There are many cult horror motion pictures which have rock n’ roll as a theme, with an emphasis on heavy steel; assume Trick or Treat, The Gate, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare. However far fewer pay glory to progressive rock, a style filled with sophisticated riffs and tempo adjustments that’s extra polarizing than most. Destroy All Neighbors crops its flag proudly on the mountain of prog, and brings a lot of squishy gore alongside for the trip.
Directed by Josh Forbes, with a narrative by Charles Pieper and Mike Benner and a script by Pieper and Jared Logan, Destroy All Neighbors—its title presumably winking at 1968 Godzilla-palooza Destroy All Monsters—follows the grotesque journey of meek sound engineer William Brown (Thriller Science Theater 3000‘s Jonah Ray Rodrigues). William’s lack of ability to complete the prog-rock album he’s been noodling on perpetually in his residence studio has turn out to be a psychological roadblock—to not point out a supply of stress with girlfriend Emily (Kiran Deol), who’s lengthy been supportive however is operating low on persistence. Issues go from prickly to hellish when a dreadful new neighbor strikes in subsequent door: Vlad (an unrecognizable Alex Winter, of Invoice & Ted fame), who resembles an outsized troll and spends his days (and nights) lifting weights, throwing furnishings round, bellowing, and blasting digital dance music.
Inevitably, there’s a confrontation. Most individuals can relate to the issue of getting an obnoxious neighbor, however Destroy All Neighbors swiftly careens into horror when Vlad is by accident, uh, decapitated. Then, there’s one other flip into the surreal, when Vlad’s disembodied head comes again to life and sorta turns into William’s new finest good friend. And the grisly hilarity doesn’t finish there; whilst you’re by no means sure if William is imagining the reanimated corpses that turn out to be his friends, or if he’s truly a deranged man that’s by accident turn out to be a serial killer, one factor holds true: he has bought to complete that album, come hell or excessive water.
With endearing performances from your entire solid—together with comedy veteran Thomas Lennon as William’s boss, who runs a recording studio and has a really specific outlook on what’s “rock n’ roll” and what isn’t; Randee Heller (Daniel’s mother in The Karate Child!) because the eccentric supervisor of William’s dingy residence constructing; and the always-welcome Kumail Nanjiani in an uncredited cameo—Destroy All Neighbors is infused with a goofy vitality, one thing that kicks in proper from the animated opening credit. Yeah, it’s a principally a midlife disaster film wrapped in a horror comedy. Nevertheless it’s additionally capable of inform a weirdly pleasant story that mixes blood-soaked sensible particular results with an earnest love of prog rock, and makes you root for its deeply flawed (and in some instances, actually rotting) characters within the course of.
Destroy All Neighbors streams on Shudder beginning January 12.
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