
There are two credits during the opening credits of ‘Destroy All Neighbours’, a psychotic dark comedy on the plight of obnoxious neighbors and a certified serial manslaughterer, that are worth isolating. The first one is Rich Zim: he did the graphical credit ‘turning trippy’ animation that has this insane intersection of yellow ear wax, human eyeballs, semiconductors, chips of interconnected trees, and a whole lot more combining towards a thrusting angular time. The Second is special makeup effects Gabriel Bartalos who has been mentioned for working with Matthew Barney, an immanent ‘cult’ artist, and Frank Henenlotter. Then come the defining faces Jonah Ray Rodrigues who is also the co-anchor for ‘3000 Mysteries Theatre’ and Alex Winter who is the co-director of “Freaked” and executive producer for this movie. You might as well catch a glimpse of the casting director Charlene Lee who did this and ‘Beef’ and some other less-known series with comic actors like ‘Review’ and ‘Sherman’s Showcase’.
Kudos to Lee and her team for making “Destroy All Neighbors” a silly movie that isn’t plot nor actor focused, but focused on the absurd group dynamics of its eccentric cast. There were some comedic utterances and classic one-liners. You won’t forget them anytime soon. I mean just look at the chemistry of the actors on the set. But the movie isn’t reliant on these one-off phrases.
Regardless of such long precedents, there is a plot – a narrative that has been portrayed over and over, a narrative of an artist who is suffering from stalemate ideas but goes berserk playfully. Ray’s Will on the other hand seems totally incapable of completing what he regards as an overdue, long overdue, to be precise album three years overdue which he describes as a hybrid between trending and progressive squared genres. Kiran Deol is still a strong supporter of Will’s girlfriend Emily. Then a stranger relocates to the adjoining apartment. Pete Ploszek’s character Alec, their previous neighbor sells his script and moves to other places reasonably. This new tenant who looks like a bridge troll has quite a history of blasting club sounds at night. His heavily tattooed arms and a newsboy cap only reinforce this statement. This is Vlad Winter, a recently befriended warm-hearted Eastern European, and yes, he has an accent unfortunately for those who could not bear him he calls everybody bro and he enjoys irritating Will.
Will’s story kicks off when he kills Vlad, and up until that point, we see him perform minor altercations while working as a sound engineer alongside Scotty (Thomas Lennon) a chickenhearted music studio employee fueled by the need to impress Caleb Bang Jansen‘s (Ryan Kattner) casting director who happens to be a psychotic rock star. Will also sees Auggie (Christian Calloway) every so often who is a messy homeless man and keeps hassling Will to get him a croissant, Literally, the plot is not the problem.
Which one is more important is up to you and the type of comedy hangouts that you like, especially if you have the Masada-high concepts that explain some of the jokes that Scotty’s line, when he always, comes in handy. Listen, for example, what Will Whitwhistle, the narrator says, good-naturedly refers to the grabber as “Swig” Anderson (Jon Daly), an ex-prog rock guitarist who is now a therapist who gives free treatment while ventilating more than bothers us about his first wife, child support alimony and, yes, how to get rid of a body. They are funny all across the board but quite often are not enough to carry entire scenes. This is somewhat problematic in a film such as this one, which is high on an uncompelling plot with a mediocre Will progressing from one scene into the next, only to realize how much of a mad world he inhabits the moment he decides to defend his principles.
In the best bits of the film, Ray squirms, a shy victim of some insecurities, as though he is trying to taste a dish he is not sure if it’s worth the trouble or not. Such a character fits perfectly in this West Coast direction full of cringe-worthy but pithy voices that jump at great and/or egotistic performers, stale pictures, and rehearsal sprees. He’s also remarkable at handing out space to fellow actors, tossing ideas around with great generosity.
Working in a group is not strange to Ray. He was previously the co-host of “The Nerdist Podcast”, then collaborated with the creator of “Mystery Science Theater 3000” Joel Hodgson, and his robotic puppets. What is fun however, is to see Ray argue with Deol, yell at Daly and tell him to shut his mouth, or have an off-screen disagreement with a stand-up comic who is listed on IMDB but is absent from the credits. If that makes any sense to you then congratulations; you are the target audience for “Destroy All Neighbors”.
But really, I think my encouragement in regards to the game called “Destroy All Neighbors” rotates more towards the manner in which Ray performs his role, and not the story itself, which is largely something else entirely. He also takes part in character work throughout the film, which is difficult to pinpoint when a man too is enduring hours in a contained space filled with introverted actors searching for salt and daggers. Such things simply make one want to hang out with Ray, not that Will is not hilarious, it’s just that by the time you reach the plot twist, you would have already grown attached to the character. That level of relaxed entertainment is indispensable for the picture to have any chance of working, the fact that there is any chance at all indicates that Ms. Lee and her crew are the real champions of the picture.
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