Audience laughed their heads off
MOVIE REVIEW: WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS Matt Lawrey’s MOVIE REVIEW
In a lot of ways I’m not the best person to be reviewing the hit Kiwi comedy What We Do in the Shadows (R-13). The problem is that as much as I love Jemaine Clement and admire Taika Waititi, I can’t stand vampires.
It doesn’t matter if they’re supposed to be scary, funny or even romantic, I still want to punch them in the face.
It’s probably the result of somehow getting to see the Sunday horrors on TV one night as a kid. I suspect I was traumatised by the sight of Christopher Lee waving his blood-soaked Dracula fangs around and ever since I’ve wanted to drive stakes through vampires’ icy hearts.
Written and directed by Clement and Waititi, What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary detailing the lives of a bunch of vampires flatting in contemporary Wellington.
The film captures everything from flat meetings and housework to nights out on the town and innocent victims being lured to their gory demise.
Waititi plays the camp, romantic and fussy Viago.
Clement appears as the dark, brooding and perverted Vladislav. Joining them in the flat are Jonathan Brough as the rebellious, loose and lazy Deacon and Ben Fransham as the ancient and primal Nosferatu-like Petyr.
The lads’ somewhat monotonous lives pick up one night when Petyr bites a student by the name of Nick, played by Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, who turns into a vampire.
Before long Nick is hanging out at the flat and introduces the gang to his best friend Stu, played by Stuart Rutherford, a computer programmer who in turn introduces them to some of the delights of life in the 21st century, including texting and Facebook.
The film’s vampires-as-flatmates concept is such a good one, it’s hard to believe that no one thought of it before. In fact, sometimes you can almost sense Clement and Waititi’s joy at being the first to take the idea and run with it.
What We Do in the Shadows also enjoys a wonderfully decrepit look. The flat is gloriously skodie. Seriously, you can practically smell the mould. Its other great strength is its cast. Everyone nails their part: Waititi makes the sweetest vampire you’re ever likely to meet while Clement is a charming brute.
Best of all is Brough as the charismatic yet deluded Deacon. Jackie van Beek also deserves special praise for her classic performance as Deacon’s conveniently named servant Jackie. It’s also pretty funny. My wife laughed her head off. So did lots of other people. For some reason it didn’t crack me up as much as others but it certainly put a smile on my face and made me feel good watching the filmmakers pull it off.
What We Do in the Shadows is loosely based on a short film Clement and Waititi made in 2005. I don’t know if prior knowledge of this affected my appreciation of the film but I did occasionally get the feeling that it was a short film stretched over a feature length duration.
The mockumentary genre has also been done to death. That said, it’s great to see New Zealanders being genuinely funny on the big screen and it’s choice seeing cinemas and the media getting behind them.