Review | Film review: What We Do in the Shadows, a hilarious vampire mockumentary
This vampire parody transcends its one-joke nature to yield extended hilarity. Co-helmed by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement — the writer-director and lead actor of 2007's — this mockumentary is easily the new milestone of a New Zealand horror comedy tradition made infamous by Peter Jackson's .
This vampire parody transcends its one-joke nature to yield extended hilarity. Co-helmed by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement — the writer-director and lead actor of 2007's — this mockumentary is easily the new milestone of a New Zealand horror comedy tradition made infamous by Peter Jackson's .
chronicles the everyday life of four vampires sharing a flat in modern-day Wellington: Viago (Waititi), a lovesick dandy with a Nazi past; the torture-loving Vladislav (Clement); Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), who hasn't done the "bloody dishes" in five years; and the 8,000-year-old Petyr (Ben Fransham), who doesn't get out much.
Purportedly shot by "The New Zealand Documentary Board", the film hangs its parade of jokes on a nominal storyline: they hold flat meetings, roam nightspots in town and welcome guests home as food, in the process taking in the new vamp Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer) and befriending the human Stu (Stuart Rutherford), a mind-numbingly dull software analyst.
It all culminates in the Unholy Masquerade, an annual party for eclectic types of undead where Stu's rosy cheeks do not go unnoticed. Amid side-splitting gags involving YouTube clips of sunrises, the bloodsuckers' rivalry with werewolves, and their sartorial pursuits, thrives on its deadpan delivery of the silliest of materials.