What We Do In The Shadows hits an interestingly obscure comedy vein right on the money.
If it can be assumed a documentary inherently exists to portray a non-fiction aspect of life, than a mockumentary poses as its polar opposite, rooted firmly in fictional narrative and relying on a created world, and the best mockumentaries are able to create humor from what feels like a completely organic place.
They are often reliant on a cursory understanding of the subject at hand and the time of its creation. Take, for instance, the infamously quoted Spinal Tap. Holding a fun house mirror up to the popular fad of heavy metal in the 70s and 80s, Spinal Tap is a brilliant stick-poking of the pop culture scene around it, relatable and ridiculous on almost equal planes. Mockumentaries of lesser value struggle to follow these rules, resulting with either very little to laugh at, or worse; a film trying way too hard to pull in an audience.
New Zealand funny man Taika Waititi’s take at non non-fiction is an intriguing test in this theory.
“What We Do In The Shadows” follows a rotating cast of vampires in a small New Zealand town, Real World-style, showcasing the highs and lows of being an antiquated vampire in the modern world.
Waititi himself plays Viago, the empathetic undead prince who dresses like a moldy Shakespeare and puts down towels before draining humans of their blood. Viago is joined by vengeful playboy Vladislav, played by Flight of the Concords’ Jemaine Clement, usually found hanging around his torture chamber, and 900-year-old self-proclaimed “cool guy” Deacon, played by Jonathan Brugh, who spends his days ordering his human servant to wash his laundry and fetch dinner from her high-school yearbook.
The cast also includes a botched drain job turned block-head blood sucker Nick, played by Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, and Petyr, an infinitely aged gargoyle who lives in a crypt in the basement and utters no more than a growl the whole film, played by Ben Fransham.
Waititi’s take on vampires constantly finds itself in new comedic territory largely in part to the huge canvas of potential riffing brought on by the Twilight craze of late. Filling its requirement of timeliness, a movie who’s plot essentially could be put into a sentence also does an astounding job of staying fresh with a nearly non-stop introduction of characters including werewolves, former girlfriends, and Nick’s IT working best-friend as lovingly bland as humanly possible.
The movie has some great set pieces, but the film really works best when the camera-men are shooting the simple ne’er seen truths-of-life as a vampire like waking up before sunset, cleaning blood off a tea-cup, and developing a fashion sense when a mirror is out of the question.
One particularly hilarious scene finds the vampire crew discovering a computer and learning how to Skype and watch sunsets on Youtube.
“What We Do In The Shadows” hits an interestingly obscure comedy vein right on the money, striking what could be a repetitive chord in a new way with each passing scene, and makes being turned into a vampire seem like an inconvenience that anyone could learn to deal with, and eventually maybe even enjoy. Even Twihards should find the film worthy of the vampire film canon.
