WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
Starring Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, Jonathan Brugh
Directed by Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi
Be it courtesy of your parents or yourself, you’ve undoubtedly noticed how one’s peculiarities grow more pronounced with age. Imagine then how accentuated those idiosyncrasies might be after a couple of centuries on Earth. Passive aggression run amok and incessant pageantry are but two of the comic crosses that undead flatmates must bear in this unexpectedly riotous mockumentary from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement.
Whereas Jim Jarmusch’s exquisite Only Lovers Left Alive depicted how eternal life might eventually drain vampire of their joie de vivre, Shadows examines how it might also bleed them of every ounce of mystique. When we catch up with preening Vladislav (Clement), effete Viago (Waititi) and 183-year-old “bad boy” Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) in their dilapidated Wellington mansion, they’re bickering over chores and living in (im)mortal fear of their Nosferatu-like, 8,000-year-old elder Petyr (Ben Fransham). What follows isn’t so much a plot as a progression of ingeniously conceived set pieces that savagely lampoon various aspects of the vampire mythos. For instance: Given that vampires have no reflection, how can they possibly decide what to wear to the club? Why, by relying on their friends’ crude drawings of their ensembles of course.
Admittedly, this sounds like fodder for a couple of decent Funny or Die clips at best. However, the cast possesses such evident affection for their impotent bloodsuckers and such an innate sense of how best to stage their inept exploits for maximum uproarious effect – see: Waititi daintily spreading newspaper under a soon-to-be victim – that Shadows entices you to invite it into the darkest recesses of your heart and then never once threatens to overstay its welcome.
