by Daniel Stephens

Created on: January 25, 2009

A disaster movie that involves nations falling to their knees is epic, dramatic and sentimental; a disaster movie that involves two people moving into the house from hell is either nail-biting horror, or unadulterated, unsentimental hilarity; here, it is the latter.

This is eighties comedy at its best, a disaster film that doesn't feature flag waving heroism or grandiose styling, but locates itself in the simple surroundings of a couple's new home and watches as the disaster takes place - the American Dream crumbling down. Yet The Money Pit isn't just a minor disaster film built on screwball foundations, it is corporate America teaching lessons to the uninitiated. It's the bigwigs shouting that if you start at the top and everything begins to fall down beneath you, you'll be fine if you've got enough money to keep throwing at the problem. And in this Reagan-era, with everyone who is anyone fighting for one more buck, those with the most come morning will have their houses still standing. It's a tempting metaphor for American society at the time, but one's mighty castle cannot be the external trappings of the American Dream. The classic car, the beautiful mansion - but it'll all go to waste if the dream goes tumbling down the money pit.

Arriving in 1986, Richard Benjamin's The Money Pit saw Tom Hanks move into a new house with his girlfriend Anna (Shelley Long). Just as soon as they move into their dream home things start to go very wrong. One thing after another - the front door falling off its hinges twice, the stairs collapsing, the taps gushing out dirty sludge instead of water, and rampant pests living in the cupboards. Perhaps they should have investigated the house a little further but after Anna's ex-husband returns home, supplanting them from his apartment they were using, drastic and quick measures were required. The disaster here is rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things but it's a personal disaster nevertheless. This is Die Hard heroics for the yuppie generation with Hanks' character quite literally fighting his own home - after all his life, his money, and his immediate family are all on the line.

His driving force and determination is all Reagan-era idealism, the necessity for faith' and the idea that someone should have faith in their own abilities. Hanks' character isn't going to let this house stop him on his way, seemingly, to the ideal' notion of American life. Isn't the house and the whole idea of him conquering it, a personal

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