ray and Werner still struggling against each other. The gurney runs into the Klopek's car and when it does the trunk opens. It is absolutely hilarious when Ray stands up and starts yelling out, "Citizen's arrest! I am placing you under citizen's arrest for my attempted murder!" I mean, how many times do you ever get to say that? I feel like "citizen's arrests" are only something you see in movies and TV shows. He then tells the others (as you can imagine, everyone has gathered around them) that Dr. Klopek has confessed to the murders of the Knapps. One of the (foolish) detectives tell him he doesn't have any evidence and as he's saying that, Ricky looks into the open trunk of the car and he lifts up a blanket and says, "You do now." We see that the blanket has been covering a bunch of bones. I counted five skulls. Just how many people did they kill? (Cuz you know there's more!) 

So all the Klopeks are arrested and taken away. Why do they murder? We really never find out. Everyone goes home. The final joke is that Art's wife is back and his house is on fire. Mark and Bonnie tell him his wife is back and he exclaims, "My wife is home!?" He seems more shocked about that than his house being on fire (not to mention the huge ambulance that his ran through the front). 

Yeah, this movie is really stupid, but it was actually a lot funnier than I thought it would be, so I can see why so many people love it and why it's considered a cult classic.