“The one in Wellington will be at The Embassy for sure. I’m going to make a carpet of actual blood, we’ll have to walk through a red-blood carpet. People have to wear gumboots,” said Waititi.

What We Do In The Shadows is a film about five vampires living in a rundown flat in Wellington. (…) It was filmed over five weeks in late 2012 at a sound stage in Miramar and various locations around Wellington, including parts of the Town Belt, the Mt Victoria Bowling Club and several longtime Wellington city flats.

“There’s a bit of stuff at The Big Kumara, which is now gone, so it’s a little love letter to the Kumara, not that I ever really went there, I just love the name. Barney’s is where we used to go a lot.”

(…) The film has been getting good press internationally, with one reviewer describing it as “total surprise; a silly, scary delight” and another as a “memorable, entertaining, and very, very funny; a bona fide, blood-red gem”.

“What We Do In the Shadows is a hoot,” said another review. “It embraces all the vampire cliches with irreverent satire, as well as the cliches of the documentary format. It must be that New Zealand sense of humour.”

So, is it its infusion with that special brand of Kiwi humour which has given it the edge? Nah, it’s more about vampires, said Waititi.

“Who can’t laugh at vampires now? It’s such an accessible genre. We always wanted to do something like Spinal Tap but a supernatural Spinal Tap.”

The idea for the film has been bubbling away since 2005 when he and Clement made a short film called Interviews With Vampires to see if it would work.

At its heart, Waititi said, the film is about people who have been flatting for too long, and it explores the idea of being stuck with people you flat with, forever.

“It’s about Wellington flatting but with people who have done it for too long.