Destroy All Neighbors – Film Review

Josh Forbes has built a reputation on crafting visuals and moods that tread the fine line between captivatingly offbeat and nerve-rackingly tense. In his latest work Destroy All Neighbors, the director endeavored to concoct an uproarious medley of comedy and horror, propped against the oddball backdrop of a middle-aged musician’s struggle for artistic completion. The endeavor was ambitious, the creativity clear, yet somehow the balance missed the mark.

The movie thrives on the trials of William Brown (played by Jonah Ray), a somewhat manic prog-rock artist laboring tirelessly on his grandiose masterpiece. Brown’s constant hindrance is Vlad, his loud, abhorrently obnoxious neighbor. A mishap results in Vlad’s beheading, unleashing an unlikely Pandora’s box. This ‘slip of the hand’ marks the start of Brown’s murder spree which in turn produces a horde of vengeful undead neighbors.

Ray takes his character to comic extremes with frenetic desperation that teeters on pitiable. While his character is supposed to be a pitifully mediocre musician in search of genius, there are times when his antics grow too large for the tight storyline, distracting the audience from the finer points of the narrative.

Other supporting characters play their parts commendably, yet leave little to be remembered. Kiran Deol‘s portrayal of Emily, Brown’s long-suffering girlfriend, is sweet, yet lacks the dimension needed for viewers to empathize with her. Similarly, Pete Ploszek‘s Alec and DeMorge Brown‘s intriguing double-role as Phillip/Pig Man serve as comically grim fixtures but are underdeveloped, muddying their roles in the larger story.

Randee Heller‘s Eleanor, the nosy, cat-owning widow, shines through. Her outlandishly eerie performance best encapsulates the tone Forbes presumably wanted to establish, showcasing a keen sense of comedy-horror synergy.

What stood out about this film was not so much its plot but its impeccable art direction and cinematic creativity. Destroy All Neighbors effectively paints an unnerving atmosphere in even the simplest of locations like William’s shabby, claustrophobic apartment. Forbes certainly deserves accolades for transforming banal settings into grim comedy-horror hotspots with ease and efficacy. However, amidst its engaging aesthetics, the plot gets diluted.

The script, penned by Mike Benner, Jared Logan, and Charles A. Pieper, flaunts patches of comedy gold. However, the humor seems almost to smother the horror, undermining its potentially sinister aspects. Scenes that should chill are diluted to generate a quick laugh instead of a cold shiver, shifting it from horror-comedy into sheer absurdity.

Furthermore, there’s an attempt to incorporate thematic weight through allegories of middle-aged anxieties, artistic obsession, and love that appear promising, yet feel disappointingly underexplored. A musical motif ripples throughout, encapsulating the entire narrative in William’s clamor for a prog-rock symphony. It’s creative, sure, but at times felt like an extra quirk forced upon an already overcrowded plotline.

Destroy All Neighbors comes off as a crazy concoction of half-realized potentialities. The aesthetic excellence, creative attempts, and bizarre humor keep it engaging to an extent, yet the shallow narrative waters and disjointed tone leave a lot to be desired.