In 2014, New Zealand director Taika Waititi took his audience on a strange, if hilarious, journey. Stylised much like a documentary, Waititi introduced us to a group of four men who shared a flat in Wellington, and who just so happened to be vampires; the film explored the lives and follies of life and un-death in the modern day, to hilarious effect.
And suffice it to say (if I were to rely upon a well-worn cliché) that this was a film to really sink your teeth into.
Now Waititi returns to his initial concept and transports us to the not-so-mean streets of Staten Island to follow the lives of four vampires who share a house in New York City: Nandor, Nadja, Laszlo, energy vampire office worker Colin and their long suffering (but very patient) familiar Guillermo.
If the original film, once described by Nicholas Barber for Intelligent Life magazine as ‘The Spinal Tap of vampire movies’, then What We Do in the Shadows (2019) has, in turn, become the Spinal Tap of vampire television. Twilight fatigue has undoubtedly set in, your romantic vampires, now not so much sexy as laughable as shows like True Blood and The Vampire Diaries go off the air and The Originals fizzles with all the investive spark of a wet firework. While it might seem like the more monstrous un-dead breath some freshly foul life into vampire media, the ultimate effect seems oddly lacking. The Strain and The Passage, draws from the same post-apocalyptic genre well as The Walking Dead (only this time with some added fang action), but sadly that well has run dry and those shows are left to tread some dreary old water. They end up doing exceptionally little with their concept, vampires taking over the world might seem exciting on first viewing but in the end it feels like a repeat and there is nothing there that Richard Matheson didn’t already make popular (and do better) back in 1954 with I Am Legend.
What We Do in the Shadows is not only a fresh and funny take on vampires, but also a fresh take on the clichés and conventions that surround and define them. The series takes old material, already worn to tatters, and makes you see it again in a newer, hysterical way. Doing everything from vampire on human romance (including one lover repeatedly re-incarnated after multiple beheadings), face-offs with a pack of street wise werewolves, and yes, even a poorly thought out plan to take over America (have you seen the place, it’s bloody massive). Waititi delivers a series dripping with his own signature brand of droll Kiwi humour, likeable characters and uproarious antics. That is to say nothing of the fun cameos you will encounter in episode eight which all of the vampire movie veterans reading will be sure to recognize.
This is a vampire show that is not only reminiscent of the film that preceded it but manages to find an identity whole and entire apart from it and at only ten episodes this show is an easy watch, one which, unlike its blood-sucking predecessors, this ghoulish rib-tickler is not at all bloodless.
