Vampire Spoofs Suck, Except What We Do in the Shadows—But Why?
Image courtesy of FX
What makes a great horror comedy and, more importantly, how did What We Do in the Shadows get it right when so many other vampire spoofs fail so miserably?
To properly understand, we need to travel way back to the first filmed vampire send-up: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). Don’t let Frankenstein in the title fool you. This Bud Abbott and Lou Costello venture features three of Universal Studios’ major monsters: Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man, and Dracula. The Wolf Man and Dracula are played by their original actors (Lon Chaney, Jr. and Bela Lugoisi, respectively), while Frankenstein’s monster is played by Glenn Strange, who had taken up the mantle for three Universal films after Boris Karloff.
After the rise in popularity of the Universal monster movies — in a 15-year period we received Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Dracula’s Daughter (1936), The Wolf Man (1941), Son of Dracula (1943) — executives figured they’d capitalize on the intrigue and put together a monster comedy. But production was difficult and no one actually seemed to want to make the movie. By the time it came out in 1948, many critics claimed it had missed the proverbial boat, but enough of an audience emerged to make it the third highest grossing Universal film that year, and the Abbott and Costello Meet [insert Universal monster here] formula went on to become its own franchise.
The reason it found an audience, is still remembered fondly today, and was added to the Library of Congress? The monsters were played straight. Having Lon Chaney, Jr., Glenn Strange, and Bela Lugoisi reprise their roles was a masterstroke. Instead of everyone acting goofy, Abbott and Costello maintained their comedic shtick throughout the real, intimidating threats posed by the monsters; the audience identifies with Abbott and Costello but also feels superior, thinking, “Well, I wouldn’t do that if I met Dracula.”
In the Shudder documentary In Search of Darkness: Part II, drive-in movie critic and horror aficionado Joe Bob Briggs breaks down the formula Abbott and Costello perfected:
The key to making a great horror comedy is it’s gotta be 80% horror and 20% comedy. If you try to do 80% comedy and 20% horror, then what you’re doing is, you’re attempting to make a cult film in advance, and that never works — it always falls on its face.
On Eli Roth’s History of Horror, Quentin Tarantino summed up his love for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein by saying pretty much the same thing as Briggs and highlighting the film’s influence on him:
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