mosquitodragon’s review published on Letterboxd:
"Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!"
"What are you bidding on?"
"...I am bidding on a table."
There are some movies which are beyond rationalisation in the way they just hit perfection for you. Half of it must have to do with my own sense of humour and what I find personally funny, I guess - and that's actually something we all have our own formulation and no one can really justify theirs as better or worse than anyone else's. As a genre, comedy is akin to horror in that it seeks to evoke a reaction which is fundamental to the psychology of each individual in its audience. You either find a movie funny or you don't, much like you either find a movie scary or you don't. There's no dry accounting for it.
My daughter is a huge fan of Modern Family - to the point where there is a goddamn TV playing that show on at what feels like every single minute of my life. I asked her the other day what it is she finds so funny about it, and she told me that she loves how the actors look at the camera in that awkward way (and credit where it's due - Ty Burrell is a master at that). Why is that funny? Because I agree it is - hell, Ricky Gervais broke through on the basis of that one brilliant idea with The Office, and TV comedy has been aping it ever since. Regardless, this gave me the idea to show her What We Do in the Shadows because she's also a big Taika Waititi fan and she's been bugging me about horror movies all month (he says plaintively, as if this doesn't please him immensely).
MASSIVE HIT! She laughed her ass off all the way through it - we both did, both of us in stitches - and I think this is going to be rewatched pretty damn intensely from here on out.
There's honestly not a moment in this movie that doesn't make me laugh. But what struck me this time was the finely observed satire of male bonding rituals. That makes it sound obnoxious, but it really isn't. It really pokes fun of how men (anyone, really, but especially men) use socialising and alcohol to make their way within their peer groups. That seems an odd thing for a vampire movie to be concerned with, but the vampirism is actually a handy way to remove sexual politics from the scenario altogether. So this is like a parody of drunken nights out but with vampires and werewolves - not to mention to tawdry domestic life of the share-house dwelling male.
"You're a cool guy but you're not pulling your weight in the flat."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that I'm cool."
"...No, that’s not the point though... It’s not a flat meeting about how cool you are."
But here's the other thing - this movie is really sweet. Yes we laugh at the pathetic posturing of these guys, but I love how childlike they are. It's a childishness I really remember from my young adulthood - we really don't grow up until well past our twenties, do we? Just kids in adult bodies, really. But it's the romantic throughline for Viago and his yearning for the woman he followed to New Zealand, now 96 and living in an aged care home, and those insert shots of him gazing up through the window at her, which actually lifts the whole film. It's so incredibly cute. And the final pay-off for that sub-plot is [chef's kiss] bellissimo.
"Some people freak out a bit about the age difference. They think, 'What's this 96-year-old lady doing with a guy four times her age?'"
The deadpan, awkward almost non-acting from Nick and Stu - unwitting neophytes to the vampire world - are incredibly effective. And what the hell happened to Jonny Brugh after this? He may actually be the standout in this movie, and that's up against the likes of Waititi, Jemaine Clement and Rhys Darby - no slouches in the comedic acting stakes (sorry).
Rhys Darby as the alpha werewolf, though. It's just bloody exquisite.
Even the footage of the Wellington nightlife is funny. Of all the places for the undead to be converging, Wellington is such a wonderful comic choice. I don't think I can even explain why.
Ah, it's perfection. I love this movie so fucking much.
"You can't go to the ball as Blade! He's a vampire hunter!"
"Yeah, but vampires love Wesley Snipes."
"No, it's inappropriate!"
