the plot: All Ray Peterson (Hanks) wants is a nice, quiet vacation at home in his typical suburban neighborhood. Though his wife (Fisher) wants him to take the family to their lakeside cottage, Ray’s content to watch his friendly, if offbeat, neighbors bicker with each other. But all that changes one night when Ray begins spying on his new nextdoor neighbors, the Klopecks. No one on the street has seen the Klopecks since they moved in a month earlier, and, late at night, Ray hears bizarre noises and sees strange lights in the Klopecks’ creepy, dilapidated home. Ray shares his suspicions with his other neighbor, Art (Ducommun), and soon the two begin devising more and more elaborate methods to snoop around the Klopecks’ house. It’s all fun and games until Art and Ray’s elderly neighbor Walter mysteriously vanishes and, a few nights later, Ray sees the Klopecks digging large, human-sized holes in their backyard under cover of darkness. A strained, awkward meeting with Dr. Werner Klopeck (Gibson), head of the seemingly monstrous clan, only confirms Ray’s worst suspicions: that the Klopecks have killed Walter and possibly eaten him. When the Klopecks go away for a few days, Ray, Art and neighbor Mark Rumsfield (Bruce Dern) enact a daring plan to break into the Klopecks’ home. But none are prepared for what they find inside.

why it’s good: Whatever happened to Joe Dante? The director had a string of memorable successes in the ’80s, with “The Howling” in 1981, “Gremlins” and “The Explorers” in 1984 and ’85, respectively, and “Innerspace” in 1987. But subsequent decades have not been kind to Dante, and the “The ’Burbs” was one of Dante’s better efforts before he turned to working on TV movies and projects like 2003’s “Looney Tunes: Back in Action.” Like his earlier films, Dante excels at blending the fantastic and horrific with the real and the mundane, though “The ’Burbs” more often plays like a straight-up comedy than not. Tom Hanks is, as usual, perfectly likeable as Ray, but it’s the supporting cast that really makes the film come alive, especially Rick Ducommun and Bruce Dern. As Art and Rumsfield, Ducommun and Dern are the perfect comic foils for Hanks, and they usually get the best lines, particularly the fast-talking, slow-thinking Art. There are also plenty of cameos of actors from the ’60s and ’70s, including Gale Gordon (better known as the curmudgeonly Mr. Wilson on “Dennis the Menace” and Mr. Mooney on “The Lucy Show”) as Walter and Henry Gibson, who’s guest-starred in everything from “Bewitched” to “The Fall Guy.” “The ’Burbs” takes a while to get going, and while the comedy starts out fairly broad, it gets more interesting—and funny—as Ray, Art and the rest start stockpiling evidence of the Klopecks’ nefarious deeds. The climactic break-in, which takes up most of the movie’s second half, is funny and suspenseful, and Tom Hanks manages to work in a great unhinged monologue about suburban paranoia and conformity by movie’s end. Though not as scary as “The Howling” or fantastical as “Gremlins,” “The ’Burbs” is still a fitting reminder of Dante’s talent.

why you should own it: Joe Dante fans and ’80s completists should have “The ’Burbs” in their home library. Universal’s DVD features an alternate ending of the movie and extensive production notes on the making of the film.