Hunt for the Wilderpeople

 Year of Release: 2016

Director:  Taika Waititi

Screenplay:  Taika Waititi, based on the novel Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump

Starring:  Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rhys Darby, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House

Running Time:  101 minutes

Genre:  Adventure, comedy, drama

Troubled teenager Ricky Baker (Dennison) is constantly in and out of foster homes.  As a last ditch attempt, child services assign him to a couple who own a remote farm.  After a difficult start, Ricky eventually bonds with his new foster mother Bella (Wiata) but not so much with her cantankerous frontiersman husband Hec (Neill).  When Bella drops dead of natural causes, a grieving Ricky plunges into the bush to avoid being taken by child services.  Hec follows him, and the two embark on a life in the wilderness, as the target of a nationwide manhunt.    

As with the best of writer-director Taika Waititi's work this blends darkness and tragedy with warmth, hope and compassion along with laugh out loud comedy.  This film has added wilderness adventure.  It does take it's time to get going, but the constant quirky comedy of Waititi's world means that it never gets dull.  Julian Dennison is great as the streetwise but naive teen at the heart of the film, and there is real chemistry between him and Sam Neill's grizzled outdoorsman, who hides real heart and compassion deep down beneath a prickly, abrasive exterior.  Rachel House is hilarious as the child welfare officer who obsessively pursues Ricky, and compares herself to The Terminator.  Taika Waititi has a small role as the minister who conducts Bella's funeral service.  By turns funny, exciting and heartbreaking this film also has a point about those who don't fit into the world.  Ricky and Hec don't really have a place in the modern world, they just want to live on their own terms, but while Ricky can find a place for himself, it is harder for Hec, given his age and circumstances.  The two save each other in their own ways.  

  Julian Dennison and Sam Neill in Hunt for the Wilderpeople

What We Do in the Shadows

Year of Release:  2014
Director:  Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
Screenplay:  Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
Starring:  Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Ben Fransham, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stu Rutherford, Jackie van Beek, Rhys Darby
Running Time:  85 minutes
Genre:  Horror, comedy

Wellington, New Zealand:  A documentary film crew follow several months in the afterlife of four vampires who all share the same house: uptight 369 year old Viago (Waititi) who vainly tries to maintain some kind of order, 879 year old former tyrant Vladislav (Clement), 183 year old young rebel Deacon (Brugh) and savage 8,000 year old Petyr (Fransham).  Aided by Deacon's "familiar" Jackie (van Beek), who aspires to become a vampire herself, the gang spend their time hunting victims and trying to avoid sunlight and occasional scuffles with the local werewolf gang led by "alpha male" Anton (Darby).     

Horror comedies are very difficult to make work, because there is the risk of the comedy overshadowing the horror, meaning there is no edge or drama to it, or the horror overshadows the comedy and makes it just bleak.  This however really works well.  It's filmed in the "mockumentary" style familiar from movies such as This is Spinal Tap (1983), or TV shows such as The Office or Parks and Recreation.  It pokes fun at various vampire tropes:  Vladislav is like a parody of Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and Petyr, the most brutal and least human looking of the group, is obviously based on the vampire in Nosferatu (1926).  Much of the humour comes from how vampires would function in the modern day, and the problems of living with vampire powers (how do you look stylish when you can't see yourself in the mirror?, where do you go when you can't enter a building without being invited?)  The film is never really scary, but it is quite dark, there is no getting away from the fact that the vampires are killers.  The film is irreverent but celebratory of the vampire genre, and is fresher and more imaginative than any vampire movie for a long time.  Most of all it is genuinely and consistently funny.

The Fang Gang:  From left to right: Jemaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Ben Fransham, Taka Waititi, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer and St Rutherford in What We Do in the Shadows