Sunday 23 November 2014

What We Do In The Shadows - review

Following the sparkly tween blandness of the Twilight films, it is nice to see that the vampire genre is coming back from the dead with movies like Only Lovers Left Alive and What We Do In The Shadows.

Both released this year, they both take a different look at the everyday life and normalcy of a vampire's existence.

What We Do In The Shadows does it through the style of a Mockumentary, nicely played with "New Zealand Documentary Foundation" credits, that documents the undead lives of four vampires who share a house in Wellington, New Zealand.

There is a nice mix of characters in the house with Dandy Vamp Viago, Vlad The Impaler Vamp Vladislav, Rock Vamp Deacon and Nosferatu Vamp Peter.

While there is humour in taking jabs at modern vampire references (newly turned vampire Nick goes around claiming he's the guy from Twilight and Viago is told he can't go to a costume party dressed as Blade as it would be offensive to other vampires) ultimately the best gags come from the mundane (Nick's human friend Stu showing them sunrise videos on YouTube, the group's inability to get into nightclubs as they can't get the bouncers to invite them in).

The gags come as thick as fast as a spurting artery but the final product could do with a bit more bite.

3 stars

P.S. would quite happily watch a spin off documentary that follows Rhys Darby's Wolfpack of "werewolves not swearwolves".

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