Movie Review: What We Do in the Shadows

Few comedy shows in the past few years have hit as consistent at stride as FX Networks’ What We Do in the Shadows. While audiences have fallen in love with those characters, the series is not the first iteration of its awkward vampires. In fact, the TV series is based off of a 2014 movie written and directed by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok.)

WWDITS is a mockumentary series following a group of vampires sharing a flat in Wellington, New Zealand. They range in age by centuries and by personality. Waititi plays Viago, essentially the mother hen of the flat. Viago is hyper-organized, passive, and very much in tune with keeping everyone in the group happy and cooperative. His biggest issue is that the others are far more self-obsessed than he is. They’re more interested in either being sexual or just plain lazy than in keeping the household running smoothly.

Vladislav (Clement) is the sexy vampire who can hypnotize humans and occupies his time with orgies and sacrifices. The flat has no alpha male per se, but he’s the closest thing to it. Clement and Waititi sneak in some absolutely hilarious commentary on Vladislav as a character. He appears to be in his mid-thirties but was made a vampire at 16 years old. In his time, the life expectancy was probably closer to 14, and so he appears much older than his actual age. There’s also a play on the “Vlad the Impaler” legend that fits his character well.

Deacon is the third member in the flat. Played to the absolute extremes by Jonny Brugh (Mega Time Squad), Deacon is neither an enabler nor a leader. Everything about him is just lazy. He lounges in chairs with his leg over the arm rest. He takes no initiative. Hell, he hasn’t washed the dishes in FIVE years.

(Technically, there is a fourth member in the flat. Petyr (Ash vs. Evil Dead’s Ben Fransham) plays the Nosferatu-esque vampire who lives in the basement. He doesn’t speak and can’t pass for human. Therefore, he isn’t a part of the nightclub scenes or moonlight walks. He’s the closest thing to a silent film vampire that could possibly exist in modern times.)

There are a few other notable characters. Deacon’s familiar, Jackie (Jackie Van Beek) introduces the dilemma of vampiric indentured servitude. She will do almost anything, and clean blood off of almost anything, as long as Deacon comes through with his promise to make her a vampire.

Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer) is a douchey human naysayer until he is turned into a vampire by Petyr. His personality does not mix well with Deacon’s. Nick’s silver lining is his human best friend, Stu (Stu Rutherford), whose IT skills introduce the vampires to new things like selfies, google searches and Facetime.

WWDITS has plenty of other funny scenes or even throwaway visual jokes with unnamed characters . The police come to the house to investigate and that results in a hilarious, hold your breath set of questioning. There are repeating jokes about the vampires’ past relationships. Viago’s recounting of his long lost love leads to one very pleasurable sight gag. The run-ins with werewolves provide a lot of puns and heckling that culminate in the movie’s final act.

WWDITS is an entertaining story that sets a precendent that can go in many directions. It’s almost like an open-ended pilot that is satisfying by itself but provides the pathway for improved and evolved versions to come. Clement and Waititi play fun, irreverent characters who are just quirky enough to make viewers question whether to root for them or not. The film also lays the groundwork for this team to expand and build a magnificent follow-up show while adding to the writers’ growing list of credits.

It might be imperfect or not completely baked, but What We Do in the Shadows is an entertaining mix of tongue-in-cheek jokes, visual gags, flips of the typical undead mythos, and underdog stories. It’s yet another example of a brilliant horror comedy that makes the most of a modest budget to create a cult classic.

(PS: WWDITS was shot on an estimated budget of $1.6M. It runs 86 minutes. There were over 125 hours of footage filmed. Most was improvisation by the cast.)