There’s very few comedies I like. If I’m in the mood I can enjoy horror comedies, or smaller indie movies with a sense of humor. for example, I consider Jonathan Parker’s (Untitled) from 2009 a minor masterpiece, it’s on my list of perfect movies for example. And that’s a fucking comedy! Spinal Tap is another favorite, and that leads us to What We Do in the Shadows, the latest movie from Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi, the creators and stars of Flight of the Conchords, which basically is a the same form of mockumentary as Spinal Tap, but instead of a couple of not so smart rock musicians we here have a bunch of even less smart vampires, all living (of sorts) in Wellington, New Zealand.
First out is the always very awkward Viago (Taika Waititi), a former dandy who ended up on New Zealand a bit too late to marry his life-long love. His best buddy is Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), who think he’s the most dangerous vampire ever, living the myth to the fullest. At least he tries, but memories of “The Beast” is still haunting him. Next up is Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), who’s the vampire version of a really rude, white trash, bar-hanging idiot. He also think he’s extremely sexy. The fourth flatmate is the 8000 years old Petyr (Ben Fransham), who looks like Nosferatu or that vampire dude from Salem’s Lot, and everyone helps out to keep him calm and not be too disturbing! We follow them up until the big event of the year, The Unholy Masquerade, where they’re gonna party until....daylight comes and they need to take shelter to not die. Something like that.
Like all good movies there’s not just these four characters to look forward to, What We Do in the Shadows is filled with interesting personalities - Stu, the nice human who everyone seems to like, the polite, non-confrontative werewolf gang (“Remember, we’re werewolves, not swearwolves!”), Jackie the slave, who just wants to be a vampire, her friend Nick who accidentally becomes a vampire and of course… THE BEAST! Like Spinal Tap it’s hard to dislike these misfits. They’re human, in a vampirish way, making mistakes - and denying making mistakes. Just like us all. The comedy is often very subtle, drawn-out, on the surface improvised - but I guess there’s good writing in the works here, or else it wouldn’t feel so tight.
And yes, there’s plenty of blood too. And deaths. My favorite scene being the one where one of our heroes desperately trying to keep control over a very messy bite, spraying blood all over the room! Fun for the whole family! Personally I think Petyr is a fantastic character, mostly because he rarely do anything - he just stares at his friends, looking scary and doesn’t seem to care what’s going around like him. But they treat him as just another buddy. Cute.
It’s hard to review comedies. I want to tell all the jokes, but the thing is - of course - that they stop being funny the moment you’re trying to repeat them. So I recommend you all to try and see What We Do in the Shadows and hopefully, like me, you will have a lot of laughs and feel gooooood afterwards.
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"If I’m in the mood I can enjoy horror comedies"
Yeah nothing wrong with a few laughs between the gore.
"the polite, non-confrontative werewolf gang (“Remember, we’re werewolves, not swearwolves!”)"
hahahahhahahahhah.....great....
"The comedy is often very subtle, drawn-out, on the surface improvised - but I guess there’s good writing in the works here, or else it wouldn’t feel so tight."
Maybe it´s good editing?
"It’s hard to review comedies. I want to tell all the jokes, but the thing is - of course - that they stop being funny the moment you’re trying to repeat them."
Yep, and also you won´t ruin the comedy bits for people who haven´t seen it yet.
"So I recommend you all to try and see What We Do in the Shadows and hopefully, like me, you will have a lot of laughs and feel gooooood afterwards."
I might have to do that, good review and thanks,Fred.
Posted by: Megatron | October 18, 2014 at 00:33