What We Do In the Shadows

Whenever you see vampires in movies like Blade or Underworld, they are always portrayed as these cool looking, well dressed creatures who can get anything they want. They live in beautiful gothic mansions, have wild parties, and play baseball to Muse. But no one ever shows you the real side of being an 800 year old vampire; a life where you’re stuck wearing clothes from three centuries ago while trying your best to get into nightclubs that reject you at every turn.

Well thankfully Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taiki Waititi (Eagle vs Shark) take us behind the scenes of what life is really like for vampires in today’s society. They invite a film crew to come in and document their day to day activities as they prepare to attend the event of the year, a gala for the undead.

At first their life is pretty mundane as they spend the majority of their time negotiating with their familiars, arguing over whose turn it is to do the dishes and picking fights with the local werewolves. But one day after they turn the hip human Nick into a vampire, their lives are forever changed as he introduces them to all sorts of wonderful things like the internet, mp3 players, and the happening nightlife of Wellington, New Zealand. And as you can imagine, this leads to quite a few memorable scenes in the movie.

If you are used to the dry humor of the Conchords, then you will absolutely love this movie, however if dry humor is not your thing, then you definitely want to stay away. Even I was struggling to enjoy it early on as I was trying to figure out where they were going with it but by the time they started talking trash to the werewolf gang that was led by Anton (Rhys Darby), I was completely onboard.

Darby is his usual inept self as he struggles to keep his pack under control with cheesy slogans like “We’re werewolves not swear wolves” and fails to get them locked up in time for the full moon which of course leads to an all-out battle with Waititi and his clan.

There are hilarious run ins with ex girlfriends, vampire hunters, and a clueless human who happens to go the gala of the undead simply because he received an invitation. I rate this movie as FRESH and suggest that you check it out as the rest of the movies coming out this April are uninspiring to say the least.