What We Do in the Shadows

Ah, male bonding.  What a ritual.  Not as much drama as among the fairer sex? Ha! Try violating The Unwritten Code.  Living with your buds and not doing your fair share of the housework.  Or bringing a human to the house.  When you're a vampire, things are only that much more complicated.  And you don't want the word to get out that you party all night and sleep all day.  There may actually be a vampire hunter among the pub goers in Wellington.  New Zealand, that is.

2014's WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS takes a bid from earlier mockumentaries ala Christopher Guest and the reality show spoofing ala The Office and Parks and Recreation to create a few days in the life of centuries old undead blokes (one of the flatmates is actually 8000 years old).  A camera crew follows a quartet of bloodsuckers as they argue about washing dishes and what costumes to wear to a masquerade ball (Wesley Snipes' getup from BLADE is deemed "inappropriate").  Viago (Taika Waititi), Vladislav (Jermaine Clement), Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), and Petyr (Ben Fransham) live together in general harmony before they are disrupted by newbie vampire Nick (Cori-Gonzalez-Macuer), who hasn't quite reconciled a life of no sunlight.  He's also quite distraught that he can also no longer eat fish and chips without vomiting streams of blood.

Nick also brings along his friend Stu (Stu Rutherford), an amiable computer analyst whom the vampires like well enough not to eat.   In fact, they like him better than Nick! Stu is a real decent guy, and even teaches his new friends about the Internet and cell phone cameras. But will Stu dance with the undead one too many times?

Waititi and Clement co-wrote and directed WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS and have created just the right hybrid of dry humor and horror.  The tone is such that you'd swear it was British.  It's just about perfect.  There were more real laughs than I had anticipated. I've grown tired of fourth wall breaking mock docs but this film, edited down from over a hundred hours of improvisation, is consistently amusing. The film also does not look away from the gore but it never feels excessive or non-organic to the project.  It may have worked ultimately worked better as a twenty minute short , but never wears out its welcome.  The werewolves, with their own male bonding issues, nearly steal the movie, though.