The 'Burbs has a charming ensemble but a dragged-out plot

If an idyllic subdivision shows up onscreen, we all know the drill: There’s a skeleton in the closet, a meth lab in the basement, a noose in the attic, a body beneath the azaleas, a crack in the wainscoting, a lie in the marriage, little fires everywhere. So give the baby his bottle and bust out those binoculars, because the bland heart of upper-middle-class America is actually a festering pit of half-buried secrets.

It’s a trope that’s been exhaustively explored in 75 years’ worth of media...