Viago
definitely needs a laundry detergent that gets out blood stains. Even though
his housemates are just as apt to cause them, he is the only one who is really good
about doing the chores. Mundane Real
World-ish conflicts get bloody in Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement’s sly
spoof What We Do in the Shadows (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
With
a firm agreement and the traditional protections against vampires in place, a
crew from the New Zealand Documentary Board will produce a vérité record of the
goings-on inside a vampire house somewhere in the suburbs of Wellington. Viago,
a natty Eighteenth Century gentleman, will be the most welcoming and loquacious.
We will also get to know Vladislav, an eight hundred year-old torturer and
impaler, who has mellowed and recent years, and the relatively young Deacon,
who is still trying to forget an ill-advised dalliance with the occult-obsessed
National Socialists. They also live with the 8,000 year-undead Petyr, who has
pretty much gone the full Nosferatu by now. He doesn’t do chores—and nobody
hassles him over it.
Deacon
has a human familiar who periodically brings over prospective victims, but when
Petyr accidentally turns Nick, they reluctantly welcome him into their lair. They
quickly tire of his crass and obnoxious behavior, but continue to cut him slack
for the sake of his human Stu. They all grow quite fond of the computer-consultant
human, even though it was strictly against the rules to tell him about the
whole vampire thing.
Although
Waititi and Clement worked from a broad outline, the film is essentially
improvised. It is entirely understandable if that puts you on your guard, but Shadows is consistently funny, probably
because it never feels like it is trying too hard. They just let the humor flow
naturally from the vampire Big Brother house situation. Whenever it starts to
slacken, Waititi & Clement splatter about some blood and the film is back
in business.
Waititi
(a.k.a. Taika Cohen) perfectly sets the tone as the guileless and old-fashioned
Viago. Despite his ghoulishly predatory nature, he is strangely likable, as is
the entire film. Clement appropriately hams it up as the gothy Vlad and Ben
Fransham’s desiccated Petyr is creepy as heck, but the film is really about
friendship and acceptance of others’ differences.
