Shadows and Fog

Rating: Null/10 (2 April 2016)

Four twenty-first century New Zealand vampires are interviewed by a documentary crew in this horror mockumentary written, directed by and starring Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. Much of the film was reportedly improvised with over 100 hours of footage shot. As such, the film is highly uneven with some sequences dragging; the "swear-wolves" in particular are far less interesting than the vampire protagonists. Most of the film clicks into place nicely though, and while scattered gags misfire, there are far more hits than misses. At the film's funniest, two police officers visit the vampires' den (dilapidated house) and (without checking) accept that a bloodied corpse on a dirty floor is a drunk friend who has passed out, instructing the vampires to at least place a pillow under his head! Clement also has a great deadpan moment as he casually announces that he must have hit a main artery after his attempt to drain a woman's blood turns messy. Humour aside, the film is thoughtfully assembled with archive footage gloriously spliced into the mix, as well as some faux newspaper headlines. There is also much to like in how comically anachronistic the vampires (wearing period costumes for the most part) are, using Skype to stay in contact and repeatedly failing to get into local nightclubs since they need to be "invited in". There are also some fun references to 'The Lost Boys' and vampire lore in general, including vampires' ability to hypnotise and get people to look at them, which for our not-so-skilled nosferatus involves physically knocking on their doors!