Monday, June 29, 2020

What We Do In The Shadows: Season 1

Pleasantly surprised to be sure.

What We Do In The Shadows is a fascinating new show that I will fully admit that I had no intention to watch it. Not that I looked down on the show or deemed it stupid off the bat, it just wasn't on my radar in the slightest until it was recommended to me by my own dear momma. I sort of begrudgingly watched it, I wasn't much in a mood for a new series, and it took a handful of episodes for me to actually get into the show but once I understood the format it was going for and got a grasp on the characters, I quickly fell in love with it. It is the most hilarious show I have seen in a very good long while, centered around a group of vampire roommates living in Staten Island as they live out their night to night lives as blood drooling hilarious beasts. It is a show without any form of arc, after all it's a comedy series first so it took me awhile to slip into that form of television, but the entertainment value is very high and is just a fun show to watch. The characters are the reason you keep coming back to it, the stories that are told while good are just dumb fun, you really aren't going to see True Blood levels of plot here. But I think I appreciate it more for that, because it's absurdly great just to see these wildly different characters bounce off of the situations and other characters. We have Nandor, a once greatly renowned warlord who has grown to be a bit of a ditz in his older years. Nadja, an outspoken and quite frankly hysterical vampire married to Laszlo a downright blunt and complete horndog, further leading to more proof of how that....other vampire couple that we do not speak of is an utter trainwreck in the depths of hell. Then we have Colin Robinson, a unique type of vampire that feeds off of energy instead of life juices that is constantly being ignored by his friends. And last but certainly not least Guillermo, who is Nandor's familiar and desperately wants to become a vampire himself one day but is too busy being the only competent person in the household. It's a major toss up between Nadja and Guillermo as my favorite character, but everyone has moments to shine and they do grow on you. The show is presented in a mockumentary style with visible camera crew, interview sections, and a smidge of shaky cam which works brilliantly with the comedy aspects. As I've said this is the funniest show I've seen in probably half a decade, and I immediately wanted to dig into season 2 after I watched the finale. But all good things to those who wait. I very strongly implore people to watch this show and give it a shot, even hardcore horror fans who aren't big on comedy with classic monsters. They get their lore right in this show, with tons of nods to other vampire films than just Dracula, we get the wall climbing, the ability to turn into mist, the rising out of the coffin directly from Nosferatu, even the whole siring process from Vampire The Masquerade (yes I know it's a common fact, but I like that game). They did their homework and it's wonderful! This is a great show, it's for pure entertainment but when has that been a bad thing? I personally give it 4 stars, a solid 8.5/10, I really had zero big complaints and only very minor nitpicks. So I urge people to watch this show and while it may have been more suitable to talk about this in October, it's Halloween every day at my house and I refuse to hold off on telling people about an amazing show. See you next time for season two!

No comments:

Post a Comment