The 'Burbs (1989)

Rick Ducommun: Art Weingartner

Photos 

Quotes 

• Ray Peterson : Remember what you were saying about people in the 'burbs, Art, 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, ART. WE'RE THE LUNATICS. US. IT'S NOT THEM. It's us.

  Art Wiengartner : [after a pause]  I don't know what to say... What, do you want me to move?

  [Ray charges at him] 

• Ray Peterson : [chanting]  I'm not going to listen to this, I'm not going to hear this now.

  Art : Ray! Ray! You're chanting!

  Art : [points to book]  Ray. Ray, look.

  Art : Ray, unconscious chanting! You're chanting!

  Ray Peterson : [continues chanting with fingers in ears] 

  Art : [chants]  I want to kill everyone. Satan is good. Satan is our pal.

  Art : Ray. Ray, you're chanting! Hey, once they

  [points to book] 

  Art : get in here...

  [points to Ray's head] 

  Art : ...it's over, pal.

• Art Wiengartner : [finds a femur]  Ray, there's no doubt anymore. This is real. Your neighbors are murdering people. They're chopping them up. They're burying them in their backyard. Ray... This is Walter.

  [They both scream] 

• Art Wiengartner : A thermostat on a home furnace; is that supposed to go to 5,000 degrees, you think?

• Ricky Butler : Ya know, did you ever see the movie, "The Sentinel", Mr. Peterson? It's about the old guy who owned the apartment, which is kind of like the, uh, gateway to Hell?

  Ray Peterson : No, I... I didn't see that.

  Ricky Butler : Oh, well, I was doing some thinking. And, you know, being that their last house burnt down and all, it's like, maybe... somebody left the gate open.

  [a generator starts up from the Klopek's basement] 

  Art Wiengartner : It's them. They're movin' around again. Ya know... it was a night just like this that it happened.

  Ricky Butler : What happened, Mr. Weingartner?

  Art Wiengartner : Oh, it was a long time ago, Ricky. Hinkley Hills was a lot smaller then... safer too! You never had to lock your doors. Everybody knew everybody. I must have been maybe oh nine - ten years-old. You know where the big mall is?

  Ricky Butler : Yeah.

  Art Wiengartner : Well, there used to be a big drugstore on the corner there, had a big soda fountain, remember?

  Ray Peterson : Yeah.

  Art Wiengartner : Yeah, and the guy who ran it was a - was a rotund guy, had glasses. His name was Skip. Lived over on Elm, had a wife, a couple of kids, ya know? Not too sharp, I mean, hey the guy's 40 years old, he's wearing a paper hat and he's makin' cherry Cokes, it's a cinch he's not runnin' for governor, right?

  [Ricky chuckles] 

  Art Wiengartner : Anyway, it got hot that summer, I remember it got REAL hot. It was sweltering. Ya know that heat where your underwear sweats and it crawls up the... anyway, it's hot, okay? And they start... they start smellin' this... this really vile stench over on Elm and they figure it's comin' from Skip's place. And no one wants to say anything, I mean, what do you do, go knock on the guys door, "Hi, you're house stinks"? So - so people are trying to ignore it, right? They're trying to pretend it - it isn't happening. A-and you know those pine things? They're trying to cover up with those pine things that you can put in cars. People are hanging those on their porches.

  [Ricky laughs] 

  Art Wiengartner : Oh, you think that's funny, Rick?

  Ricky Butler : Well, yeah.

  Art Wiengartner : Well yeah - let me tell you what happened next, OK. The state health inspector shows up. They go over, they talk to Skip, he says he's got a sump pump problem. They leave. Hey, they guy's got a sewer problem, he says he'll look after it, everything's okay, right?

  Ricky Butler : Right.

  Art Wiengartner : Wrong. A couple hours later there's smoke pouring out of the windows of Skip's house. The firemen show up, they go into Skip's house. Ya know what they find?

  Ricky Butler : What?

