Exclusive Interview with WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS’ Jemaine Clement

Bloody, funny, and made for lovers of classic vampires by fans of the genre, What We Do in the Shadows is already one of my favorite horror comedies. With the movie coming out on Blu-ray and DVD on July 21st, I had a chance to catch up with Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), who co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the vampire mockumentary. 

For those that didn't know, What We Do in the Shadows started off as a short film and we talked about the process of turning it into a full feature, his first vampire movie memory, possibilities of a sequel, and more:

The Blu-ray version of the film includes your original short film that you released in 2006. Why did this particular idea stick with you long enough to make a feature film out of it?

Jemaine Clement: Well, there was a funding initiative by the New Zealand government to make low-budget digital feature films, we had a few ideas, and this one was an easy one to do. [For the short film,] Taika [Waititi] and I wrote down a bunch of questions for vampires that we wondered about, mostly to do with the logic of vampire movies or things that would make life hard for vampire. Then we went to a costume store and spent about two hundred dollars and got some friends that didn't really know much about cameras. We just kept finding the idea funny. Over that time, more and more vampire movies and TV shows came up, so it was actually a constant reminder.

With What We Do in the Shadows, it's easy to tell you have a love for vampire movies. What was your first experience growing up with vampire movies? For me it was Christopher Lee as Dracula in those Hammer films.

Jemaine Clement: Yeah, for me it was Christopher Lee too. I think the movie was called Scars of Dracula and I was five. We had a black and white TV, even though they already had color TVs. I woke up in the middle of the night and I wandered into the sitting room and the TV was on. It starts where the bat flies into the window of the castle and then drips blood onto the skeleton and then the bat becomes Christopher Lee. I had no idea what it was about at the time, but it fascinated me.

I always loved seeing how they managed to bring him back no matter how they killed him off in the previous movie.

Jemaine Clement: Yeah, me too. I don't know if you are going to see a sequel [to What We Do in the Shadows], but we are going to use rules from those kinds of vampire movies.

I would often have nightmares about vampires growing up. Except, I would try to see any vampire movie that I could. When I was ten, I started a gang at school called The Vampires. And by "gang," I mean a bunch of skinny kids who speak in fake Transylvanian accents with plastic vampire teeth.

Having seen the original short, I can see some pieces that made it into the final movie, but I also heard there was a lot of improvisation. Can you talk to me about what was in the script versus what was improvised? Were there any major scenes or segments that you came up with on the fly?

Jemaine Clement: Yeah, like the erotic dance that Deacon [Jonny Brugh] is doing. We were just having another argument in the script, but then we realized that all that talking was getting boring if we didn't do something else. We were right fans of Jonny's comedy and he does real physical comedy. He does a lot of funny dancing, so it was just getting him to do to that. On the fly, I found a snake charmer song on the internet and got him to dance to it.

Has there been much talk about a sequel or do you know what you'd like to work on as your next feature?

Jemaine Clement: I would love to do a horror comedy that's not just joke, but scares as well. What We Do in the Shadows isn't really scary and the couple of times we do have scares, they were real fun to make. We had talked about making a werewolf film that's the same idea, but we're following the werewolves.

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What We Do in the Shadows will be available on Blu-ray and DVD July 21, 2015 from Paramount Home Media Distribution.