Name: What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Item: What We Do in the Shadows
Rating: 8.5
Author: Richard Lowe

8.5 / 10 Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement

What We Do in the Shadows earns its 8.5 by finding a joke the vampire genre had somehow left lying on the ground for a century. What if immortal creatures of the night still had to argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes? Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement built a mockumentary about four vampires sharing a flat in suburban Wellington, and the premise is so simple and so right that the only mystery is why no one did it sooner. The film mines comedy from the gap between gothic legend and domestic reality, and the gap turns out to be bottomless.

This is a comedy first, but it works as a vampire film too, because the jokes come from taking the lore seriously and then applying it to ordinary life. These vampires really cannot enter without an invitation, really cannot see themselves in mirrors, really do burst into flame in sunlight. The humor is not that the rules are silly. It is that the rules are real and deeply inconvenient when you are trying to live a normal life.

The Documentary Frame Is the Engine

The film is shot as a documentary, with a crew supposedly granted protection to follow the flatmates in the months before a big undead social event. The mockumentary form is the smartest structural choice in the film. It lets the vampires explain themselves directly to camera, deadpan, treating the absurd as mundane, and the contrast between their earnest talking-head confessions and the ridiculous reality is where most of the comedy lives.

Viago, the dandyish eighteenth-century romantic played by Waititi, addresses the camera about household chores with the same gravity another documentary subject might bring to a life crisis. Vladislav, Clement’s medieval tyrant gone slightly to seed, explains his faded powers with wounded pride. The form lets them be pompous and self-serious about nonsense, and self-seriousness about nonsense is the engine of the whole comedy.

Craft NoteThe mockumentary frame does heavy lifting that a conventional structure could not. By letting characters explain themselves earnestly to camera, the film generates comedy from the gap between how they see themselves and what we are watching. The deadpan confession is funnier than any scripted joke because the character is not trying to be funny. When you build a comic premise, the frame matters as much as the jokes. A structure that lets characters be sincere about absurd things will out-produce one that asks them to be witty. Sincerity colliding with absurdity is the reliable engine. Wit wears out. The gap does not.

Lore Played Straight

The film’s discipline is that it never breaks the rules for a laugh. Every piece of vampire mythology is honored, and the comedy comes from the consequences. The flatmates cannot enter a nightclub because the bouncer will not say the words “come in.” They argue with a victim before eating her because Viago insists on putting down newspaper first to protect the furniture. Vladislav cannot get his hypnosis to work anymore and is humiliated by the failure.

This rigor is what separates the film from lazy parody. A weaker comedy would bend the lore whenever a joke required it. Waititi and Clement do the opposite. They treat the rules as fixed and find the comedy in living within them, which makes the world feel real even at its most ridiculous. The funniest sequence in the film, a territorial standoff with a pack of werewolves, works because both sides take their ancient rivalry completely seriously. “We’re werewolves, not swearwolves” is funny because the werewolf saying it means it.

For WritersThe film never breaks its own rules for a joke, and that discipline is why the comedy lands. The humor comes from characters living within fixed constraints, not from the constraints bending when convenient. When you write comedy inside a genre or a fantastical premise, honor the rules as strictly as a straight drama would. The laugh comes from the collision between rigid rules and ordinary life, and that collision only works if the rules hold. Break the lore for a cheap joke and you lose the bigger, structural comedy of characters trapped inside a system they cannot escape.

The Flatmates as a Real Household

Underneath the comedy, the film is about flatmates, and it understands the form. The four vampires have the exact dynamics of any shared house, the simmering resentments over chores, the awkward house meetings, the one roommate everyone tolerates rather than likes. That Petyr, the ancient Nosferatu-style vampire in the basement, is treated like the weird old tenant nobody talks to is a perfect domestic joke.

The film gives these relationships real texture. The bond between the flatmates is genuine under the bickering, and when the dynamic is disrupted by a brash new vampire named Nick, who will not stop telling everyone he is a vampire, the disruption matters because we believe in the household. The film is sneakily warm. By the end you are fond of these idiots, and the fondness gives the comedy a foundation that pure gags would lack.

For WritersThe film grounds its absurd premise in a completely recognizable dynamic, the shared household, and the recognition is what makes the strangeness land. We know these roommate frustrations, so the vampire layer becomes funnier by contrast. When you build a heightened or fantastical comedy, anchor it in something the audience knows intimately. The chores, the house meetings, the tolerated weird roommate are universal. Lay the supernatural over a foundation everyone recognizes and the contrast does the work. Absurdity floating free is tiresome. Absurdity bolted to the familiar is comedy.

The Limits of the Form

The film’s weaknesses are the weaknesses of its mode. The mockumentary structure and the loose, sketch-like construction mean it sometimes feels more like a string of brilliant bits than a fully shaped story. The plot is slight, a few threads about the social event and the new vampire and a human friend, and none of them build to much. The film runs on momentum and goodwill more than narrative drive.

It also runs short and a little thin. At well under ninety minutes it knows not to overstay, which is wise, but it means some characters and threads get less development than they deserve. These are minor complaints against a film this funny and this fresh, but they keep it from the very top tier. The premise is a ten. The execution of the premise is a ten. The structure holding it together is merely good.

CompareWhat We Do in the Shadows did for vampires what the best horror comedies do for their monsters, which is honor the genre while laughing at it. It belongs beside the affectionate horror parodies that came before, but it is sharper than most because it never condescends to its source. Where lazy parody mocks the genre from outside, Waititi and Clement clearly love vampire lore and laugh from inside it. The affection is why it spawned a hit television series and a wave of imitators. It is parody made by fans, not cynics.

The Verdict

What We Do in the Shadows earns its 8.5 as one of the best horror comedies ever made and proof that the vampire genre still had an obvious great idea left in it. The mockumentary frame is perfectly chosen, the lore is played straight so the comedy can be real, and the flatmate dynamics give the absurdity a warm and recognizable foundation. It loses points only for a slight, sketch-like structure and a plot too thin to give it narrative weight. A film that is consistently, genuinely funny, made by people who clearly love the thing they are spoofing.

FAQ

Do I need to like vampire movies to enjoy it?
No, but it helps. The comedy comes from honoring vampire lore and applying it to mundane life, so knowing the conventions makes the jokes land harder. It works as a flatmate comedy regardless, but fans of the genre will get the most out of it.

Is it actually funny or just clever?
Genuinely funny. The deadpan documentary interviews, the werewolf standoff, and the household bickering produce real laughs, not just appreciative nods. It is one of the few comedies that earns its reputation rather than coasting on a good premise.

What makes the mockumentary format work?
It lets the vampires explain themselves earnestly to camera, and the gap between their self-serious confessions and the ridiculous reality is where the comedy lives. Sincerity about absurd things is funnier than jokes, and the format is built to deliver exactly that.

Does it respect vampire lore or just mock it?
It respects it completely, which is the point. Every rule is honored, and the comedy comes from the inconvenience of living within them. The film clearly loves the genre and laughs from inside it rather than sneering from outside.

Is it worth watching?
Yes. It is one of the funniest films of its decade and launched a whole franchise for good reason. The only real limit is a slight, loose structure. The jokes, the world, and the warmth more than make up for it.