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Also Known As: - |
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| Year of first release: 2014 | |
| Director: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi | |
| Actors: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, Jonathan Brugh | |
| Country: NZ | |
| Genre: Comedy, Horror, Documentary | |
| Conditions of visioning: 11.07.2014, Cinema Temple du Bas, NIFFF14 | |
| Synopsis: The daily life of four vampire friends sharing a house in New-Zealand. | |
| Review: Let me get this straight: What we do in the Shadows is not a masterpiece of filmmaking because of the simple way it is directed, shot and acted, and the unimportant music. But you will definitely laugh your ass off when watching it, preferable between friends or in a full theater room like I experienced it at the NIFFF. By coincidence I was wearing the T-shirt of the Espoo Film Festival 2011 displaying a character from another mockumentary about the vampire community, Belgian this time: Vampires by Vincent Lanoo (also responsible for the excellent In the Name of the Son). Can you believe there are already two movie of this exact same sub-genre?! There were so many good and funny ideas around the original concept in the first 10 minutes that I feared this well would dry long before the end. But it does not, and we only notice a slight slowing down of the laughing rate. The movie is a bit bloody but not scary at all. It is shot in a documentary style but there is no interaction with the crew, it is more just a gimmick to have the characters speak to the camera for more comic effect. Four vampires from different epochs struggle to find food, get invited in order to enter bars, get dressed without seeing their reflection, and decide who is going to wash the dishes. There are so many hilarious moments in the movie but I cannot describe any, you have to watch them to understand. What is amazing is how the writers (also playing two of the vampires) could come up with funny ideas around simple events like a vampire in love, being friend with a human, meeting a gang of werewolves (this bunch is also incredibly funny). I can only repeat this to conclude: the movie will probably never hit the cinema screens in Europe, but find it in DVD and watch it, or go see it as Centerpiece of the Fantasy Filmfest, I guarantee you will have a great time. It won the prize of the public at the NIFFF14, definitely not a surprise when I heard the bursts of laughter during the projection. |
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Rating: 9 /10
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More than entertainment, an Art.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
What we do in the Shadows (2014)
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I had the luck to watch this movie in the OV sneak preview in the Schauburg on 20.10.2014. It is indeed full of funny ideas but there is not much on the daily life of the group of vampires except the flatmate meeting. Many ideas are also interrupted to swap to the next joke so that as you say, it is a comedy non stop, but on the cost of the story. It looks more like a series of sketches. As it is possible to compare this movie with the Vampires by Vincent Lanoo, I would say that Vampires tells a story and I felt more involved into that movie than in What we do do in the shadows. I would have given 9/10 to Vampires and for this pleasant comedy a correct 7/10.
ReplyDeleteAs New Zealand has more money for promoting this movie, I am pretty sure it will be a hype while the Belgian Vampires would have deserve it as well.
About the daily life of the group of vampires, you forget about their preparation to go out: finding the right clothes without being able to see yourself in the mirror is not easy ;-)
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