The premise is a lease agreement
What We Do in the Shadows is a New Zealand mockumentary that treats vampirism as a shared flat-share arrangement in Wellington. It does not parody horror so much as treat supernatural tropes as domestic inconveniences: feeding schedules clash with housekeeping rotas, ancient curses compete with Wi-Fi passwords, and centuries-old rivalries are mediated by passive-aggressive Post-it notes. The film builds its comedy from sustained commitment to the premise — that these vampires are not mythic figures but roommates with overlapping chores, petty resentments and unspoken anxieties about relevance. It avoids winking at the audience; the documentary crew is never questioned, the logic of the world is never bent for a punchline. Instead, it uses the mockumentary form to flatten hierarchy: Vladislav’s tyranny is undercut by his inability to operate a toaster, Petyr’s feral menace is diminished by his basement confinement and lack of bus fare. The aim is not satire of genre conventions alone, but of how any long-standing identity — be it immortal, cultural or generational — calcifies into routine, obligation and quiet desperation. It is a comedy of cohabitation, dressed in capes and fangs.
The look of it
The story follows a strict internal chronology, anchored by the documentary crew’s presence: no scene exists outside their frame, and no character behaves differently when the camera is presumed off. Performances are tightly calibrated — Taika Waititi’s Viago is fastidious without being fussy, Jemaine Clement’s Vladislav projects menace that frays at the edges of self-doubt, Jonny Brugh’s Deacon balances petulance and charm without slipping into caricature. Ben Fransham’s Petyr communicates almost entirely through posture and silence, and Nathan Meister’s Nick evolves from wide-eyed naivety to aggrieved competence without broadening into farce. Yana Gorskaya’s editing sustains the vérité rhythm: cuts land on awkward pauses, reaction shots linger just past comfort, and the pacing mirrors real documentary fatigue — slow build-ups, sudden violence, anticlimactic resolutions. Plan 9’s score avoids orchestral grandeur; it leans on low-register drones and fragmented motifs that sound like old library tapes left in damp storage. Lighting is naturalistic, even in nocturnal scenes: streetlamps bleed into hallways, laptop screens illuminate faces during Zoom calls with long-dead relatives. There are no visual flourishes that announce ‘cinema’ — only the texture of lived-in spaces and the weight of accumulated centuries in a single sigh.
What sticks
The film lands where its logic is most rigorously applied: the bureaucratic absurdity of undead bureaucracy, like the Unholy Masquerade’s guest list or the vampires’ failed attempts to use Google Maps to locate Katherine’s rest home. The werewolf subplot works because it treats lycanthropy as another incompatible housemate — not a threat, but a scheduling conflict resolved through reluctant diplomacy. Jackie’s arc lands precisely because her desire for immortality is treated as a reasonable career progression, not a metaphor: she negotiates terms, files grievances, and eventually gets promoted — with husband as familiar — in a post-credits footnote. The physical comedy is understated but exact: Viago levitating three inches off the floor to avoid stepping on a dropped biscuit, Deacon attempting to hypnotise a security guard who is already asleep on duty, Stu calmly rebooting a vampire’s smartphone mid-chase. Even the gore is domesticated — blood splatters look like spilled beetroot juice, and the aftermath of a feeding is cleaned with bleach and a microfibre cloth. These details accumulate into a world that feels inhabited, not constructed; the jokes arise from friction between ancient power and modern inconvenience, not from setup-punchline timing.
Where it slips
It stumbles where the mockumentary form strains against its own rules. The documentary crew’s continued presence after multiple near-fatal incidents — including a murder, a daylight exposure and a werewolf mauling — requires more suspension of disbelief than the vampirism itself. Some supporting characters exist only to service exposition: Ian Harcourt’s police officer appears solely to deliver exposition about welfare checks, then vanishes; Duncan Sarkies’ vampire hunter has no backstory, motivation or follow-up beyond his single act of violence. The film’s reliance on deadpan delivery means emotional shifts — like Viago’s reunion with Katherine or Stu’s apparent death — lack tonal preparation and register as abrupt rather than poignant. A few gags overstay their welcome: the running joke about Deacon’s ‘rebel’ status becomes repetitive once his actual rebellion proves to be complaining about dish duty. The crowdfunding reference in the encyclopedia context is absent from the film itself, and while the Kickstarter campaign was real, its absence here leaves a minor gap in the film’s self-awareness about its own production constraints. None of this breaks the film, but it punctures the consistency that otherwise holds it together.
What it’s really about
The themes that matter are inertia, assimilation and the quiet erosion of self within shared systems. These vampires do not struggle with morality or hunger — they struggle with lease agreements, social expectations and the exhaustion of maintaining an identity across centuries. Viago’s search for Katherine is less about romance than about continuity: she is the last living witness to who he was before Wellington. Vladislav’s fixation on ‘the Beast’ is not about vengeance but about narrative coherence — Pauline is the antagonist who gives his life shape. Deacon’s resentment of Nick is not jealousy of power, but of disruption: Nick introduces change, and change demands adaptation. The film treats immortality not as transcendence but as accretion — layers of habit, compromise and unexamined assumption. Even the werewolves, introduced as rivals, are revealed to have identical problems: pack hierarchy, intergenerational friction, and the difficulty of explaining moon cycles to new members. The central tension is not between human and monster, but between the self one declares and the self one performs in order to keep the flat running — a dynamic familiar to anyone who has ever shared a house, a team or a country.
Who it’s for
It is for viewers who find humour in procedural rigour, who enjoy watching characters solve supernatural problems with municipal logic, and who appreciate comedy that trusts its audience to notice a misplaced teacup before the punchline arrives. It suits those who like their genre work grounded in behavioural detail rather than spectacle — fans of Best in Show or The Office, not Underworld or Twilight. It is not for viewers who require clear moral stakes, escalating tension or emotional catharsis; the film refuses to resolve its conflicts in ways that feel earned by conventional dramatic arcs. Those who dislike deadpan delivery, or who expect horror elements to carry genuine dread, will find the tone too flat. It also assumes familiarity with both vampire lore and New Zealand suburban life — not as knowledge tests, but as shared reference points that allow the jokes to land without explanation. A viewer who has never lived in a share house, or who has never tried to explain broadband to a relative born before 1950, may miss the underlying architecture holding the gags upright.
Is it worth your evening?
Yes, it is worth your evening — provided you approach it as a sustained tone poem in comedic form, not as a plot-driven farce. Its eighty-six minutes pass without strain because every scene serves the same quiet observation: that all institutions, however ancient or supernatural, eventually become arrangements of mutual tolerance and minor deception. It rewards attention to background details — the brand of soap in the bathroom, the font on a council notice taped to the fridge — and repays rewatching not for hidden jokes, but for deeper recognition of how carefully its world is built. Those who prefer faster rhythms, clearer character arcs or louder payoffs may find it underpowered. Critics who called it ‘anemic’ (Variety) were not wrong about its restraint — but restraint is the point. It does not seek cult immortality; it accepts its place in the rental ledger of cinema, pays its deposit on time, and leaves the flat in good condition. That is its achievement, and its limit.