What we do in the Shadows Review
I've heard of films that people don't like simply because they don't take full advantage of their premise. I don't want to name them because I don't know if I'm going to see them in the future or not, but the ones which I have seen are well justified for that. Coming up with an idea is hard as it is, and executing it is its own different yet equally tumultuous step. The results vary from one being better than the other, or both of them being a certain high/low quality. Although I can't name the ones I haven't seen (yet), nor even the many ones at the top of my head, What we do in the shadows sort of does its best to juggle as much an idea as a proper execution. At its worst it just becomes confusing, if not muddled, in a weirdly intriguing albeit disorganized way, like a hoarder who won the lottery and is paying professionals to help him turn over a new leaf, and we essentially get to go along for the ride. To put it plainly it gets to the point you can't really tell if it's a horror-comedy mockumentary or just a plain old found-footage homage. Eitherway it still serves as a weird kind of wonderful in that respect and has one or two inspired scenes (particularly one when people can't see the vampires or the introduction to the Nosferatu inspired one). I suppose had it not been for when it doesn't stop at vampires during the third act (in order to avoid spoiling) then the execution wouldn't have done the idea (at least enough) justice. But hey, it was either this or more stuff like Twilight or Let the right one in/Only lovers left Alive around the time of its release.