I hate people who don't turn their phones off at the cinema - the floodlight glare of other people's iPhones is abhorrent. The rage that flows through my veins is probably akin to the bloodlust of a vampire. My viewing experience is tainted by a large and ignorant cinema audience. You can imagine how pleased I was to turn up to a near empty midnight screening of What We Do in the Shadows the mockumetary about a den of vampires form one half of The Flight of the Concords Jermaine Clement, and who I can only imagine is his best bud, Taika Waititi. I now want to be his friend and I want you to watch this film they have written. All I knew about this film is stated above was from the poster. A bunch of vampires sitting in an old house below some taxidermy and a staircase. My mind jumped straight to Tim Burton's Dark Shadows revival. I never managed to make it through that even though vampires were a staple of my teenage years. The angst of Buffy, the camp of Bram Stoker's Dracula and the MTV comedy-gore-Corey fest and that is The Lost Boys. Of all the people who want to know about the trials and tribulations of being on of the undead it is me.
Team that up with the mockumentary genre that will forever be held up in comparison with the cult classic This is Spinal Tap and you are on to a very appealing combo indeed. I wanted to know about these four vampires living in a house in Wellington, New Zealand... but had my doubts about this film.
Due to the nature of the mockumentary and what I was expecting to be a budgety film, I envisaged a sedate affair, talking heads heavy doc style with improvised hits and misses which would create a mildly amusing film. Shame on me! My goblet of blood was obviously half empty when in fact this film over-floweth with blood type O-so good!
The documentary style was spoofed to perfection, the back story of each character, including shots of photos, portraits over the hundreds of years they had been alive and their individual classic vampire styles, Vlad The Impaler/Dracula and Nosferatu being the most apparent to me, you bonded with these four vamps instantly. Calling the Nosferatu type vampire Petyr made him seem so ordinary but ancient at the same time. Whilst explaining that "He's 8000 years old, he's not coming to the house meeting" said it all.
Due to the nature of the mockumentary and what I was expecting to be a budgety film, I envisaged a sedate affair, talking heads heavy doc style with improvised hits and misses which would create a mildly amusing film. Shame on me! My goblet of blood was obviously half empty when in fact this film over-floweth with blood type O-so good!
The documentary style was spoofed to perfection, the back story of each character, including shots of photos, portraits over the hundreds of years they had been alive and their individual classic vampire styles, Vlad The Impaler/Dracula and Nosferatu being the most apparent to me, you bonded with these four vamps instantly. Calling the Nosferatu type vampire Petyr made him seem so ordinary but ancient at the same time. Whilst explaining that "He's 8000 years old, he's not coming to the house meeting" said it all.
| The film starts with a all to relatable flatshare scene about someone, in this case the youngest vampire Deacon, not doing the dishes. This ends in a not so common flying and hissing face off between him and our most friendly 18th Century Vampire Viago. The awkward look on Vlad's face, the other vampire at the table, brings us back to the cringe worthy ordinariness of household chore tiffs. | The aversion to sunshine, silver and need to be invited into a night club are all addressed as well as Nick the newbie's...chat up lines include the word "Twilight". |
In the film folklore of vampires is explained and exposed in the presence of the documentary film crew and ourselves in the lead up to the annual event The Unholy Masquerade. We are witness to the impracticalities of sleeping all day and relying on a familiar (AKA your human slave who one day hopes to be turned into a vampire) on doing your (literally) bloody laundry and rounding up virgins to drink from.
Why Virgin's Blood? As Vlad explains, "Well you'd enjoy a sandwich much more if you knew no one had had sex with it first." They are all typical vampires, we lay witness to them flying, turning into bats, hypnotising victims and drinking blood, all with different degrees of success. The aversion to sunshine, silver and need to be invited into a night club are all addressed as well as Nick the newbie's transition from human to vampire - a lot of his chat up lines include the word "Twilight".
That's the thing about What We Do in the Shadows, it knows its audience. The vampires in the film are staples of the vampire film genre. This is appealing as in your head you tick off references and laugh as the vampires make their own. They like The Lost Boys and play a prank the vampires in that movie play on the humans.
The film surprised me again with the amount of action that takes place - fights which have them rolling around the ceiling, chase scenes that include bats and werewolves and humans alike! The beef between the Vampires and Werewolves is on a schoolboy level. The alpha male tried to keep order: "Hey! No swearing. We're werewolves not swearwolves!"
There is a clear lack of female leads in this film which is a shame as they do meet a few lady vamps about Wellington. Deacon's familiar Jackie sums it up when she says if she had a dick she'd have been turned into a vampire years ago. She's right, it is one big sausage fest of a film but it's really funny too.
Squeamish Nicola
Why Virgin's Blood? As Vlad explains, "Well you'd enjoy a sandwich much more if you knew no one had had sex with it first." They are all typical vampires, we lay witness to them flying, turning into bats, hypnotising victims and drinking blood, all with different degrees of success. The aversion to sunshine, silver and need to be invited into a night club are all addressed as well as Nick the newbie's transition from human to vampire - a lot of his chat up lines include the word "Twilight".
That's the thing about What We Do in the Shadows, it knows its audience. The vampires in the film are staples of the vampire film genre. This is appealing as in your head you tick off references and laugh as the vampires make their own. They like The Lost Boys and play a prank the vampires in that movie play on the humans.
The film surprised me again with the amount of action that takes place - fights which have them rolling around the ceiling, chase scenes that include bats and werewolves and humans alike! The beef between the Vampires and Werewolves is on a schoolboy level. The alpha male tried to keep order: "Hey! No swearing. We're werewolves not swearwolves!"
There is a clear lack of female leads in this film which is a shame as they do meet a few lady vamps about Wellington. Deacon's familiar Jackie sums it up when she says if she had a dick she'd have been turned into a vampire years ago. She's right, it is one big sausage fest of a film but it's really funny too.
Squeamish Nicola
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