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What We Do in the Shadows – the dirty pitch:

What happens when vampires stop being polite, and start being real… The Real World: New Zealand Vampires!

If you suppose that comedic “mockumentaries” were anything like an Olympic procession, then I would love to envision Christopher Guest and Rob Reiner happily running down an elegant red carpet, joyfully passing off an honorary torch to the team behind WWDS (What We Do in the Shadows), which is mostly Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. This is both a compliment and a not so subtle request, given the sabbatical of good mockumentaries Guest and company have taken.

Now for just a moment, suspend all the perfectly reasonable animosity and hatred you have surrounding yet another f***king vampire movie, and watch this film, because it’s just funny. WWDS brilliantly pays homage to the classic and/or epic vampire titles like Nosferatu, Interview with the Vampire, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, while also hilariously poking at the newer titles like the Twilight saga and True Blood.

In the film, there are so many moments that capture a semi ironic and totally inexplicable contrast of subtle wry comedy with completely over-the-top slapstick circumstance, that really it’s so masterfully reminiscent of Christopher Guest comedies, I just can’t help make the comparison. From the trailer you’ll catch a semblance of what I’m talking about, with just how mundane circumstances like cleaning the house, arguing over dishes, and dudes out on the town prowling local bars looking to score… (blood that is!) build into this awkward saga of moments where absolutely every encounter with outsiders grow into something both sadly humane and outrageously hysterical.

What’s key to WWDS, in like all good mockumentaries, is that the characters work well together and feel completely normal in their own world, yet completely clash with the real one. Estranged outsiders come in and out of this world, but to these characters, they’re merely keeping up with the Joneses. The comedic beats like clubbing in mid-century garb, or DJing hip-hop on a turn of the century phono record player all seem perfectly reasonable to these protagonists, but as an audience we can see objectively how bizarre it really is.

That’s the gem in WWDS- a perpetual taffy pull of vile and horrific motivations, comically blundered and awkwardly played out moment to moment. Every scene is a stark contrast of comedic evil and decadence, with awkward social proclivities that make you cringe, but also identify.

It’s great to see concepts like these, where in my head, I envision a couple of guys conceptualizing this story as a joke rising from conversations about what vampires must do if their roommates, and how they get along with new people who are cool, but you know food, or how they have to be immortal yet remain relevant and entertained in each new era. These types of conversations truly blossom when you have talented comedians and filmmakers who know how to run with it, and so I can only speculate from the end result, but the concept alone had me smirking from the pitch.

I can’t speak to its genesis, but I can say that What We Do in the Shadows capitalizes on a trend in cinema I was all too ready to shelf, and now I find myself wanting more, like television seasons more, and though I won’t hold my breath, I will say that should a television series be in the works, this has to be one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen.

Kudos.

Reviewed by: Wes Bernstein on June 7, 2015