Critics reviews

It would be no lie to say that there are zero jokes in the frighteningly unfunny new film from Kiwi director Taika Waititi which has been co-directed by looming and laconic Flight of the Conchords star, Jemaine Clement. There is a single joke, but it doesn't quite stretch to use of the plural. And this one joke has been hammered thin.

The clever writing and daily conflicts experienced by the characters allow What We Do in the Shadows a unique combination of dark comedy and pathos.

The result is more often amusing than gut-busting, but it doesn't wear out its welcome, and that's fairly impressive in itself... If What We Do In The Shadows often plays more like a TV pilot than a movie, at least it'd be kicking off a pretty damn good show.

At heart a dotty look at oldsters struggling to adapt to an unwelcoming modernity, "Shadows" has the bones of an anarchic sitcom. The jokes don't always land, but the group's determination to befriend a bewildered techie — without eating him — is strangely touching.

Clement and Waititi succeed through sharp, sometimes off-kilter one-liners rather than the supposedly squirm-inducing pauses of The Office or the broad-as-a-barn target practice of Christopher Guest.

While parodies and spoofs have a long cinematic history, rarely do such works possess the narrative cohesion and emotional integrity of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi's literate and well-observed vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows.

The vamps' affection for their human co-habitant is evidence of the film's disarming sweetness and surprising generosity of spirit, two qualities that aren't exactly common to horror comedies. They also help freshen up the potentially played-out mockumentary aspects, though it's a canny move by Clement and Waititi to pattern their effort not after the usual post-Paranormal Activity found-footage crud but the MTV-verité of The Real World.

Bloody, hilarious, and ultra-quotable, this one demands repeat viewings.