What we do in the shadows

What we do in the Shadows is a 2015 horror comedy movie that was directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. Cast members of the movie include Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Jonathan Brugh, Stu Rutherford and Ben Fransham. 

Warning for those who have not watched this movie be aware there will be spoilers. 

Story Summary

The movie takes the form of a documentary, which documents the lives of a group of flat mates (who also happen to be vampires, by the way). Their names are Viago, Deacon, Vladislav and the oldest of them, Petyr (who, by the way, looks like he’s related to the vampire from Salem’s lot). Thought-out the movie, we learn about each of the flat mate’s back stories. For example, Viago travelled to New Zealand to be with the woman he loved. Unfortunately, the trip ended up taking 18 months; by then, she had already married (poor Viago). 

Later on, we meet Nick, a vampire who the flat mates thought they killed but nope, he’s a vampire now. The three of them soon warm up to Nick, and they all start hanging out, Nick even introduces everyone to his mate Stu (who’s a human, and that’s not off-putting all). Unfortunately, Nick wouldn’t stop boasting to people that he is a vampire and one of those people happened to be a vampire hunter. Then one night, the vampire hunter comes knocking. Fortunately, Petyr is there to deal with him, unfortunately, when he broke in, he smashed the windows and allowed sunlight to get in and sadly Petyr was burnt alive. Angered at Nick for drawing a vampire hunter to their house, the three vampires banished him from their house (maybe next time Nick won’t be so big mouth and go gobbing to vampire hunters about vampire households).  

A while later, the vampires are preparing themselves for the unholy masquerade, which is a party for all the supernatural beings of New Zealand. However, Vladislav refuses to go when he finds out that the special guest is his arch enemy and the only monster who bested him the beast. When they get to the masquerade, we see the likes of not just vampires but witches and zombies as we. We also find out the beast is Vladislav’s ex-girlfriend Paulien, who broke up with him after impaling him, of course. Things get worse because Stu and the camera crew came along as well, and now the monsters were all wanting to kill them (and in my opinion, they would do it like this, the vampires would suck their blood, the zombies would eat their brains and the witches would use their organs for spells). However, it’s Vladislav to the rescue, and after a quick fight, they are all able to escape without any human casualties.

Unfortunately, there is one human death. After running into some werewolves and distracting them from restraining themselves down before the full moon, Stu is mauled to death. The movie ends with the vampires continuing with their daily lives, and we are shown a photo of the friends, which includes both Nick and Stu (that would be the end, but surprise, surprise Stu is alive). Yes, now Stu is a werewolf and is part of the pack, so now they start hanging out with the vampires, (oh and Viago then had the courage to finally turn his one true love into a vampire, sure, she’s now like in her 90’s but it’s love. Good for you Viago). 

Thoughts and feelings   

Ok, so I really liked the idea of making a vampire movie in a documentary style. This was because we had the vampire’s telling us about their past lives, I also liked how literally anyone could be in the documentary, which was shown when the police came to the house and just started talking to the camera as well. 

There were also a lot of funny bits in it as well. For example, when Viago bit his victim, her blood started spraying out of her neck, and he had to drink the blood as it was water fountain (waste not want not).  

It was also good how they lead it up to the beast’s true identity as for most of the movie, I thought it was going to be some great big hairy monster with big ass claws, only to find out that it was Vladislav’s ex-girlfriend. He probably made her sound like a great big monster who could beat him in a fight so that no one would find out he was defeated by his ex-girlfriend.  

It was a great idea to add other supernatural creatures in the movie as well. This was because I could see how they interacted with each other in their daily lives. Also, I really liked the design of Petyr. It not only showed that he was the oldest of the four vampires who was responsible for them all being vampires, but his look gave me a very Salem’s lot vibe (you would think he and Kurt Barlow were brothers, maybe they are, sadly we may never know).   

Overall, this movie was a great comedy horror, which was really enjoyable and very amusing. It was made into a TV show as well, so I probably get that watched at some point hope it lives up to its brilliant inspiration.