  Art Wiengartner : Skip's family, dead. Murdered... by Skip... weeks earlier... with an ice pick. Yeah, the guy killed his own family with an ice pick. Yeah... yeah just put 'em in the cool basement, covered 'em up with a sheet and went back to makin' ice cream treats for the townsfolk. Only thing... Skip didn't count on there being a big heat wave that summer. You know what that was that all those people were smelling over on Elm, Ricky?

  Ricky Butler : What?

  Art Wiengartner : Skip's family's bodies, decomposing in the summer heat

  [Ricky whistles] 

  Art Wiengartner : . Yeah apparently, one day Skip made just made one too many lemon phosphates,

  [snaps fingers] 

  Art Wiengartner : El snappo!

• Carol Peterson : He can't come out until he resembles the man that I married.

  Art : Carol, We don't have that kind of time.

• Art : I think the message to, uh, psychos, fanatics, murderers, nutcases all over the world is, uh, "do not mess with suburbanites". Because, uh, frankly we're just not gonna take it any more. Ya know, we're not gonna be content to look after our lawns and wax our cars, paint out houses. We're out to get them, Don, we are out to get them.

• Art : Safety is my middle name.

  Ray Peterson : I thought his middle name was Louis.

• Mark Rumsfield : Art!

  Bonnie Rumsfield : Your wife is home!

  Mark Rumsfield : And your house is on fire!

  Art : My wife is home?

• Ray Peterson : You had a dream a plane was gonna crash, so you took the bus to Las Vegas.

  Art Wiengartner : If I had been on the plane it WOULD have crashed.

• Art : Now they know that we know that they know that we know.

• Art : Wait, hold it, garbies! Garbies, garbage men! Hold on a minute, wait a sec! Wait. Wait, wait, hold it. What are you doing?

  Vic, Garbageman #1 : Emptying garbage.

  Art : Into the garbage truck? What are you, out of your mind?

• Art Wiengartner : [Ray is trying to jimmy the door open with a store credit card]  Where did you learn to do that?

  Ray Peterson : I *don't* know how to do this.

  [the credit card breaks] 

  Art Wiengartner : That's a shit store anyway.

• Art Wiengartner : Go ahead, tell him, Ray. We got the goods on them, don't we? You know, some day they're going to 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...

  Ray Peterson : Shut up. 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!

• Art Wiengartner : I can see the news report now - they were a quiet family, kept pretty much to themselves. No one would have ever suspected them of foul play.

• Ray Peterson : It's Walter's Toupée.

  Art Wiengartner : Oh jeez, beautiful place to keep a toupée, on the stove. I'm starving.

  [walks off to the fridge] 

  Mr. Rumsfield : One thing about these old guys - they don't ever leave the house without their hair. No sir. Walter left this house in a big hurry.

• Art Wiengartner : Ray. Ray.

  Ray Peterson : I'm only trying to take a nap! I'm only laying here with my eyes closed trying to keep some goddamn sleep!

• Art : Hey, hey, hey. Who the heck ordered the blood shake? Hey, Ray, it's not Skip. It's me, Art. I'm just pretending to be Skip. Say, you didn't happen to see an ice pick around here, did you?

• Art Wiengartner : I'm telling you these people are Satanists. As I sit here, they are satanists. Look, look, the world is full of these kind of things - black masses, mutilations. Mutilations! The incubus, the succubus - I'm tellin' you, Walter was a human sacrifice.

• Art Wiengartner : I don't know if you've noticed, but there's bars on the basement windows here.

  Ray Peterson : They've got holes in their porch, too.

  Art Wiengartner : Argh! That was a booby trap.

  Ray Peterson : Are you okay?

  Art Wiengartner : Yeah.

  Ray Peterson : Oh, booby trap. I'm not gonna pay for that.

  Art Wiengartner : We shouldn't pay for that, we should sue them.

• Mark Rumsfield : [Ray takes Walter's toupee out of his shorts]  Are you implying that you've been carrying that around in your shorts all day?

  Ray Peterson : After you left Walter's house yesterday, I slipped this back in, through the mail slot.

  Art Wiengartner : Well, where'd you get this then?

  [Ray gestures to the Klopeck's house] 

  Ray Peterson : After the dog came up out of the basement, I found it wedged in between a bunch of magazines all of which I might add, were addressed to Walter!

