What We Do in the Shadows / Via Facebook
The alarm clock rings and a hand, emerging from the coffin alongside the nightstand, probes for the off button. Out comes Viago, a bit stiff but spry for a creature 379 years old. Of course, he’s a vampire, and has the cape to prove it. “Yes, nighttime,” he says, savoring his words in a Werner Herzog accent.
The latest movies to spoof the increasingly tiresome horror genre, What We Do in the Shadows, is a mockumentary in form, complete with cutaway interviews with participants as the narrative unwinds. It concerns a house shared by four flatmates whose major common denominator is their identity as vampires. Peter, an 8,000-year old dead ringer for Nosferatu’s Count Orlok, dwells in a cellar crypt. The other three, Viago, surly Vladislav and young rebel Deacon, are afraid of his utterly inhuman ill temper. They live in the tightly curtained upstairs and have the usual roommate problems. “Guys, we’re not all pulling our weight,” Viago says solicitously as Deacon balks at doing dishes.
Directed by New Zealand’s Taika Waitityi and Jemaine Clement, What We Do in Shadows had it U.S. premiere at Sundance. It opens in Milwaukee Friday, March 13, at the Downer Theatre.
