SXSW 2014: What We Do In The Shadows Review

The balance between horror-comedies that work and are enjoyable and ones that absolutely do not is heavily favored to the latter. For every Shaun or Tucker & Dale or Slither in the world there are scores of others that fall somewhere in the range of tolerable to just flat awful. Maybe it is the bent towards comtemporizing everything in recent years so that if Haunted Movie or whatever it might be isn’t up to the second the second it hits theatres, or worse, the DTV stuff that just grabs every damned thing it can and flings it together, then it just doesn’t seem to get made. So the pickings are often, sadly, thin.

Thankfully though, What We Do In The Shadows, a film by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi, is just brilliant and charming and smart and all the things one would hope it would be. It takes style cues from Christopher Guest in the very best of ways, and tells the story of a group of vampires living together and trying to make their day-to-day life work. The film is assembled in that Spinal Tap-ian way to where the camera works as a confessional at times and is along for the ride in others. This switch back and forth gives it a modern-docu-reality feeling without going overboard. It also gives us the time to not only get to know each of the vampires (all of whom seem to represent a different subsection of vampire lore) and enjoy them, but take all of what is going on and gives it some purpose.

There isn’t a lot of meaning to be had here that one couldn’t come up with for themselves if you’ve seen enough vampire movies. The rebellious younger-vampire, the leader-type vampire, the really really old Nosferatu one, they all come with the baggage and back story you come to expect. The joy of it is that you have each one trying to live as roommates (who does dishes? who cleans on what day? why do they have dishes because nobody actually cooks?) so you have all you know about these various offshoots of vampire-types trying to coexist and cohabitate like directionless 20 somethings in a shared home.

The absurdity of this and the deconstruction of a ton of other vampire-trappings build one on top of the next in a light and well-choreographed way that never seems too needy or too punch-line driven. That is to say, the laughs are there and the rhythm is there and the writing is there but not because they pause every two minutes and demand you laugh. It is a lovely way to handle comedy and an even better way to handle this type of subject matter. Because when it comes down to it, the film expects you to have a certain working knowledge of this stuff in order to see the humor. I didn’t find this egotistical on the part of the writers/actors/directors and instead really appreciated not being treated like a know-nothing when humor is on the line.

There are amazing bits involving proper biting technique, clothing choices, getting into bars and clubs, explaining about virginal blood (which includes an analogy about sandwiches that is beyond priceless) and a host of other things that all count on the viewer knowing a little to start with – and that is totally fine. Not having to listen to one more explanation about vampire rules was, in and of itself, a triumph. But taken a few steps further, not having to futz with that gives the film time to just have some fun and not waste or pad or stretch a thin script or thinner talent.

The film is never boring and it is never slow and it certainly is never old-hat or retread in its humor. It is in the vibrance of the writing, the pitch-perfect timing and production work (great art direction, costuming and makeup) that this film earns its place among the smarter, sharper horror-comedies in recent memory. This film is a gem.