  Art Wiengartner : Then that means that...

  Mark Rumsfield : Klopeck went back into the house and got the hair. What do we do now, soldier?

  Ray Peterson : Well you heard them say they're leaving tomorrow morning? As soon as they're gone, I'm going over that fence, and I'm not coming back until I find a dead body.

• Art Wiengartner : [emptying the Klopeks garbage into the street]  Give me that.

  Joe, Garbageman #2 : Here you go.

  [empties bag in street] 

  Vic, Garbageman #1 : What are YOU doin'?

  Joe, Garbageman #2 : You asked me to help.

  Vic, Garbageman #1 : [groans in annoyance] 

• Art : You know what the deal is? We gotta go down to the religious supply store. We gotta get a couple of gallons of holy water. My cousin Gary is a priest. He can get us a deal!

• Art : Apparently their last house, it only... burned to the ground.

  Ray Peterson : Really?

  Art : Yeah, a hideous raging inferno.

• Art : I'm tellin' ya, officer, there's a body buried in that house.

  Detective #1 : The old man, Mr. Seznick right?

  Art : Yeah the old guy who's sitting here is buried in that house, Sherlock.

• Ray Peterson : [mumbling]  aw, oh I should have gone to the lake, I shoulda listened to Carol...

  Art Wiengartner : Listen to your wife? Who listens to their wife? Listen, you gotta listen to me.

• Art Wiengartner : Ray, do you want 'em to take your family, kidnap 'em, tear their livers out and make some kind of satanic pâté?

• [Art and Ricky are sitting on the porch when Ray comes out] 

  Art : He comes over here to smoke cigars, his wife won't let him, he doesnt know i know that... Hiya Ray! How ya doing bud?

• Art : Rumsfield and I, we flushed them out. We wrote a note, we slipped it under the door, we rang the bell and then we ran.

  Ray Peterson : You did that?

  Art : Yeah.

  Ray Peterson : [Jumps up]  OH GEEZ! STUPID IDI - I can't believe you -...

  [Crushes a beer can in each hand] 

  Art : All I did was write, "I know what you've done". That's all. I didn't sign it.

  Ray Peterson : OH! I can't belie - YOU STUPID... GOD!

  Art : You gotta goose these people every once in a while. You gotta give them a little shot, give them a little whack, let them know that you're there.

• Ray Peterson : No, Art, see, they're gonna think that I did it. Yeah, they are...

  Art Wiengartner : Why?

  Ray Peterson : Well the old guy... He saw me write a note and put it underneath Walter's door SO NOW THEY'RE GONNA THINK THAT I DID IT!

  Art Wiengartner : ...You wrote a note?

• Art Wiengartner : Ray, there's nothing in here- we practically checked this whole truck. They-they must have switched on us during the night.

  Joe, Garbageman #2 : The FBI?

• Art Wiengartner : It's gonna be a big week for the bachelor kid.

• Dave Peterson : Last week when I was up on the roof with my telescope I saw them in their backyard.

  Carol Peterson : What were they doing, honey?

  Dave Peterson : Digging.

  Art Wiengartner : Kind of like grave diggers?

  Dave Peterson : Maybe.

  Ray Peterson : All right, that's enough of this conversation.

  [to Dave] 

  Ray Peterson : I want you to stop spying on the Klopeks with Ricky Butler.

  [to Art] 

  Ray Peterson : And I'd like you to stop filling his head with such half cocked theories.

• Art Wiengartner : Ray, what was that you were saying the other day about half cocked theories?

• Art Wiengartner : We gotta go down to the religious supply store, we gotta get ourselves a couple of gallons of holy water, my cousin Jerry's a priest, he can get us a deal!

• Carol Peterson : I don't remember seeing crows around here before.

  Art Wiengartner : Oh, big bastards too. That's why I got the gun. I'm gonna pop a few of 'em.

• Ray Peterson : So why didn't you go with Suzette to her mother's house?

  Art Wiengartner : Hey, I'm eating here, ok. Can you imagine me and the two of them alone for a week? I'd rather chew broken glass.