WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

Opening text informs us that a ball for vampires is held annually in New Zealand. A documentary crew have been given privileged access to one household of bloodsuckers, in order to film their activities in the build-up to the all-important "Unholy Masquerade".

This leads to onscreen introductions for each of the all-male vampire "family" that we'll be spending the next 80-odd minutes with.

Viago (Taika Waititi) is the unofficial head of the house, the fussy matriarch-type figure prone to call meetings to discuss dilemmas such as people not taking their turn at washing up blood-soaked dishes.

Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) is the culprit. He's a rugged fop who cares little for pulling his weight around the house, but sure knows how to dance.

Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) is an 800-year-old vamp with perverse bedroom habits and a secret yearning for his ex-girlfriend.

Petyr (Ben Fransham) resembles Nosferatu and is equally mean. Our first encounter with him shows Viago throwing a live chicken into his coffin as a pacifier, having unwisely awoken him from his slumber. The others treat him with kid gloves - which is only fitting, seeing as though he's responsible for their vampiric states in the first place.

As each character introduces himself to the camera, we learn a little more about their characters and individual pasts. Tales of unrequited love, hedonistic living, fateful meetings with fanged monsters and mislabelled coffins sent to the wrong side of the world ensue.

More pertinently, we become privy to the complex relationship shared by this motley crew. There is a bond, a friendship even, but it's one that is glued together by a stringent code which prevents the constantly bickering housemates from - literally - going for each other's throats.

One thing they do all share in common is a love for getting dressed up in their best attire (bearing in mind the youngest of this bunch is well over a hundred years old, you can imagine how out-of-step their glad rags look in modern-day New Zealand) and hitting the town in search of women.

On this occasion, they take to the streets and eventually get a small group of males and females back to their place, for a most curious evening meal. Among the guests is Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer), a heavily tattooed buffoon who, following a sequence of amusingly unfortunate events, ends up getting bitten and subsequently transformed into a vampire.

And this is where the dynamics of the household begin to change. Nick turns up a short while later, keen to join their group but clumsy when it comes to keeping the secret of their true nature in public - and insistent upon bringing his oblivious human friend Stu (Stuart Rutherford) along wherever they go ...

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS is the latest onscreen endeavour from the minds behind popular TV comedy series "Flight of the Conchords". As such, it is - as you'd expect - heavy on the broad, funny comedy front, and graced with a rather good folk-rock soundtrack.

The comedy aspects are apparent from the off, and the film frequently gets gleefully silly - be it slapstick-style fight scenes, ridiculous crude name-calling or visual absurdities that will have you laughing and frowning at the same time (one character's sudden aged appearance, for example, when he stops 'eating'). It works for a lot of the time. However, there is a smugness to some scenes which implies a "clever, clever" approach which is entirely likeable. And Brugh often looks like he's most pleased with what's going on, to the point of apparently staving off laughter. It's never good to laugh at your own gags though.

I am, of course, being something of a miserable sod by taking the film to task on such matters. It's certainly no VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN. In fact, it's often genuinely funny - laugh-out-loud amusing at several junctures.

What really makes the film work though is that, for all its goofiness, there is a warmth at heart which makes the characters ultimately likeable. We care for them. Beyond that, there are a couple of surprisingly dark horror set-piece sequences too (and a fair bit of OTT gore).

There can be no doubting, either, that co-writers/co-directors Clement and Waititi have a sincere fondness for the genre. References are rife throughout their savvy screenplay, including nods to TWILIGHT, THE LOST BOYS, BLADE and - in Petyr's appearance - SALEM'S LOT. All the clichés and tropes of the legend are rolled out in ways that keep them fresh: transforming into bats, feasting on virgins for a better class of blood, being sworn enemies of werewolves, being invisible in mirrors, etc. And the frequent interspersing of pagan-like folk illustrations, blended with the subtly carny-esque music, captures the bridging of the old and the new, the traditionally Gothic and contemporarily cynical, with unexpected degrees of success.

The plot doesn't really go anywhere (though we do get to attend the ball), but it does at least end on a very funny punchline. Overall, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS is very entertaining fare indeed.

Metrodome's DVD presents the film fully uncut with the blessing of a 15 certificate from our moral guardians at the BBFC.

The picture quality is strong throughout, benefitting from keenly framed 1.85:1 photography and 16x9 enhancement. Compression is absent, as is unwelcome noise, and some of the brighter scenes exhibit remarkable levels of detail. While things are slightly less sharp during the darker moments, colours remain robust throughout and a nice sense of depth is felt throughout.

English audio comes in options of 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. Focusing on the latter, I can happily report that each channel is finely balanced and there's a rousing, even playback afforded in equal measures to dialogue, the folky soundtrack and the many squishy sound effects.

An animated main menu page gives way to a static scene selection menu proffering access to the film via 12 chapters.

Bonus features kick into life with "Behind the Shadows", a decent 17-minute look at the film's shoot on a sound stage. There are only brief asides to camera here, the focus being primarily on watching the actors and filmmakers in action.

27 minutes of deleted scenes (11 in total) can be viewed either individually or by selecting a "Play All" function. These are amusing individually, but it's easy to see how they would've harmed the film's pace had they not been relegated to the editing room's floor.

Interviews with several characters - in character - are essentially more deleted scenes. These includes interviews with the two police officers who call at the vampires' house following reports of a disturbance, an unruly gang of rival werewolves, an insipid zombie they meet at the ball and so on. These last for 18 minutes, proving that you really can start to stretch a joke too thinly.

"Video Extras" offers 8 more short clips. These range from a dance between the vampires and werewolves, to a 27-minute short film entitled "What We Do in the Shadows" (!) which is essentially a much lower budgeted dress rehearsal for the final film.

6 promo videos are effectively clips from the film intended to serve as trailers/previews. promotional tools...

The disc is defaulted to open with trailers for FRANCES HA and PRINCE AVALANCHE. Neither of these look like being SGM material...

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS is a fun excursion into vampire territory. A little too smug for its good, and perhaps not as outright hilarious as it believes itself to be, it is however frequently funny and surprisingly respectful of the genre at the same time.

Metrodome have served the film extremely well on this DVD.

Also available on blu-ray.

Review by Stuart Willis