Destroy All Neighbors (2024)
a review by Evan Landon
Ah yes, the ever-loving embrace of a spattergore comedy. Oh, how I missed thee! From the over-the-top irreverence of Dead-Alive to the corporate takeover sludge of The Stuff, the much maligned or celebrated sub genre has always held a place in my heart.
I could never be able to tell you why that was because when I was growing up, I was never able to watch those kinds of movies. Anything that had any sort of horror vibe that freaked my dad out had left me bereft of viewing such films. Even the most basic and mild mannered thrillers never made it past our front door; however, action figures and Saturday morning cartoons of Robobop, Tales From The Crypt, Rambo, and even Toxic Avenger were all over the place and nobody seemed to bat an eye that marketing was obviously geared towards children. That is not a complaint, by any means, it was just something I noticed even at a young age.
As a story, there is not too much to truly unpack here: a squarely sound engineer, who is obsessed with mathematical prog rock, is fired from his job because of a fat corporate jingle schlub who sounds like a mix between Jimmy Buffett and Van Halen who dislikes his music, stating it sounded like “Emerson, Lake, and Palmer? Sounds like Emerson getting buttfucked by Lake and Palmer” which I thought was the funniest line of the film. Like I said, there is not a whole lot of meat to this film. There is a shitload of gross-out effects though, so if you are in to that, by all means, this is our film!
In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Freaked, a movie that was co-directed by Alex Winter of Bill & Ted's franchise in the early 90's to whom served as co-producer along with Jonah Ray Rodrigues (who plays the completely inept main character) and acted two different roles in this schlock-filled endeavor. I love both of those guys for their different portrayals in other projects and given the style of movie we are looking at, this one should be a slam dunk, right? Well...
As a person who truly adores the sub genre, the gore and effects are definitely up to par and the way it is shot in that style is impeccable. No problems there, at all! The issue is the pacing, the dialogue, it's consistency, and the overall storyline that seems somewhat smashed together. I don't think the problems were how many writers were there, but maybe the production cost and not having the most skilled at certain positions. Such problems could be more fitted to how a movie could be everything you could possibly dream for, but there is a lot lacking ~ story-wise.
Destroy All Neighbors was released streaming to Shudder, so if'n you don't have that, I have nothing else you will remotely understand in the next few reviews I do in the near future. It is getting more and more difficult, as a reviewer, to get the hard earned numbers from pieces such as this.
Not quite the ambitious feat one would compare to, this one falls a few steps short of what it was meant to show up as on the screen. It is my hidden gem this year, for whatevs reason.
Maybe I'll do Frankie Freako next.
2.5 Out Of 5