When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will move to Wellington, apparently. Director Taika Waititi is joined behind the camera by Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement for the murderously funny mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, all about socially awkward vampires sharing a flat in New Zealand. Wondering what it plays like? Imagine a cross between MTV’s The Real World, Waititi’s previous effort – the idiosyncratic and oh-so-Kiwi Boy, and, say, Nosferatu. You never knew you needed this bloody concoction so bad.
Waititi stars as Viago, a 379-year-old anally retentive fop nursing a decades-long case of heartbreak. Initially moving to NZ with the intention of stealing away a bride, he lost his nerve and instead formed a share house with some other undead expats: Clement’s Vladislav the Poker, who is modelled on Vlad the Impaler except in all the ways he acts like Jemaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh’s oversexed hellion Deacon, and the spindly, terrifying, eight-millenia-old vampyr Petyr (Ben Fransham), whom the others long ago stopped asking for rent money.
These four curs-ed bachelors mostly get along, though any group of friends cohabitating for the unreasonable duration of eternity will find reasons to bicker. (A frequent spat: Deacon carelessly spilling his victims’ blood without thinking to lay some newspaper down beforehand). Tensions are significantly heightened, however, when Petyr sires another blood-sucker, Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer), irrevocably shifting the group dynamic. But at least Nick introduces to the fold his best human friend, Stu the IT guy (actual IT guy Stu Rutherford), an impossible to hate – or eat – dude.
The flick is based on a 2005 short by Waititi and Clement, and it shows. Now armed with 90 minutes to play, they reluctantly tie strings from the film’s start to its end, like the promise of a climactic Unholy Masquerade and a teased showdown between the vampire clique and their lycan nemeses, led by the werewolf Anton (Rhys Darby). More often than not though, the movie happily abandons plot threads to allow extra time for pissfarting around. (One hilarious example: the camera hanging on Deacon as he entertains Viago and Vladislav with his erotic dance moves.)
Where What We Do in the Shadows justifies its transition to feature-length is in its increased budget, the vamps’ gothic, decrepit mansion intricately decorated to seem as if it was sky-lifted out of Transylvania and dropped in Te Aro. When they finally exit their crumbling manor to go clubbing, wandering the perfectly banal city streets still dressed in their 18th century garb, the juxtaposition alone is enough to elicit howls of laughter.
Shapelessness aside, What We Do in the Shadows’ extended runtime is welcome, thanks to its seemingly infinite pool of ingenious set pieces. There’s a potent metaphor beneath the surface too: the go-nowhere existence of the undead as a mirror for those stuck between stations in share houses. Yet, above all, What We Do in the Shadows – like a dancing Deacon – is here to amuse, and maybe arouse. The fusion of Viago and Vlad’s anachronistic dialogue with 21st century slang endlessly tickles, as do the brilliantly realised comic performances, particularly from Waititi, Clement and Brugh, while the shocking sanguinary gags also inspire waves of uncomfortable glee. This thing is a fiendish delight.