Entertaining, even with some dry humour

Rating: 7/10 (4 February 2015)

The movie tells the daily lifeerrunlife of flatmate vampires Viago, Vladislav, Deacon and Petyr in New Zealand. Viago is the 16th century vampire, aristocratic and bossy often times. Vladislav is the medieval vampire, a noble vampire but also the most ruthless killer of them. Deacon is the youngest changed vampire from the World War II era, often acting out living like a bum in the flat. The last of them, Petyr, is the oldest of them, aging about 8000 years old. They live their everyday lives n the flat, still influenced by the cultures from their own times. The trio Viago, Vladislav and Deacon sometimes go out to the town and hang out. Deacon has a human familiar Jackie who does most of the blood cleaning related housework in the flat. She also lure in victims for the vampires. Deacon has promised vampirehood to Jackie but hasn't turned her yet. One night Jackie brings a couple Nick and Josephine as victims. Nick gets his blood drained by Petyr but he also turns him into a vampire. And then there were four. Nick brings in new cultural color to the group. Soon He brings his friend Stu, an IT guy, to the group. Stu introduces the modern information technology to the group and becomes a good friend to them. For this, and because he's Nick's best friend, the group form a pact not to eat Stu.
Besides inviting Stu into the group, Nick is quite irresponsible of his newly gained vampirehood. He has been carelessly telling just about anybody that he's a vampire, even showing some of his abilities to complete human strangers. One day, a vampire hunter comes to the flat's basement, Petyr's lair. Petyr easily kills the hunter but he dies of sunlight. The group blames Nick for this and banishes him from the flat. Alas, the night for the Unholy Masquerade comes. The masquerade is the once a year night where New Zealand's undead community comes and mingles together. Vladislav doesn't go for knowing his nemesis is the event's guest of honor. Viago and Deacon go there and find that Jackie has been turned by Nick. They also bring Stu there, still human. Soon the masquerade guests find out that Stu is human and they get eager to eat him. The group manages to get Stu out safely but on their way home they meet their nemesis werewolf pack who are transforming since it's a full moon night. They eventually attack Stu and mangle his body. But it turns out that the attack turns Stu into a werewolf and that make the vampires and the werewolfs to be friends.
The story is quite nice in overall. Focusing on the age old human fascination about the pseudo-immortal undead of vampires, the movie presents a very light mood about what used to be a strictly horror plot base. It nicely imagines the daily, or should I say nightly, consequences of a vampire's life of staying alive in the modern world. This is done by incorporating contemporary culture and customs such as flat sharing, hang outs, and the social internet critically into the story as plot defining elements, even though weaker ones.
But the story also did justice to connect older vampire movies and the general myths about vampires by staying true to the main attributes of the vampires. Minus the garlic thing, this movie incorporates plot defining myths about the vampiric abilities, blood drinking, 'let me in' catch, silver, and the crucifix effect.
What's good is that the movie doesn't add any more imbalanced super powers to the vampires. No offense to all of you Twilight Saga fanatics, but for me a vampire based story is already maximum without having to have superhero powers. When I see vampire movies, I really want to see vampires, not blood sucking X-Men wannabes. For that, I think that this movie, and Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), are great example of vampire movies that aren't predominantly horror but still also have the frightening side of vampires.
Though they often feel dry, the humor nicely incorporates the vampire myths into it. I kind of like how they put in the silver, the 'let me in' catch and the hypnosis into the story. A funny surprise even comes in a post-credits scene for this. Yet again I feel that although most of the jokes are interesting, they don't really crack big laughs from me.
For me the acting overall is not very good. I see a lot of overacting here and there by the three main characters, and 'under-acting' by the rest of the cast. But then again, I think that this movie's real interesting point is not the acting or the comedy, but instead the story and how the story mixes everyday modern life with the vampire condition.
For me What We do In the Shadows (2014) feels like it deserves a humble 7 out of 10 score and a recommendation to go and see in the cinemas. It's mild and very entertaining. After the wave of Twilight Saga, I think this movie can put back the older vampire myths into the general understanding consensus.