Ray Peterson (Tom Hanks) would like nothing better than to spend a quiet week's vacation in his suburban home; drinking beer and watching TV. But; spurred on by his two friends' spinning of boyish paranoid fantasies about their reclusive neighbors; the Klopeks; the usually down-to-earth Ray begins to suspect his idyllic neighborhood has been invaded by an evil force; to the point where he and his friends become psychotically nosey. You see where this is going; and you see it from a mile off. Only the general surface-thin plot is somewhat offset by director Joe Dante's fine sense of the absurd; and a host of engagingly played neighbor-types; namely Rick Ducommun as Ray's best friend who's always proposing bad ideas; and Bruce Dern as a sometimes wild-eyed ex-vet who'd love some action. Dante and crew seem to have a knack for keeping these broad characterizations light enough that you don't mind their superficiality. But the best jokes in this unprepossessing film come from composer Jerry Goldsmith's score; Bruce Dern's presence; for instance; is announced by the theme from Patton; and the boys' first approach to the Klopeks' for a meet-and-greet is buttressed by classic strains from Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns. Kudos to the Klopeks; for their evil ways are ably embodied by Henry Gibson; Courtney Gains; and Brother Theodore. In particular; any suburb that finds it's inhabited by the likes of Brother Theodore is in dire need of new zoning laws. But Carrie Fisher's role as Ray's amiably long-suffering wife is thankless; and she deserves better. --Jim Gay