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| Images courtesy of Shudder |
Having a bad neighbor is never fun. Whether they’re guilty of noise violations, messy properties, or something else altogether, this experience has plagued most people at least once in their lives. While many have horror stories of nightmare neighbors to share, more often than not, it thankfully usually doesn’t turn into a literal horror story. Unfortunately for the protagonist of the horror comedy Destroy All Neighbors, it actually does, and the situation keeps going from bad to worse.
William Brown (Jonah Ray) is a man of specific tastes. He has an arguably unhealthy obsession with prog-rock, listening to motivational speeches by a washed-up retro prog-rock musician on the way to work every day at his unfulfilling job, and working on his passion project of an album when he gets home to his apartment – much to the chagrin of his more responsible live-in girlfriend Emily (Kiran Deol). William thinks he has it bad, but he soon learns it could get so much worse when a brazen, off-kilter, slovenly man named Vlad (Alex Winter) moves in next door. After Vlad blasts techno music throughout the night and excessively grunts during his weightlifting sessions to the point where William’s losing sleep, William decides to confront his noisy neighbor. This turns out to be a bad idea when poor William doesn’t just rub Vlad the wrong way — he accidentally kills him. This is the beginning of a series of unlucky situations for William as he tries to cover up the murder, and starts to receive undead visits from Vlad’s decapitated head.
This premise is just the tip of the iceberg for the zaniness that ensues. To say that any of it seems implausible would be an understatement. It teeters on full-blown hyperkinetic slapstick the majority of the time with little room to catch a breath once misfortunes start to befall William. While this might sound like an exciting ride, the film has a tendency to be more grating than fun. Alex Winter’s over-the-top performance as Vlad is not so much comedic as it is irritating, and while it certainly gets the point across that this man would be a terrible neighbor, the character becomes intolerable by the film’s conclusion. Combined with the hideously cartoonish head-to-toe prosthetics Winter wears for this role, he’s so off-putting that it’s a challenge to power through even the tight 85-minute running time. This is made worse by the fact that much of the ensemble William encounters is equally goofily grotesque and unpalatable to watch, sadly.
Kudos to Jonah Ray for grounding the film just enough to not make it a complete disaster and giving one of his best performances to date. He has great comedic sensibilities and is able to come off as sympathetic enough to balance out the absurdly whacked-out plotline and cast of characters. While it’s not enough to save the film completely, it’s enough to see the film through to the end. Oddly enough, this small film was able to lure in big-named talent like Kumail Nanjiani and Thomas Lennon to play bit parts, and they’re the other saving graces here by far.
There’s an essence about the film that very much takes cues from Evil Dead II with its over-the-top gory, comedic approach, and there’s even a smidge of bizarre early-90s cult flicks like Freaked (another film that features Alex Winter) with its emphasis on prosthetics-laden characters that look and act more like caricatures than realistic characters. Sadly, Destroy All Neighbors is neither a Raimi classic nor a mind-blowingly bizarre 90s film, and instead draws attention to the fact that it’s not as good as its probable inspirations.
With humor that consistently falls flat, painfully obnoxious characters, and a flimsy plotline, Destroy All Neighbors is an assault to the senses that has the ability to test anyone’s patience. Nevertheless, it’s entertaining as a mindless romp for those who like a hearty serving of gore and absurdity with their horror, but only if they go into it with low expectations. For anyone up to the challenge, check it out on Shudder starting January 12th.
- Andrea Riley