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Vampire life sucks

FILM
What We Do in the Shadows (M)
3.5 stars
Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Rhys Darby
DIRECTORS TAIKA WAITITI, JEMAINE CLEMENT

REVIEW SHANNON HARVEY

Imagine, for a moment, how hard life might be for a modern, everyday vampire in 2014. Getting inside your favourite clubs and pubs would be impossible without an invitation from the doorman. Eating anything with garlic would lead to your unwitting demise. And with no reflection in the mirror, just getting dressed could lead to some fashion faux pas.

On the plus side, modern technology could help. You could finally see what the sun looks like using YouTube. You could trawl dating sites for potential victims. And for Vlad the Poker (Jemaine Clement) - so named because Vlad the Impaler was taken - a Facebook "poke" takes on a whole new bloody meaning.

Welcome to the murderously amusing mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows, where "a small documentary crew is granted access" to the lives of a quartet of vampires who share a flat in suburban Wellington, New Zealand.

That's where the mundanities of the modern world - from paying the rent to doing the household chores - clash with their immortal, bloodthirsty, super- natural ways.

Victorian dandy Viago (Taika Waititi), for example, is a neat freak who puts newspaper down before nipping his victims' necks so as not to stain the carpet. Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) thinks he's a gift to women. And 8000-year-old Petyr (Ben Fransham) looks like Nosferatu and lives in the basement. They gave up asking him to do the dishes long ago.

This dead simple but ingeniously clever comedy is from Kiwi wunderkinds Waititi and Clement, and inspired by their own 2005 short film. Best friends since forming a comedy duo at university, the two went on to make Waititi's first film Eagle vs Shark and the cult TV comedy Flight of the Conchords.

They reunited in their home town of Wellington and co-wrote and co-directed this low-budget laugher without showing the script to their actors. Instead, they guided them to improvise their lines.

It works a charm, with the actors delivering some ripping off-the-cuff lines, such as their run-ins with the well- mannered werewolf pack. "We're werewolves, not swearwolves," says their leader (Conchords veteran Rhys Darby).

But while Clement and Waititi tap into a rich vein of improv here, they only scratch the surface in terms of story and plot, which goes almost nowhere. The four turn a human (Cori Gonzalez- Macuer), who's so boastful he threatens to expose them to the world, into a vampire. Yes, that old chestnut.

A better idea might have been to expose this ancient vampire clan to the technological world mentioned above. There could be plenty of gags in watching this secretive, unsociable lot discover the wonders of social media, selfies, stalking and sexting. They could make funny YouTube videos, have funny user names (@VladIsRad? @PokerAndStoker?) and celebrity followers.

That said, at 87 swift minutes, What We Do in the Shadows is an amusingly absurd comedy and a cleverly simple spin on the fish-out-of-water story. The lo-fi effects - from the old-school make-up to the hoary costumes and buckets of fake blood - add to its pithy, winsome charm.

But more attention to plotting could have elevated it, like a levitating Dracula, to Shaun of the Dead level cult status.