What We Do In the Shadows

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Under the Radar

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I was surfing Netflix the other day, looking for something new to watch, when I stumbled on this. The description basically states that it's a comedy about four different vampires who share a flat. That's good enough to have me curious, but then I see that one half of the Flight of the Conchords, Jemaine Clement, is in it, and I was sold.

The film is actually a very basic idea. It's shot documentary style, and a team essentially follows these four vampires around for a couple of months and film what it's like for modern vampires.

The four are quite different in personality - Viago (Taika Waititi) is sort of the lead here, and he plays the more sensitive, romantic type. Vladislav (Clement) is more of a totally badass pimp-like vampire, who was once a name to be reckoned with. Deacon (Jonny Brug) is a bit more or what you'd expect a modern vampire to be. And finally, Petyr (Ben Fransham) is like a Nostfaratu, demon-like vampire, and is significantly older than the others.

Deacon also has a "familiar" who follows him around named Jackie (Jackie van Beek), and does errands for the vampires, all the while nagging him about when he's finally gonna change her. As the story unfolds, it all makes for a pretty funny scenario.

There's not a whole hell of a lot to say about it other than the fact that it was pretty damn hilarious. It gave me a good laugh, anyway. It's just funny to see the lighter side of what it is to be a vampire, while all the dark stuff still surrounds it. They show and tell you stuff like their hunting and feeding habits, and the various ways it can all go wrong. It often goes over the top and delivers a good laugh.

I'm glad to see that someone was able to show me something about vampires that didn't feel completely old and stale. I always enjoyed the whole vampire thing until 'Twilight' came along. And it's not even 'Twilight' itself that bothered me so much as the fact that EVERYTHING became about vampires for a while after that. It was an obsession the same way that 'Walking Dead' really brought zombies into the light again. But this was a new and interesting idea, it was simple, and it was loaded with good laughs.

I highly recommend it to anyone who can appreciate the vampire trend, but want to see something different. As a bonus, if you enjoy 'Flight of the Conchords', it very much plays like an episode of that, except without the songs. Definitely a great movie to tickle the funny bone.

​5/5

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