Destined for cult status.

Rating: 8/10 (4 January 2016)

What We Do In The Shadows, a horror 'mockumentary' that follows a group of vampire flatmates in New Zealand as they go about their night-to-night activities, both ghoulish and mundane, does for vampires what Spinal Tap did for Heavy Metal bands: it puts its eccentric characters at the centre of some extremely outré situations, yet still shows them as real people that the viewer can identify with and care about. As with Rob Reiner's celebrated 'rockumentary', the wonderfully realised collection of likable characters, the delightfully droll sense of humour and plenty of highly quotable dialogue ensure that the film is destined for cult status.
The cast are uniformly excellent, their deadpan delivery of some very silly dialogue making for some seriously funny moments (although my favourite character, Petyr, an 8000-year-old Nosferatu-style vampire, managed to make me laugh without uttering a word, his confused expressions enough to tickle my funny-bone). Writer/directors Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi keep the pace brisk enough and the action varied enough to make certain that their central joke never wears thin, the silliness including a female familiar who is fed up with cleaning up blood and providing virgins, a newbie vampire who brags about his newfound status, a human who is welcomed into the group, a pack of irascible werewolves, and an annual masquerade party where the vamps get to let off some steam.