Bump in the night

New season of ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ lands on FX

By Rachel Jones TV Media

Put down your wooden stakes and get ready to die laughing: Season 2 of FX’s horror-comedy series “What We Do in the Shadows” premieres Wednesday, April 15. The show follows a set of four vampire roommates living their best life-after-death in New York City. Hundreds of years old, these quirky characters are constantly trying to figure out how to survive in a modern world, and they give a brand-new meaning to nightlife in the Big Apple.

This mockumentary-style series follows Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak, “Four Lions,” 2010) as the fearless leader of the four roommates. Once a soldier in the Ottoman Empire, he’s now an avid basketball fan. He’s assisted by his familiar (or supernatural subordinate), Guillermo (Harvey Guillen, “The Internship,” 2013), whom he mostly torments.

Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry, “Toast of London”) is another headliner. He claims to have been Jack the Ripper and enjoys creating sexually themed topiaries. His wife, Nadja (Natasia Demetriou, “The Festival,” 2018), believes she has found her reincarnated lover, who has a little trouble keeping his head on straight.

Season 1 featured several guest stars, including Tilda Swinton, Evan Rachel Wood and Danny Trejo. It seems they’ve chosen well, as each of these stars has appeared as vampires in other films and television series. Swinton headlined as a romantically driven vampire in the 2013 film “Only Lovers Left Alive.” Wood had a substantial arc as a vampire queen in the extremely popular TV show “True Blood.” And Trejo appeared in the cult-classic 1996 flick “From Dusk till Dawn” as a vampiric bartender.

Hopefully, Season 2 will live up to the legacy of the show’s freshman run. It’s expected to include some well-known stars, too, including Mark Hamill. In case you’re wondering: No, Luke Skywalker was not a vampire. But Hamill did voice a character in the 1998 Cartoon Network special “Mina and the Count: The Vampire Who Came to Dinner.” Ap- parently, FX has a fun and specific method for choosing the show’s guests.

It’s clear that series creators, writers and directors Jemaine Clement (who you might know from “Legion” and “Flight of the Conchords”) and Taika Waititi (who is the Oscar-winning director of last year’s “Jojo Rabbit,” as well as the latest “Thor” movies) have done their homework on vampiric history. But that’s no surprise, given that the two of them also wrote, directed and starred in the 2014 film of the same name that spawned this series. The movie won several nominations and awards, including Best Screenplay at the 2016 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards and Best Comedy Film at the Denver Film Critics Society,.

This amusing follow-up series premiered for the first time at New York Comic Con in October 2018 and was very well received right off the bat. The show follows the documentary style that was made famous by shows such as “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation,” but with a much darker twist. The jokes are fast-paced and biting, and the show has received consistently high marks from critics and viewers alike.

As far as the vampires themselves go, the series strikes a similar chord to “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992) — if that classic was hysterically funny. Despite being a show full of supernatural, mythical creatures, FX uses no CGI for this one. When there is tension or suspense, you’ll see no goofy digital renderings to break that classical feeling. They took a cue from Francis Ford Coppola, who directed “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” and focused on using camera angles and timing to create more realistic scares.

Along those same lines, the vampires in this show must be invited into any building, and they will die if they’re exposed to sunlight. Sorry, Team Edward, no glittery skin here! Also borrowed from Coppola’s film is the idea of these inner-city vampires being able to transform into animals. Lazlo transforms into a bat (although he has to yell out “Bat!” every time), and Nandor can transform into a dog. “What We Do in the Shadows” also features some unique, fresh takes on vampiric lore, and those takes get a lot of laughs.

For example, Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch, “The Office”) is what’s known as an energy vampire. He’s so boring and frustrating that he sucks the life out of humans and vampires alike.

All through the end of last season, we followed this team of su- pernatural misfits as they set out to take over Staten Island. Yeah, it didn’t pan out.

They remained under the tyrannical thumb of the Baron (Doug Jones, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” 2006) until he was accidentally killed by sunlight when Guillermo left the front door open. It seems Guillermo is often saving the lives of his vampire overlords, which is interesting since the final episode of Season 1 revealed that he is a descendant of the great vampire hunter Van Helsing. We’re left wondering if Season 2 will find him accepting his fate and hunting down the creatures he so dutifully serves.

If you’re in the mood for a little light-hearted horror, be sure to check out the next episode of this hilarious spinoff. Season 2 of “What We Do in the Shadows” premieres Wednesday, April 15, on FX.

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