What We Do In The Shadows Premiere Review: Finally, Vampires We Can Relate To

"What We Do In The Shadows" premiered on FX on Wednesday. It's based on the 2014 horror comedy movie by the same title. It's written/directed/produced by Taika Waititi (director of "Thor: Ragnarok") and Jemaine Clement (currently Oliver Bird on "Legion") . See my previous review here I just love the movie. It is HILARIOUS!

"WWDITS" is the story of a group of vampires who share a house. They have typical roommate issues-- whose turn is it to clean up the kitchen, people getting on each other's nerves, who's going to dispose of the dead bodies, etc.

What makes the movie work so well is showing how life has passed the vamps by. They are still doing the same old things-- sleeping in coffins, sucking blood and occasionally turning into bats. The rest of the world has evolved. They are misfits who are ill equipped to cope.

The show keeps the title card and the catchy "You're Dead" intro from the movie. This gives the audience an idea of what they're getting into. If you want scary vampires (or sparkly vampires), look elsewhere.

This time around the action movies from Wellington, New Zealand to Staten Island. We meet the new vampires. There's Nandor The Relentless (Kayvan Novak). He was previously an Ottoman warrior. He has a familiar named Guillermo (Harvey Guillen). Nadja (Natasia Demetriou) and Laszlo (Matt Berry) are a couple. She is pining for a solider she knew hundreds of years ago.

There also an addition that wasnt in the original film. Coiin (Mark Proksch) is an "energy" vampire who sucks (pun intended) the life out of everyone he encounters. He even spoils potential victims of the vamps by boring them to death. Too funny!

A powerful ancient vampire leader is making a surprise visit. He wants to see how their plans for conquering the New World are going. Not well since they havent gotten any farther than where the boat dropped them off-- Staten Island.

Grade: 4 1/2 Monsters (out of 5). FX's "What We Do In The Shadows" has great potential. I've been waiting for it to come to television for what seems like an eternity. I just hope the series can live up to the magic that was created by the movie. So far, I'm loving it.