Vampires, not tramp-ires

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2017)

In search of the final nail in the coffin of the sordid cultural relevance of Edward and Bella? Look no further than the supremely delightful What We Do in the Shadows. Here, newbie vampire Nick drunkenly parades himself through the streets of Wellington, braying "I AM TWILIGHT" as a pick up line, only to be greeted with blank looks of vague derision. It's pristine satire - gently but insistently raucous, and playing more off of Nick's incredulous 'Isn't this cool anymore' expression than the gag itself. And the best bit? It's only one of a nearly nonstop smorgasbord of sneakily clever, deliciously quotable gags the film offers.
If Shaun of the Dead's 'rom-zom-com' infused the zombie horror genre with a much- needed surge of frantic humour and schlubby humanity, What We Do in the Shadows blends vampires, who have already been subjected to oodles of daft action and risible romance, with The Office's mockumentary deadpan and a thoroughly New Zealand 'no bullsh*t' ethos, to similarly sterling effect. Co-director/stars Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi may thrive in 'chortle-funny' rather than the deep belly-laugh kind, but the chortles come so incessantly and raucously, they provide just as much of an ab workout. When you finally acclimatize to the spry wordplay, ("we are werewolves, not swear-wolves!"), lovingly integrated pokes at other vampire lore (including the bad etiquette of attending a vampire costume ball dressed as Blade, despite the fact that apparently "Vampires love Wesley Snipes!"), and faux-historical interludes (apparently Naziism was just as controversial within vampire circles), you think you might find rest. But it's only moments before you're blindsided again by interludes involving a pair of impossibly stupid police officers, or laughs as unobtrusive as a cutaway to Waititi playing a mournful trumpet. The film is nonstop, evidencing a breezy, cheerful humour that is too earnest not to love.
It helps that Waititi and Clement wear their hearts on their sleeves, with an uncanny ability to tease out the silliness in vampire lore while still committing to the emotion at the heart of it. There's an undercurrent of deep, anachronistic loneliness imbued in the film's leading trio of bloodsuckers, which somehow makes their interludes of squabbling over the (five years) overdue dishes, or forlornly learning how to use Facebook all the funnier in their sweetness. Similarly, in this realm of immortal horror monsters, death comes fast, furious, and with unapologetic bluntness, and the cheerful interjections of staggering bloodiness that sprinkle throughout the film (sometimes quite inconveniently getting all over the furniture), or omnipresent threat of the documentary crew getting devoured, keep the fun appropriately gruesome throughout. In terms of cohesiveness, there's no question that the film is unapologetically episodic, like a prolonged sitcom episode or beefed up SNL sketch, but Waititi and Clement keep things nimble enough to keep the joke from wearing thin, before calling it quits with a chipper non-climax that's so nonchalant, it's only retroactively that it feels like it delivers the loose resolution you'd hope for. And, honestly, material this hilarious earns all of the clumsy non-sequiturs it can muster.
Still, the film's ruthless silliness and sweetness consolidate into the perfect cocktail (presumably a blood-tini) in the hands of the effortlessly funny cast. As the ageless, effete dandy and tentative moral compass of the group, Waititi himself is massively adorable, pairing bug-eyed cheeriness with a cartoon Dr. Strangelove accent to tremendous effect. Similarly, Clement commits his post-Concords star power perfectly towards the enormous presence of his larger-than-life, crestfallenly ineffectual Vlad the Impaler. Jonny Brugh's scene-chewing rock star arrogance is all the funnier once paired with the clueless boorishness of Cori Gonzalez-Macuer or the indignantly neurotic Jackie van Beek as scene partners. Finally, Stuart Rutherford redefines the potential of the comedic deadpan as impossibly unflappably software analyst (and very human) Stu,* while Rhys Darby (don't call him Murray) is as reliably hilarious as ever, cameoing as an exasperated werewolf.
Thoroughly sweet, disarmingly sad, cheerfully bloody, and infectiously watchable, What We Do in the Shadows proves one of a preciously slim caste of horror spoofs with genuine wings. While it's inevitably prime material to be gobbled up by Flight of the Conchords converts, it's also accessibly goofy enough to stand alone as one of the most unobtrusively funny sleeper hit comedies of the past several years. Just be cautious not to falsely publicize the film amidst the lingering forces of Twihards, or risk incurring Clement and Waititi intoning that these are vampires, not tramp-ires. Zing.
-9/10
*Also, did you realize "Don't eat Stu!" was a pun? Because I didn't until long after the credits rolled. What a delightful film.