What We Do In The Shadows (Season 1.5)

So I started watching this not realizing that they were in the middle of Season 2, so it made me very sad when I got to episode 5 of season 2 and there were no more episodes and I had to wait another week to watch more. This is why I almost exclusively binge watch TV shows these days. I have no patience.

If you have not see the film What We Do in the Shadows, do yourself a favor and check that movie out. You don't need to have seen the film in order to watch the show, but like I said in my review, I really can't recommend that movie more because it is so inventive and has such a unique humor to it.

The show is very similar while still distinguishing itself enough to be its own thing and not feeling like the movie in TV form.

If you haven't seen the movie, the premise that there are vampires living in the 21st century and they are letting a documentary crew film their night to night activities. The mocumentary follows a vampire house in Staten Island with three (and a half) vampires living there.

There is Nandor the Relentless (played by Kayvan Novak), Nadja (played by Natasia Demetriou), and her husband Lazlo (played by Matt Berry) who are there traditional vampires with their own funny backstories. Then you have Colin Robinson (played by Mark Proksch) who is an energy vampire. When I looked back at the film, I found Colin Robinson's character really interesting because it follows the winning formula of the film where it they have three regular vampires and one abnormal, but this one utilizes Colin Robinson a lot more than the nosforatu vampire from the film and in different ways.

And finally there is Nandor's familiar, a human named Guillermo (played by Harvey Guillen).

Like the film, a lot of the show is these centuries old vampires doing normal stuff in the modern world, attempting to blend in while any normal person would pick them out as a vampire pretty easily.

And one of the more impressive feats of the show is how it was able to create a cast of characters that feel so immensely different than the cast of the movie. It manages to capture the comedy, the dialogue, and again that fantastic visual and practical effects while creating totally new characters that are down right hilarious.

I think the really impressive thing is that the majority of the cast is relatively unknowns. Natasia Demetriou, Kayvan Novak, and Harvey Guillen really don't have much on their resumes and nothing this central. Even Mark Proksch is relatively new. I only knew him because I watched the early seasons of Better Call Saul where he was featured.

The biggest name is actually Matt Berry and most people probably don't know who he is unless they

watched The IT Crowd.

And yet they give such good performances that it is hard not just ingest all the episodes so quickly to the point where you forget to check how many episodes there are and your bingeing is stopped mid-season...

The really great thing about the show is that its able to capitalize on expanding a dark comedic paranormal universe. Obviously that's not really the point, but this show could go on forever and continue to put these really funny characters in really funny circumstances. Then you delve into Werewolves, and ghosts, and zombies, and vampire hunters, the list goes on and on. On top of that, the one thing this show has that the movie didn't is the clout of Taika Waitit to pull in some pretty big name actors to cameo for really funny bits.

It's good because the sequel to the movie seems like its pretty low on Taika Waititi's list of things to do, likely behind Thor Love and Thunder and a new Star War.

Overall, the show seems to be following in the footsteps of the movie where its probably one of those shows that not a whole lot of people are watching it, but its one of those sleeper shows that you probably should be watching.

I guess if I had one criticism, it would be that it's pretty dark and I easily fell asleep sometimes just because I wasn't totally awake for all the humor and the shadows lulled me to sleep.

But overall, its a really funny show that takes all the great parts of the movie while expanding and making itself new. I would highly recommend checking it out to enjoy some dark comedy vampire fun.

But what do you think? Have you seen the show? Have you seen the movie? How does it compare? Do you want more What We Do in the Shadows? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for shows and films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog!

Thanks for reading!

7/26 UPDATE

I finished the second season. It was fantastic.