Rating (2 out of 5 Stars)

I had watched Thor: Ragnarok and Hunt for the Wilderpeople and had high hopes for this movie because of Taika Waititi’s involvement, but What We Do in the Shadows feel a bit short.

This is a story of four vampires in Wellington, New Zealand who are followed by video crew. The movie attempts to make them appears like regular flat mates with regular flat mate problems, like who does the dishes. The gags and humors is mildly amusing at first.

Then it felt like it dragged to get to a point. They poked fun at Twilight, and then ran across werewolves, attended the monster ball, all mildly entertaining. There was a montage of when they catch up with technology from a human. I laughed out loud at a couple of pieces. But it just didn’t feel like a complete story. The move didn’t make me care about any of the room mates. Without that, I couldn’t really care if the lived or died. In the end it was a 1 1/2 hour of vampire gags.

Jermaine Clement (Flight of the Chonchords) and Taika Waititi are still learning how to put it all together into one package. This was a good effort, and with some refinement you can see how their talents could evolve. I see some of the same humor in this move as I saw in Thor: Ragnarok.