Unlike Hollywood, independent cinema has managed to stretch its creativity within the vampire genre with films such as “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,” “Let the Right One In” and its American counterpart “Let Me In.” However, it is hard not to address some of the absurdity behind vampire folklore, which is what makes “What We Do in the Shadows” entertaining. The film’s lo-fi presentation is used to great effect, and writer-directors Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi manage to stretch the film’s potentially one-note joke into a satisfying mockumentary, with enough smart wit and visual gags to keep the audience engaged for its brief running time.

A group of crucifix-bearing filmmakers document a few months in the life of a quartet of vampires, who live in a flat in New Zealand. Taika Waititi plays a hopeless romantic pining for a past loved one. Valdislav, played by Clement, is an infamous European torturer — nicknamed “Vlad the Poker” — whose power has declined since his battle against an entity called “The Beast.” Jonathan Brugh plays Deacon, an angsty rebel and the youngest among the quartet at the age of 183. Petyr, played by Ben Fransham, is a Nosferatu-type who lives inside a coffin and communicates through hissing.

Any fan of the series “Flight of the Conchords,” which brought Clement into the spotlight for American audiences, cannot help but notice the similarities in the dead-pan, awkward humor. In several instances, the human characters seem less believable than the vampire characters. This comes mostly in the form of the character Stu, who shows up midway in the film as the only human friend that this quartet of vampires has.

The majority of the film’s humor is creative and surprising. The jokes and characters keep the film’s threadbare storyline moving, since there are not many inspired turns in the plot. The characters do not have much depth, but their oddity and inability to interact with humans makes their storylines amusing. Another surprising element is the film’s innovative visual effects. The lo-fi mockumentary style makes the visual effects stand out; whether it is a fight in mid-air or killing their prey, viewers are immersed into these effects.

Ultimately, “Shadows” works because Waititi and Clement realize jokes about vampires can become old quickly, even if they are more clever than most. Wisely stripped down to a brief 86-minute running time, what could have been a short film or a television
movie manages to work as an entertaining feature-length film. “Shadows” is a unique effort that demonstrates Waititi and Clement as talented up-and-coming filmmakers.

A version of this article appeared in the Thursday, Feb. 12 print edition. Email Zack Grullon at [email protected].