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Film: Destroy All Neighbors
Year: 2024
Director: John Forbes
Writers: Mike Benner, Jared Logan and Charles A. Pieper
Starring: Jonah Ray, Kiran Deol and Randee Heller
Review:
This was a movie that I heard about near the end of 2023. I put this on my list of movies to check out for 2024 watches. What helped was that I knew this was coming to Shudder as well. Since there wasn't a horror movie in the theaters, I decided to make this a Featured Review for Journey with a Cinephile: A Horror Movie Podcast.
Synopsis: struggling prog-rock musician William Brown (Jonah Ray) finds himself in a living nightmare where he accidentally kills Vlad (Alex Winter), the neighbor from hell.
We are following William as the synopsis says. He lives with his girlfriend, Emily (Kiran Deol). Something to point out here is that he's the dreamer while she is the one that brings home the money they survive on. Will has been working on an album out for years, but we learn that there always seems to be things that happen where he isn't happy with it so it continues to be delayed. He does work at a local, small studio where Scott (Thomas Lennon) is his boss.
Will is late for work as he talks with Alec (Pete Ploszek) who is moving out. He finally got a studio to buy his screenplay. Will also got suckered into helping Eleanor Prescott (Randee Heller) who owns the building. Will does things he shouldn't be with the electrical box because Eleanor can't afford to get someone who is qualified. This building has seen better days.
I should also point out here that Will and Emily also have a neighbor named Phillip (DeMorge Brown). Will calls him Pig Man due to owning multiple pigs. We then see our lead as he drives to work. He watches educational videos on learning to play prog-rock done by Swig (Jon Daly). This is his idol after getting a record growing up of his band. At work, he gets talked down to by a musician, Caleb Bang Jansen (Ryan Kattner), who is recording there. There isn’t much that Scott can do since this studio is struggling.
When things can't seem to get any worse for Will, that's when Vlad moves in. He plays EDM all day and night, loudly. This bothers Will to the point where he can't work. Emily tells him to just go over there to ask him to turn it down. Instead, he goes to Eleanor who won't help. He bangs on the wall and then calls the police. It takes them awhile to show and he finds Emily has Vlad over for tea. He seems like a nice guy, but he's annoyed with Will for not being a man and talking to him first.
Will has had enough and he finally goes over there. This ends with murder, or as Will claims, manslaughter. That just starts a wild ride as he tries to figure out his life before it is too late.
That is where I'll leave my recap and introduction to the characters. Where I want to start is that this is a fun movie. We have a solid lead in Will that is a push over. What is interesting as well about him is that he lives in a constant state of anxiety where when a problem is solved, he at once seeks out the next one. That is why he hasn't finished his album. What is interesting is how the story is structured as well. It feels like something you'd get in a comedy like Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle or its sequel, but just going into horror.
Where I want to start then would be with this character of Will. I can connect with this character. Not that I constantly seek out problems in life, but I do live in a constant state of anxiety. When pressure alleviates, I then feel off and wonder what is going to go wrong. That or I will seek things that put pressure on me I know this a sign of mental illness, but I'm bringing this up to say that I get it. Something else that I could connect with was complicating things in your life to better yourself and the fear of putting yourself out there. Writing movie reviews, self-publishing a novel and doing a podcast were things I did that helped me deal with this fear. I thought that Ray did a great job here at bringing this character to life.
Now that I've explored the character of Will, he goes through a rough stretch here. The synopsis gives that he kills Vlad. That isn't necessarily the case. How he has his weight bench set up in his apartment leads to his accidental death. Due to the things that Will's done prior to coming over to talk to him, he's afraid that he'll be accused of killing his neighbor. The stress of trying to dispose of the body and clean up the evidence leads to a series of unfortunate events. I like stories like this when they're done right as they build tension. It also helps to allow comedy throughout as Will navigates this life. I did think this was well done here. I did also want to comment, when Will and Phillip converge later, the latter has similar issues with Will that he had with Vlad. I found this funny since we are the 'main character' in our own story, not realizing that we could be the villain in others. That's a good touch.
Where I want to go then is going to fall into filmmaking. I'll start with positives. I thought the effects we got here were good. They used practical for almost everything that they could and I was glad to see that. There is CGI, but that mostly comes later when this goes cosmic and there's no other way to do it. I thought the framing was good to hide the seams of effects. I'll also say that the cinematography was solid. The best part there is capturing how rundown this apartment is. Other than that, I thought the soundtrack worked. Since we're following a musician, this needed to stand on its own. As a fan of Goblin, who is a prog-rock band with funk influences, I can appreciate Will's love.
I did need to bring up a couple last parts to the story. The first is that I don't love all the comedy. It gets a bit too whimsical with things that they did there. Not enough to ruin my enjoyment. It just took longer for me to see the stakes. They build though the deeper we get into things and the worse the predicament that Will gets into. That was the other part that I wanted to say. I love that this doesn't necessarily have a happy ending. Comedy/horror tends to give the ending that is wrapped up with a bow. There is a realism to what happens. I'll also say that I love that we're getting elements of An American Werewolf in London where Will is terrorized by the people he kills. I do have an issue late where they might be real. I just don't know if this sets in stone enough if this is in Will's head or it is real. The movie just does things for convenience in my opinion that hurts it. If they were going to go this route, I think we need to do something more like we got in Voices where Will is doing these things without knowing.
All that is left then is acting. I'd already said that Ray was good as our lead. I like Deol as his grounded girlfriend. She also contributes to Will's bad day in a logical way. Heller, Brown, Christian Calloway and Winter all factor in as well with complicating his life as well as tormenting him. That worked for me. I also like Ploszek, Lennon, Daly, Kattner and the rest of the cast as they push Will to where he ends up. The acting is good to blend in real problems with comedy in a believable way.
In conclusion, I liked this movie overall. We get a solid lead in Will that is either us or someone we know. I thought the rest of the cast was good in pushing him to where he ended up. The comedic set up of how the problems in his life snowball was good. There are elements here that I don't know if they make sense that does hurt the tone or realism. This is well-made though with the practical effects and cinematography leading the way. I'd also say the soundtrack fit what was needed. If you don't like comedy/horror skip this. I have a feeling this won't be for everyone, but I had a fun time here.
My Rating: 7 out of 10