They got goth

Vampire movies make great allegories — whether they’re about romance (Twilight), survival (I Am Legend) or addiction (Only Lovers Left Alive). From New Zealand comes last year’s take: vampires as flat mates.

What We Do in the Shadows is a mockumentary made by the remnants of Flight of the Conchords, the TV series about Bret and Jemaine, two hapless kiwi musicians plunked down in lower NYC. Their befuddlement at all things American was part of the gag, but also their relative politeness and naivete.

Here, Jemaine Clement (the taller half of Flight of the Conchords) writes, directs and acts as Vladislav, a kind of poor cousin to Vlad the Impaler (back in the day he was known as “Vlad the Poker”); he shares a flat with Deacon, a general lazy-ass who refuses to do dishes for five years (“Vampires don’t do dishes!”), Viago (Taika Waititi), the fastidious member of the flat, and Petyr, an 8,000-year-old ghoul who’s well out of it most of the time. They hold “flat meetings” where Viago urges them to place newspapers and towels around their victims to cut down on the mess.

Done with handheld cameras, the film crew follows these undead dudes on their nightly rounds — trying to get into Wellington clubs (the gag is they have to be “invited” in, and at the cooler places, they’re always turned away), shopping at convenience stores, and recruiting victims through Deacon’s long-suffering “familiar,” Jackie Van Beek, who is itching to be “turned” already, after cleaning up bloody messes and doing his laundry for 10 years.

What We Do in the Shadows is like a vampire version of This is Spinal Tap!, chock full of knowing riffs on all the bloodsucking myths and conventions. Like the quasi-metal band, the vampire flat mates are similarly dysfunctional — just a bunch of dudes thrown together because they all happen to be undead. Watch Vlad fib about his age, claiming he was “turned” at age 16 some 800 years back, and that’s why he still looks so “young.” (“It was hard on 16-year-olds back then,” he concedes.) Watch Deacon practice his “erotic dance” for the cameras. Watch the three get all dandified for a night out of vampiric debauchery — then take a public bus into town.

What We Do in the Shadows riffs not only on real vampire lore, but on the movies we grew up with. Characters float around like Danny Glick. When the boys bedazzle an intended victim by serving him canned Bisghetti and telling him “it’s worms,” Viago admits they “borrowed that trick from The Lost Boys.” Vlad uses his best Gary Oldman charms to lure intended victims to their window: “See me…” he keeps intoning. And, when that doesn’t work, he taps on the window.

Like Flight of the Conchords, Clement’s film understands the general goofiness of the “guy” lifestyle. Dudes trying to avoid chores in a household is not that far from Bret and Jemaine doing the same thing in NYC. There are few females around, but in typical New Zealand bonhomie fashion, this is more about your “mates” than about mating. So the other touchstone for this spoof is all those reality shows where flat mates learn to tolerate each other’s deeply annoying habits — and occasionally kick someone out of the house.

After Petyr “turns” Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer), who was supposed to be everyone’s dinner, into a vampire, he ends up becoming the flat mate from hell. Since the flat mates all became undead centuries ago, the appearance of a younger vampire in their midst creates tension. Nick brags to every stranger they meet that they’re vampires, and generally acts like such a douche that they’re forced to banish him “indefinitely.” “So, is that like six months?” Nick asks.

The movie plays on the vampires’ unfamiliarity with modern technology. When Viago is shown a cellphone text message (“Watch out, theres a crucifix behind u!”), he whips around in palpable panic. The filmmakers show the group YouTube, and the first thing they all gather to watch in awe is a video of a sunrise.

To make it even more of a Conchords reunion, Rhys Darby turns up as the “alpha male” leader of a pack of werewolves, who’s more concerned than your typical lycanthrope about polite language (“Guys, we’re werewolves, not swearwolves!”) and not tearing your jeans when you transform.

The music is a strange mishmash of atonal oboe jams by Plan 9 — the type of music you’d think 14th-century vampires might groove to — and authentic Indian snake charmer music. It all adds to the goofy charm of the movie.

Like Spinal Tap!, What We Do in the Shadows is the kind of film you swear you’ll watch once, have a good laugh over, and probably completely forget about an hour later. But Spinal Tap! managed to become a bona fide classic, and this one, with all its good-natured vampiric goofiness, feels like a keeper as well.

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Though not a vampire, another denizen of the goth world is Nick Cave, the Australian singer of bloodcurdling tales and onstage howls, whose documentary, 20,000 Days on Earth, purports to follow the rock star on a typical day — meeting with musicians in a studio, seeing a “shrink” (with video capturing everything), and explicating endlessly on his creative process. Cave is a captivating presence, with his flopped-back dark hair, looming eyebrows and abundant ring collection; in some ways, he seems like a parody of gothica, circa late-1800s — all moody poses and self-analyzing utterances. There are glimpses of truth — his connection with his dad over first reading Lolita, and how it represented the power of great writing; being blown away by first watching Nina Simone perform; working up material with his band The Bad Seeds; jotting down lyrics here and there.

But there’s also an air of world-weary pomposity that is not far removed from the self-mythologizing undead in What We Do in the Shadows. A part of goth’s appeal is the inherent romanticism it embraces. Now in his 50s, Cave has gone through drug addiction and years of hellraising performances to find himself in rainy seaside Brighton, a place that “forces its way violently into my songs.” He confesses to a need to “transform” himself into somebody else, either onstage, or through his music. “This is a world I’m creating: a world full of monsters and heroes, good guys and bad guys,” he intones. “And the more I write, the more detailed and elaborate the world becomes, and all the characters that live and die will just fade away. They’re just crooked versions of myself.”

Cave is clearly obsessed with telling his own story, which is not unusual in an artist. But like LCD Soundsystem’s “last waltz” documentary, Shut Up And Play The Hits, at times 20,000 Days on Earth threatens to become consumed by its own solipsism. He drives around Kylie Minogue and Ray Winstone, who sing his praises. And like Neil Young, he spends an awful lot of time working on his own archive — a collection of documents, band photos from the punk era, Berlin soft porn and religious icons. Yet there’s something pure and believable when the man just sits at a piano, reciting his lyrics over a repeated guitar pattern; or when shown intimately face to face with audience members. Then you can believe he’s got the true spirit inside him.

Cave says his biggest fear is losing his memory. “Memories are what we are,” he notes. Documenting yourself obsessively is surely one way to head off Alzheimer’s.

Nick Cave exorcises his goth demons in the documentary, 20,000 Days on Earth.