The creators of “What We Do in the Shadows” (FX), Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, both New Zealanders, adapt and Americanize their 2014 vampire comedy into a jolly spoof of demonic gloom. With its mockumentary conceit and its steady airing of petty grievances, it’s a bit like a phantasmic “Real World,” or a sitcom collaboration between Larry David and Charles Addams.
Laszlo (Matt Berry) and Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) are undead life partners; for centuries, their nominal leader has been their roommate, Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak), who combines a Count Chocula accent with a Rip Van Winkle world view. A daywalking “energy vampire,” Colin (Mark Proksch), has been foisted upon the group; he works in an office and haunts its taupe cubicles, draining the life force from his colleagues with extremely beige small talk. He’s a bottomless well of unfun facts, and his superhuman skill at boring humans into a stupor is an analogue of the traditional vampires’ mesmeric abilities. This is a show about hypnotic power, as well as every other kind—about status and control, about interoffice alliances and interpersonal allegiances, about bloodsucking and bootlicking. The humor of it is in the friction between the imperious attitudes of the vampires and their out-of-their-depth impotence.
In the pilot, the vampires’ ancient master arrives in town, creaks out of his coffin, and renews a centuries-old order to achieve dominion over the New World. Soon, the heroes begin their effort by attending a monthly zoning-ordinance meeting of the Staten Island Borough Council. The energy vampire savors the prospect of this “smorgasbord of banality and despair.” Nandor soon takes control of the mild mind of a council member, and the marvellous scene that ensues is depicted as if through the bland camera of a cable-access public-affairs program: “Heed my vision before it’s too late—I have received a message from a slouching beast in the night,” the poor fellow rants. “What We Do in the Shadows” surfs a blood-dimmed tide with some finesse.
The series is far too silly to qualify as a horror show, but there’s a giddy thrill within that silliness whenever one of the vampires takes flight, or transforms into a bat, or munches on the neck of an unfortunate. If it weren’t for a smattering of somewhat strained sex jokes, the series would be a great giggle for grade schoolers. Nandor thinks it unhygienic that his peers have been leaving partially consumed mortals around the house, like unlabelled leftovers cluttering a fridge. “Why don’t we just write on them with marker pen?” Nadja proposes. “Put our name and the date?”
Nandor’s familiar is Guillermo (Harvey Guillen), who, in his nerdy neediness, presents a vision of Renfield as Poindexter, equal parts gofer and groupie. His duties include dusting (while leaving cobwebs intact) and rounding up supplies of virgin blood (by enticing young members of a role-playing club with the promise of seeing a medieval battle axe). Being a vampire’s familiar is “like being a best friend who—who is also a slave,” Guillermo says. With his owlish eyeglasses and his open grin, the guy looks like an affectionate caricature of the film director Guillermo del Toro, master of the macabre, but, in his gentle dweebiness and helpless fascination, he is a teasing portrait of all of us, from “Twilight” tweens to “Nosferatu” geezers, who are hypnotized by eerie folklore.
Sourse: newyorker.com
