Friday, May 29, 2015

‘What We Do in the Shadows’ Is a Fresh, Hilarious Spoof of Vampire Mythology



What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary from New Zealand about four vampire flatmates of varied ages and personalities.  With a documentary crew following them around for a couple of months, the undead friends are filmed arguing about house chores, roaming around clubs to pick up victims, accepting a neophyte vampire and his human friend into their circle, dabbling in modern technology, bickering with werewolves, obsessing about past flames, and other matters of their daily nightly lives.

This movie succeeds in hitting all the right notes in parodying known vampire tropes, and the script itself is cleverly-written and extremely funny.  Everything about this movie’s set-up is silly, but there are no needlessly dumb jokes.  Moreover, the humanization of the vampire characters provides relatability and thoughtfulness to the story.

On what it is intending to be, I think What We Do in the Shadows is flawless and inspired.  It is never dull, is consistently humorous, and, at this point, head-to-head with Spy as my choice for 2015’s best comedy film.

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