WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Kiwi-Vamp MockDoc via VSC

VLADISLAV ENJOYS, uh, IMPALING, or rather, POKING.

1. A Fine Mess

2. Erotic Dance

3. Big Grumpy Pants

4. Impaling is always Fun

What We Do In The Shadows (2014)

Dir. Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi

Starring: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, Jonathan Brugh, Ben Fransham, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stuart Rutherford, Jackie van Beek, Rhys Darby

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I should have hated this movie, but I couldn't. It's too good-natured and funny not to like. We're talking mockumentary, here. The subjects are vampires in New Zealand in the modern world. Just imagine a slightly broader This is Spinal Tap with blood-sucking before you go in and you're going to be just fine. I went in expecting nothing, mind you, but was rewarded with consistent laughs and often found myself soaring with joyous ebullience.

The set-up is pretty basic. A documentary crew (who always stay behind camera and don't ever appear as characters a la Rob Reiner in Spinal Tap) is granted permission to capture the daily lives of vampires (with a solemn oath that they'll never be attacked).

We're introduced to a "family" of four bloodsuckers and unlike our traditional notion of the undead living solitary lives in out-of-the-way castles, these fellas live in a sprawling dwelling in Wellington, New Zealand as - get this - flatmates.

Viago (Taika Waititi) is a bit frilly and foppish and takes on the role of fuss-budget den mother - always reminding his co-habitants of their household duties (sweeping, dusting, doing dishes and not leaving bloody spinal columns on the floor).

Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) is a long-haired, moustachioed satyr who hails from an Eastern European tradition of impaling, though he prefers to call it "poking".

Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) is the youngest and hence, most immature of the bunch, complaining about having to lift even the slightest finger to fulfil his responsibilities as a flatmate.

Deep in the bowels of the basement lives the eldest of the group, Petyr (Ben Fransham), a grumpy, 8000-year-old Max Schrek (or depending on your cup of Nosferatu, Klaus Kinski) lookalike.

The camera crew conducts one-on-one interviews with the oddball assortment of vampires in addition to capturing their day-to-day activities. The lads especially enjoy nights on the town (save for Petyr, who seldom leaves the basement, preferring victims to be dragged downstairs for him) and we get to enjoy our sidewalk-sashaying nocturnal undead buds roaming about, making like Dion and the Belmonts' The Wanderers.

Vampire Jam Session

Alas, these oddly-attired "nerds" are refused entry to all the hottest clubs and usually end up in the same joint, a decidedly uncool watering hole full of others of their uncool ilk. Here they usually meet up with their human "slave" Jackie (Jackie van Beek) who not only cleans up their messes, but most importantly, procures victims for them to dine upon. Poor Jackie is infected with the vampire bug, but only enough to do the fellas' bidding.

Nick - Master Clubber

She longs for eternal life and wants it sooner rather than later. She feels she's in her prime and wants to stay that way forever. How long can a girl be expected to procure? One of the victims she does indeed appropriate for the lads is the youthful Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer). Rather than decimating him entirely, he's drained completely of blood and turned into a vampire himself, thus becoming a new flatmate. Good thing too.

Nick's quite the man about town and gets his pals into all the hottest nightclubs.

IT-whiz Stu introduces
our vampires to the INTERNET!

The only thing that troubles Nick, though, is not having the company of his best friend, the computer geek Stu (Stuart Rutherford). He cuts a deal with the other vampires to bring Stu into his confidence and into their private world - unmolested. This turns out to be the best deal ever for the fellas since Stu's an IT-whiz during his day job and soon has the vampires hooked on YouTube, Skype, FaceBook and all manner of cyber-shenanigans.

There's a tiny bit of conflict that creeps into the movie involving their natural rivals, the werewolves of Wellington and Nick's less-than-discrete bad habit of telling everyone he knows (or barely knows) that he and his buds are vampires. This brings far too much unwanted attention upon them including a genuine vampire hunter and visits from the local constabulary.

The film eventually builds to an absolutely insane climax when the lads attend an annual ball of vampires, witches and zombies which furthermore spills over into a potentially deadly conflict with the werewolves. None of this, however, is ever scary, though there's a decent amount of tension and plenty of surprises to be had.

