Friday, February 20, 2015

Film Review: What We Do In The Shadows


Writer/Director: Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement
Producer: Taika Waititi, Chelsea Winstanley, Emanuel Michael
Cast: Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Rhys Darby, Jonathan Brugh, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stu Rutherford
Mockumentary Comedy Horror film
1 hour, 25 minutes

What's it really like to be a vampire? This insanely funny mockumentary from New Zealand answers that question by hanging out with Viago, Vladislav, Deacon, and Petyr, four bloodsuckers who share a house in Wellington.

After sunset, they rise and three of them prowl the clubs for fresh blood. (The fourth one, Petyr, looks his age which is 8,000 years old so he stays locked inside his closet. The arrogant one, Deacon, has a human servant named Jackie to run errands for him, like wash his blood-soaked garments and invite unwitting old school classmates to the vampires' home for "dinner." The vampires accept another mortal as a friend, a quiet I.T. guy named Stu, who teaches them how to use modern technology. The vampires live in a sort of frat house and, apart from sucking blood out of people, are good lads.

Their idyllic life, however, ends when Nick, a new vampire they bit, boasts about being a vampire to mortal clubgoers. One mortal happens to be a vampire killer who breaks into the house and slays Peytr. The remaining three banish Nick. At the same time, Jackie grows impatient with Deacon for not biting her and making her immortal. To make matters worse, nice-guy Stu attends a vampire ball of the local bloodsuckers and has to fight for his life to get out.

What We Do In The Shadows is one of the funniest mockumentaries ever made. It's clever and fun, and most of the gags work. There's nothing pretentious about it. It's self-deprecating yet not self-conscious. You don't have to be a vampire or horror fan to enjoy it.

Review by Allan Tong

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