Member review

What We Do In The Shadows is a Comedy/mockumentry(it’s officially listed as horror comedy but the horror isn’t really a factor I didn’t find myself scared at any point and I’m a massive scaredy cat when it comes to films) that follows the months leading up to a ball and the premise is that this documentary crew is following around 4 vampires who live in a flat together in New Zealand and struggling to cope with the 21st Centaury before their 8000 year old flatmate bites 20 year old Nick-defiantly one of the weirder movies I’ve watched.

The 4 vampires you mostly follow are Deacon,Vladilslav,Viago and Nick and on the side their 8000 year old roomate,Petyr.All are hialrious to watch and all have unique aspects to them making each interesting to watch.As the film progresses you begin to see that Deacon,Vladislav and Viago are not your typical vampires,liking to go out to night clubs,pottery and even later being introduced to the internet.

What I really loved about this film is how straight to the point it is,it doesn’t necessarily have an overarching plot its following the lives of the vampires,its only around 90 minuets long and even the ‘filler’ scenes have great comedic value.The comedy of course is very funny,personally I prefer standup but numerous scenes in this film made me laugh out loud.I thought the music was very good,altough many scenes are silent but the ones that do predominately use brass and string instruments making for an interesting soundtrack with some songs with lyrics,the song in the opening credits works very well as its literally called ‘You’re Dead’.The film is shot in the dark almost fully seeing as vampires get barbecued if they go out in the sun off the top of my head I can think of 2 scenes when the sun is out and they are both very brief.The house which is the main set for the whole film and where the majority of the film takes place is dark with blacks and browns with some reds all very reflective of the vampires themselves.

One small issue I have with the film is the fairly excessive blood,which can be expected of the genre but its very over the top in this film.The worst 2 scenes probably include where Nick tries to eat a chip and vomits blood for about 30 seconds with it literally spraying and another where Viago accidentally bursts a victims main artery and the use of blood is very over the top there and that sort of removes you from the scene a little.

Overall though I really enjoyed the film and I’ve found myself rewatching it multiple times,I think if you’ve got a spare 90 minuets it’s fairly cheap to rent on most online stores and the dvd is cheap as well and for the price it’s defiantly worth a watch.