There are a few names who emerge during the opening credits for ‘Destroy All Neighbors’ and it is a satirical horror-comedy of human petty grievances and a person who goes on to refer himself as a serial manslaughterer. One of them is Rich Zima who created the very mess video of the cast the audience would witness first before getting thrown down a long tunnel of mutant bushes, ears waxes, eyeballs and grueling microprocessors indeed a sight to behold! Gabriel Baratol’s is there too, he is on the credits as a special make up effects supervisor and understanding his credits he worked with cult auteurs like Matthew Barney and Frank Hazelnuttier it takes him a whole new level. Also headlining the movie are Jonah Ray Rodrigues as co host of “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” and Alex Winter, the co director of ‘Freaked,’ both share on producing ‘Destroy All Neighbors.’ And lastly, adding to the clutter is casting director Charlene Lee who is familiar with Japan, India, and Mexico while working on Beef and Fargo and a few notable comedies like Review and Sherman’s Showcase.
Kudos to Lee and her team who played an important role in bringing together the nefarious communities of ‘Destroy All Neighbors,’ a comedy that is less interested in the story surrealism, praxinoscope or even the actors themselves but rather the sketch comedy like sulkiest in a group setting. This film will mostly be recalled for one liners and hand motions, but as is the case with nearly every performer in the film, their on screen counterparts make it much more difficult to forget them than the others.
However, there’s an outlined storyline involving a feuding couple and a depressed painter who goes on a rampage of sorts. Ray as Will has finally made the decision to complete an album he has been working on for the last three years and several months. His supportive girlfriend is Emily Kiran Deol. However, their elderly neighbor, Alec, who had moved onto a different script eventually finds a buyer. This new tenant plays loud EDM party music late at night, has a troll like appearance and is covered with tattoos like a bridge and has a builders cap and big arms. He is Vlad Winter, a goofy Eastern European who always addresses people as “bro” and enjoys vexing Will.
Will’s narrative only truly commences after he unwittingly kills Vlad. Before this occurs, Will commits some mischief while working as a sound mixer for Scotty Thomas Lennon, who is quite a doormat to Caleb Bang Jansen Ryan Katter, a musician with a short temper and a huge drug habit. Will also meets at times Auggie Christian Calloway, an unkempt homeless person who keeps pestering Will to be given a free croissant. Yeah, come on, the story is not the focus for this one.
What matters more depends on your taste in hangout comedies, especially if you already like the Masada high concepts behind certain jokes, say Scotty who keeps telling us what he thinks rock ‘n roll is (he’s always wrong, of course). Or when “Swig” Anderson (Jon Daly), an online music guru and an ex prog rocker, offers unsolicited advice to people like Will, recounting very private matters like his alimony, his exes, or even the disposal of bodies. These jokes have funny touches all through but are most of the times insufficient to anchor entire scenes. That is somewhat of an issue in a narrative that is short on plot, which jumps from scene to scene of a barely relating Will Wrest and exploring the limits of his life sexist simply because at some point he (finally) chooses to take a stand.
In his finest moments, Ray avoids the attention by playing the character of a person who gets trapped in a number of contrasting fears, spinning exotic food in his mouth while deciding whether he enjoys it or not. He slots perfectly into this West Coast humor, which features, among other things, exasperating, sometimes quite hilarious, insults directed toward has been and/or self absorbed creators, stolen scripts, and perpetual jam sessions. He also takes it a step further by cooperating with his co stars and actively looking for their input.
It is not a surprise that Ray has a collaborative spirit. He was the co host of “The Nerdist Podcast” so it is only natural that he would work with Joel Hodgson and his robot puppet colleagues from “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” It is still amusing to see Ray yell at Deol, rebuke Daly, and even bargain with a comedian whose name does not feature prominently in the credits but happens to be associated with the project in the IMDB. If the last statement makes sense to you, perhaps the target audience of “Destroy All Neighbors” is you.
However, other than the fact that Ray is an excellent straight man, you should really watch “Destroy All Neighbors” because Ray is genuinely funny. He brings something special to his co stars who entirely underperform in a film about an awkward hermit who flinches or squeezes himself wondering what most people expect of him. Conceivably, Ray and his co-stars’ chemistry makes you regard Will in the hope of knowing what twist the conflict will bring. “Destroy All Neighbors” does not involve that kind of playfulness; because it does work, Ms. Lee and her crew must be the real MVPs of the film.
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