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Wednesday, October 30, 2019

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2014)

We’re well past the ‘use by’ date on ‘Mockumentaries.’ (And probably best not to revisit ones you once thought a hoot.) That said, Taika Waititi’s goofball vampire entry in the form is nasty good fun, often sidesplittingly so, and doesn’t even overstay its welcome. Co-written & co-directed with Jemaine Clement, who along with Waititi also takes on a leading role, we follow a happy communal coven of vampires, living to party & hunt up fresh victims. And they’re not alone, it seems other outlier communities of Werewolves, Zombies and Other Living-Dead types, all wary of each other, are navigating amongst us tempting Earthlings, looking for new friends and/or victims. A couple of these fresh faces necks give the film just enough of a narrative drive, along with a yearly gala event, a mixer for all the monsters as a climax/goal. The direction stays true to the tag-along documentary formula, moving easily when necessary into simple, but well-handled action mode: offbeat angles, pulley-based special effects shots and paranormal rotations, seemingly done without CGI and all the better for it. The effect is mostly for laughs, but here & there, a bit of a scary jolt. Great deadpan comic gore all the way thru.

DOUBLE-BILL: Before moving on to bigger, more commercial projects (THOR: RAGNAROK/’17; JOJO RABBIT/’19), Waititi already showed daring in small, personal fare like BOY/’10.

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