All in all, this group of bloodsuckers prove to be genuinely charming and likeable fellows and the movie injects all the tropes and lore of vampirism into the proceedings to keep genre fans constantly delighted. The running time is mercifully short and the picture never overstays its welcome. Happily, the camera crew do capture more than a few chases and kills, but they're never offensively complicit in their actions like, for example, the filmmakers in the vaguely reprehensible Man Bites Dog. The mock-doc is true to the genre and we're never presented with the sort of gaffes that can, in lesser examples of the ilk, takes us completely out of the forward thrust of the piece.

WHOOPSIE-DAISY: A BLEEDING MESS!

Though I might have preferred some of the performances to be slightly less over-played, nobody is ever egregiously tongue-in-cheek. Surprisingly, the movie is full of moments that are genuinely sweet and, I kid you not, rather touching. God knows, mock-docs and vampire pictures have been done to death, but What We Do In The Shadows always feels fresh, funny and yes, occasionally original. The movie is also blessed with a terrific song score (including weird recurring themes of klezmer-like Romanian foot-tappers) wonderful makeup, digital and wire effects, plus some dazzling stunt work.

My only major quibble is that there are simply not enough babes in the movie. Yes, there are a few, but they take a major back seat to the fellas and what red-blooded genre-geek doesn't want a good amount of babe action?

Well, this writer, for one, but even I had to concede that my grumblings about the dearth of babes eventually fell upon my own deaf ears. These guys are a riot!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** 3-Stars

What We Do In The Shadows is currently in theatrical platform release throughout Canada via VSC (Video Services Corp). Upcoming playdates include:

February 13 opening:
TORONTO - Scotiabank Theatre
MONTREAL - Cinema Cineplex Forum
VANCOUVER - Cineplex International Village

February 20 opening:
OTTAWA - SilverCity Gloucester
CALGARY - Select CINEPLEX Locations

February 27 opening:
WINNIPEG - SilverCity Polo Park

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In Canada - BUY What We Do In The Shadows HERE, eh!

In USA and the rest of the WORLD - BUY What We Do In The Shadows - HERE!

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A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - How can a Spaghetti Noir Vampire Chick in Iran NOT be cool? Stunning directorial debut from Kino Lorber, opens TIFF Bell Lightbox, The Royal Cinema via VSC (Video Services Corp)

This is what you could meet in lovely Iran.

Iranian Bloodsucker in a Chador

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)
Dir. Ana Lily Amirpour
Starring: Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi,
Marshall Manesh, Mozhan Marnò, Dominic Rains

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There aren't too many vampire movies these days like A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. In fact, there aren't any at all, but now that this one exists, we can all repress the stench of the abominable Twilight series. What we've got here pretty much blows all recent blood-sucker extravaganzas away.

It's not only a genuinely terrific picture, but it's all in Farsi, the language of Iran, where, incidentally the movie is set (though, amazingly, it was shot in southern California). The movie is staggeringly original, yet at the same time, owes a debt of gratitude to Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Sergio Leone, Guy Maddin and James Whale.

Decent bedfellows all, especially for the film's director, a young Iranian-American lassie who makes her feature length debut with this moving picture graphic novel that could well have sprung from the loins of Frank Miller if he was a woman from Iran and wasn't a misogynist.

Nothing sexier than the scent of a jugular vein

The movie itself is light on plot, which is really no matter. Besides, story is more than one plot-point after another. When narrative can be imbued with the poetic qualities of cinema, so often neglected, forgotten or simply not attainable, then story takes on a richness that all the Robert-McKee-influenced product, machine-tooled by hacks, can never, nor will ever, attain. This is a narrative driven by style, theme, mood, character and setting.

And what a setting!

Bad City is practically a ghost town smack in the middle of some desolate plain in Iran, surrounded by endless rows of unmanned oil pumps seesawing ceaselessly and deeply into the flat, dusty earth. In the distance, desolate factories belch clouds of smoke into the atmosphere, the sunny skies blotted out by the filth of pollution.

