Destroy All Neighbours
There are few shortcuts to success, aspiring musician and composer William Brown working as a sound engineer for an ungrateful producer who takes his cues from whatever artiste is booked into the studio on how William will be treated that day, while his neighbour, aspiring screenwriter Alec, is vacating his apartment having hit the big time with his greenlit erotic sci-fi thriller, entirely through his own endeavours and not at all tied to having friends of family in the business and a trust fund which spares him the need to hold down a day job.
Working on his progressive rock masterpiece in his home studio while his girlfriend Emily tries to get some sleep, William’s efforts are disturbed by the new tenant who has rented Alec’s former apartment, the belligerent Vlad, immediately threatening and confrontational, and not amenable to gently worded requests for neighbourly consideration, not at all the kind of person William is comfortable being around which makes it all the more difficult for him to know how to proceed when Vlad dies in a freak accident for which William is partially responsible.
A man more accustomed to layering tracks and arranging obscure instruments, disposing of a body is not within the skillset of the timid William (Christmas Bloody Christmas’ Jonah Ray Rodrigues), pushed far from his comfort zone into bloody power tool dismemberment in director Josh Forbes’ Destroy All Neighbours through a repeating daily routine of belittlement and humiliation which could persuade even Mother Teresa to turn a blind eye to a few deadly sins.
With a script written by Mike Benner, Jared Logan and Charles A Pieper which pays tribute to the all-encompassing genre-defying “try anything” nature of prog rock which William so adores, a devotee of the long-forgotten masters of the art Dawn Dimension and their former bassist “Swig” Anderson (Jon Daly) who through his online lessons has become William’s guide and guru, in its digressions, indulgences and excesses Destroy All Neighbours answers to nobody.
The supporting cast including Kiran Deol as Emily, her patience running thin, Randee Heller as perpetually distracted building manager Eleanor and Christian Calloway as Augie, the homeless guy in the alley behind the studio, the show is stolen by Bill & Ted Face the Music’s Alex Winter as Vlad, unrecognisable under layers of latex and performing with the restraint of a Muppet on drugs, though mercifully also appearing in a more familiar form in a cameo as a public defender.
A showcase of prosthetic makeup effects with entrails and blood in copious supply, Destroy All Neighbours delights in its silliness, and while past the establishment of the premise much of it becomes variations on a theme rather than a dynamic narrative it never pauses long enough to become stale, the grand finale and subdued coda perhaps exactly as expected but largely because it is the natural resolution of the dramatic chords around which the structure is built.
Destroy All Neighbours will be available on Shudder from Friday 12th January
