Is “What we do in the shadows” scary?
Table of Contents
From Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, vampire lore has infiltrated every corner of our popular culture, seducing audiences with tales of eternal life, forbidden love, and inherent danger. Meanwhile, mockumentaries like The Office and Parks and Recreation have charmed us with their humor, relatability, and innovative storytelling. But what happens when you cross these genres? Enter: What We Do in the Shadows.
Vampire Fiction: A Journey from Fear to Fascination
Classical vampire literature was primarily centered around invoking fear and horror, with Count Dracula being an ominous figure of the night. But the portrayal of vampires has shifted significantly over time. The Twilight saga, for example, romanticized vampires, focusing on their immortality, physical beauty, and intense emotions. Other media like True Blood and Vampire Diaries have focused on the blend of their human-like desires and monstrous urges.
What We Do in the Shadows takes a different approach, injecting a heavy dose of comedy into the vampire genre. It demystifies the vampires, showing them not as terrifying predators or swoon-worthy immortals, but as comically flawed beings struggling with their own peculiarities and the mundane realities of the modern world.
Mockumentaries: Breaking the Fourth Wall with Humor
Mockumentaries have long used their format to bring humor and satirical commentary to the screen. Shows like The Office or Parks and Recreation employ the mockumentary style to offer hilarious and poignant insights into the banalities of office life and local government. In these shows, the humor often lies in the relatable absurdity of everyday life.
What We Do in the Shadows, however, uses the mockumentary format to juxtapose the extraordinary with the ordinary. The show applies documentary-style filmmaking to the supernatural, making the bizarre lives of its vampire protagonists hilariously mundane. The characters often break the fourth wall, candidly discussing their woes about roommate disagreements, city council meetings, and romantic entanglements, all while navigating the un-life of a vampire.
Is What We Do in the Shadows Scary?
While the show includes some traditional elements of horror—blood-sucking, immortality, and the occasional werewolf—the focus is rarely on invoking fear. Unlike classic vampire tales that utilize these elements to create suspense and terror, What We Do in the Shadows uses them as the backdrop for humor.
The show often plays on the disconnect between the vampires' gruesome nature and their very human-like problems. For example, rather than showing a vampire masterfully hypnotizing a human victim, we see Nandor struggling to remember his hypnosis lessons. Instead of a fierce vampire vs. vampire hunter battle, we watch as Guillermo, a hapless familiar, accidentally becomes an efficient vampire slayer.
In essence, the show is more likely to elicit laughter than screams. The frightful elements of the vampire mythos are presented in a non-threatening, often absurdly comedic light. As a result, the scares in What We Do in the Shadows are far from the spine-chilling suspense you'd find in traditional horror films or the intense drama in other vampire-centric media.
What We Do in the Shadows effectively blends elements of vampire fiction and mockumentaries to create something entirely unique. It challenges the norms of both genres, creating a hybrid that is as comically entertaining as it is fascinatingly bizarre. The show may not be terrifying in the conventional sense, but it's certainly thrilling in its distinctive approach to vampires and mockumentary storytelling. By reinventing familiar tropes with an innovative twist, it has managed to carve out its own space in both genres and offers a fresh, humorous perspective on the lives of the undead.