A lone whore wanders aimlessly on the streets at night, hoping ever-so desperately that someone, anyone will drive by or walk up to her for a cheap fuck or blow job, anything, no matter how degrading will do to avoid being beaten to a pulp by her pimp for not turning enough tricks.

Daylight is murky, nighttime is murkier still, pools of light from high pressure sodium street lamps cast their eerie glow upon the forlorn streets, flanked by dollops of pitch black shadow. If anything, the subtext of the film is found within the shades of grey. Black and white are the pillars holding it all up, but the depth resides twixt those visual support beams of light and darkness.

Somewhere in Bad City is a vampire.

Not that anyone would notice or even care. Life is cheap. Bodies appear, then disappear. Corpses are tossed casually just outside of town into a ditch. The men are (mostly) pigs, the women are invisible and/or abused. The brutish sex in Bad City are pimps, pushers, addicts, drunks, unemployed, slave-class labourers and/or all of the above. Homes appear squalid, their interiors are even more squalid. There's little to do and pretty much nowhere to go. The one nightclub is full of ecstasy-popping babes and scumbags.

At times, we feel like we're in a dreamscape that could only exist in the movies. Of course, I never have a problem with that, but as the film progresses, we're creepily affected by a world that feels as real as it is fantastical. This is a country of waste, repression, rape of the land, rape of the soul and the clear suppression, or rape, if you will, of women's rights. Oil, the ever-present oil being pumped, seems to be the only life or at least, vigorous movement, in this somnambulistic, backward, backyard of despair.

Escape seems to be the only way to avoid death, or at least, a living death, but everyone seems too beaten down to even bother thinking about it. Flight at the end of a needle or the lip of a bottle or whatever can be popped down the gullet, all seem to be the easiest way to dull the pain and, perhaps, allow Bad City's denizens to imagine a better world.

ARASH VARANDI is HOT!!!

Arash (Arash Varandi) is a hardworking young (and almost ludicrously handsome) jack-of-all-trades who lives with his drug addict father Hossein (Marshall Manesh). The lad's prize possession is a pristine T-Bird which is snatched from him by Saeed (Dominic Rains), a foul pimp/dealer/loan-shark who takes it as a payment he's owed for a debt incurred by Dad.

Pops once had something resembling class, but now he's an addled bum, obsessed with the whore Atti (Mozhan Marnò) who reminds him of his late wife, but who, in turn, refuses to acknowledge his pathetic existence unless he's got money to buy her grudging attention and/or respect.

There is, however, a mysterious, exotic and gorgeous young woman (Sheila Vand) who slowly creeps about the streets at night in a full traditional chador.

She's no whore. She's a vampire on the prowl for blood. Her tastes, however, appear limited to exploitative misogynistic men.

Luckily for Arash, he's a sensitive lad, not deserving of having his throat torn out by her fangs, but one of the vampire's victims conveniently opens an opportunity for our hero to secure wads of dough, scads of drugs and the return of his beloved Ford T-Bird coupe.

SHEILA VAND is pretty HOT too!!!

Even more pleasingly, the vampire takes a liking to Arash (in one of the most perverse meet-cutes, like, EVER) and he, of course, to her.

Why not? They're young, smoulderingly intense and, uh, HOT! So what if she's the walking dead? Living in Bad City with a drug addicted father makes him just as undead. Mais non?

Will love conquer all?

Will escape be a viable option?

Will Bad City become a distant memory?

The answers to these questions will all be found in this compulsively engrossing, gorgeously photographed (in beautiful monochrome) and yes, often creepy and scary immersion into the delectable depths of feminist revenge fantasy with a to-die-for soundtrack and a pace so hypnotic that filmmaker Amirpour might well be more than a mere artist.

She's a Class-A mesmerist and as such, watching the movie is to fall under her spell of magic and to emerge pumped, enriched and convinced you've seen one of the most original movies in years.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night from Kino Lorber is in theatrical release across Canada via VSC (Video Services Corp) with Toronto playdates at TIFF Bell Lightbox and The Royal Cinema. Keep your eyes peeled. You won't want to miss this for anything.

MULBERRY STREET - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Jim Mickle is unquestionably one of best horror directors of the new millennium and writer/star collaborator Nick Damici is right up there with him - a powerhouse combo!

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