Mark Kermode, Observer film critic 

What We Do in the Shadows review – vampire mockumentary with comical bites

Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement creates plenty of giggles but perhaps not enough meat for feature-length fangs, writes Mark Kermode
  
  

Taika Waititi in What We Do in the Shadows.
Taika Waititi in What We Do in the Shadows. Photograph: Kane Skennar Photograph: Kane Skennar/PR

Sporadic laughs spatter this New Zealand mockumentary, which plays less like Spinal Tap meets Twilight than Man Bites Dog eats Vampires Suck. Co-writers/directors Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi play squabbling nocturnal flatmates whose fellow undeads are as afeared of doing the washing up as they are of garlic and crucifixes. Loosely adapted from a 2005 short, this provokes plenty of giggles but retains the air of an overstretched comedy sketch. While individual gags and cineliterate nods (from Nosferatu to Blade) may have comical bite, there’s not enough meat to sink its feature-length fangs into.

 

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