Did You Know? What We Do In The Shadows Edition

There are no words for how much I love What We Do In The Shadows. I watched it probably about 7-8 times in the first couple of weeks of it being out in North America and I’ve watched probably another 10+ times since. It’s a movie that I inflict on pretty much any friend that comes over without alternate plans.

“Have you seen What We Do In The Shadows?”
“No.”
“PERFECT. You’ll love it.”

And then the evening really begins.

I was trying to decide what movie to do for my next Did You Know column (which has admittedly fallen behind…) and before I realized what I was doing, I was looking up What We Do In The Shadows, the decision subconsciously made for me. So, without further delay, let’s talk some fun facts about Jemaine Clement and Taika’s Waititi’s hilarious mockumentary.

• Jemaine Clement doesn’t have a direct connection to The Lord of the Rings like his Flight of the Conchords co-star Bret McKenzie (who played an elf very briefly who speaks to Arwen). In WWDITS, the hill where the vampires have their run-in with the “werewolves not swearwolves” is the same hill where Frodo and his Hobbit pals are hiding from the Nazgul in the roots of the tree.
• Speaking of the werewolves, the spin-off movie -if it were to happen- would be titled What We Do In The Moonlight. Preeeeeetty clever, guys.
• If you’re reading this, you’ve probably seen the movie. At least I HOPE that’s the case. That being said, envision the character of Viago (Taika Waititi’s character). Waititi based his performance on his mother (I bet she’s super proud!) while Jemaine Clement based his character, Vladislav, off of Gary Oldman’s portrayal of the title character in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
• All of the characters were “tributes” to famous vampires in other films.
  -Petyr is Nosferatu
  -Deacon is Bela Lugosi’s Dracula
  -Vladislav (as mentioned) is Gary Oldman’s Dracula
  -Nick is Edward from Twilight
  -Viago is Louis de Pointe du Lac from Interview with the Vampire
• The man who plays Stu is named Stu Rutherford. He was brought onto the film as an analyst who was told he would be working on computers for the film. He wasn’t aware that he would play a role in the film (which worked out brilliantly, in my opinion).

• 150 pages of script were written for the film by Waititi and Clement except no one from the cast and crew ever saw it. They wanted to keep things spontaneous and have the reactions to the events be genuine as they unfolded.
• During the shoot, a charred polystyrene body was lost after it was thrown into the harbor for a funeral scene. The body started to drift away and before anyone realized, it was gone. According to Waititi, “It was quite realistic looking, so we had to put a press release out saying that if anyone finds this charred body washed up on a beach, don’t be alarmed, it’s just a prop”. The scene didn’t even wind up making the final cut.
  RELATED: did anyone actually wind up finding the body? Inquiring minds would like to know.

That’s it for this edition of Did You Know? featuring the lovable vampires from What We Do In The Shadows.