Gothic cinema took life-threatening gut-punches in the last decade and excluding Chan-wook Park’s Thirst, the vampire genre received the brunt of the assaults. As Hollywood searched the depths of their resources to insure their post-9/11 survival, they found an easy market to exploit — Young Adult novel adaptations. None was more recognizably stupid and nauseating than the Twilght franchise. By their own conceptual goofiness, vampires movies started going down the toilet in the mid 90s (as did Francis Ford Coppola’s career), and it was foreseeable that they would become B-movie fodder only. The ghastly Twilight “films” solidified a voyeuristic stake in the bloodsucking hearts and True Blood, on HBO, helped the ruination as well.
But now that some time has passed, people are going back and bringing a resurgence of care to vampire mythology. Most recently, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night took the standard shock-and-awe route and crafted an arthouse thriller that put the fear of the undead first. New Zealand actors Jemaine Clement Taika Waititi felt it was right to make an intentional comedy out of the raw vampire material, and play-up the hilarity of living a choiceless macabre lifestyle.
In What We Do in the Shadows, four vampires live together in a house and a documentary crew is allowed to record what it’s like to be children of the night, ala This is Spinal Tap mode. A rarefied dandy, Viago (Taika Waititi), is the main vampire of the flat mates. His story is the central though-line that has an interesting emotional beat to it, while the other guys are purely comedic devices. That isn’t to say that Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), Deacon (Jonny Brugh), and the so-to-speak patriarch, Petyr (Ben Fransham), aren’t heavily involved in the movie, but surprisingly Viago has a depth to him that they simply don’t. What it’s like to be around while everyone else one has loved has passed away must be hard to watch, even if they no longer have a heart.
Things begin to shake up in the house when Jackie (Jackie van Beek), the servant of Deacon, brings over dinner one night and Petyr makes a meal out him. Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer) goes from being clueless that vampires exist to becoming the newest vampire youngling. As most adolescent years go, Nick has a hard time adjusting to his undesirable change and that brings about discord for the other four vampires. Nick’s friend, Stu (Stu Rutherford), is the only human the vampires have no desire to eat because he’s just a cool dude. Make any sense? No, that’s because What We Do in the Shadows is a spoof of recent trends that had removed all the things unique to nightly terrors. And especially look forward to Vladislav’s high-flying encounter with The Beast — the one undead creature who can match his charisma and may have stolen his power over entire groups of people.
As one can assume this movie is brilliantly over-the-top hilarious and subversive, and sometimes cleverly subtle about it too. It’s definitely something to sink your teeth into. And how could this not be a laugh riot? Ever since Jemaine was attached with Flight of the Concords he’s been a comedic mastermind. With him and Taika co-directing there’s enough room for each to have their voice heard while not overstepping their bounds nor trampling on the other. Come for the gore-fest, stay for the laughs, but whatever you do, don’t confuse the werewolves for swearwolves.
Something or Nothing:
Something. What We Do In the Shadows is the best mockumentry in years and would honestly make a great double feature with year’s other vampiric entry, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Vampires have always lived comfortably in the darkness but now they can venture into the light again, as long as it isn’t UV.
Cinecism 