Is What We Do in the Shadows Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Barely, 2 out of 10. It's a vampire sitcom with the occasional bloody mess and a jump scare or two.
Ruling: It is a sitcom about vampire roommates, so it is safe to watch alone at night.
What We Do in the Shadows follows a documentary crew filming vampires who have shared a Staten Island house for hundreds of years. Their plan to conquer the island begins with attending city council meetings, and it has not gone well.
The premise, briefly
Three traditional vampires, an energy vampire and one familiar who wants to join them share a Staten Island house, clashing with the modern world while documentary cameras roll.
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
The film crew decides it has enough footage and stops filming. Nadja hypnotizes the audience so they can pick their own ending, and the series shows three of them, each imitating another kind of show. Guillermo and Nandor become partners in fighting injustice.
The season 2 finale: Guillermo storms a theater full of vampires and slaughters most of them to save his friends from a trap. It also shows Guillermo's vampire hunter side.
No dog dies in What We Do in the Shadows. Nandor spends time caged at a shelter as a dog, and Laszlo leaves dead raccoons on the mayor's porch.
It is a vampire comedy with a few kills and a monster or two, and most of the plot is the roommates arguing over who is in charge.
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
A conquest that starts at the city council
Nandor the Relentless, married couple Laszlo and Nadja, and the office-working energy vampire Colin Robinson share a Staten Island house, looked after by Nandor's familiar Guillermo, who has served for ten years and wants to be a vampire one day. Their plan to take over the island opens with city council meetings, where Nandor threatens the council and gets nowhere. Laszlo goes to see the mayor, kills the raccoons that were eating her garbage, and leaves the bodies on her porch. Laszlo's topiary garden is soiled by werewolves, which leads to a feud that Nandor settles by throwing a chew-toy off a roof. Baron Afanas wakes up and demands a night out. The vampires plan to kill him, but they drink drugged blood, black out, and face the Vampiric Council for his death. Guillermo confesses to the killing, the council doesn't believe him, and the council hands Nandor, Laszlo and Nadja a sunlight execution. Later Nandor visits a 94-year-old descendant by floating at her window with a teddy bear, and the visit ends badly for her. Guillermo learns he descends from Van Helsing.
Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.
A theater full of vampires and one familiar who shows up in time
Season 2 starts with a new familiar, Topher, who is electrocuted by accident, which sends the group to a necromancer named Wallace. Nadja holds a seance and the ghost of her former lover Jeff, also called Gregor, turns up with unfinished business. Nandor and Laszlo overdo hypnotizing their neighbor Sean and wipe his memory. A chain e-mail panics the household, Colin Robinson gets a promotion and drains everyone around him, and Laszlo flees to a small Pennsylvania town after a vampire named Jim shows up to collect a 167-year-old rent debt. Meanwhile Guillermo has been secretly killing vampire assassins sent by the Vampiric Council. The scene to brace for comes in the season finale. Guillermo leaves, and the vampires accept an invitation to the Nouveau Theatre des Vampires, which is a trap. Guillermo returns to the theater in time to rescue them, and he slaughters most of the vampires there. That is the whole scene: one rescue, a lot of vampire casualties, and Guillermo exposed as a vampire hunter.
A new council and an ancient vampire in a locked room
Twenty-nine days after the massacre, Guillermo is supposedly locked in a basement cage but keeps sneaking out to do the housework. Nandor and Nadja agree to co-lead a new Vampiric Council, and the Council's collection includes the Sire, the world's first vampire, behind a sealed door. Nandor starts disappearing at odd hours to see a human woman named Gail, and the vampires go on a trip to Atlantic City with their neighbors. Nadja forgets to assign Nandor to feed the Sire, and a starving Sire digs its way out of its cell and starts killing people all over the city. Nandor falls into a depression and decides to enter a Super Slumber, a vampire hibernation that can last for hundreds of years. In the finale, the vampires commission a group portrait while mourning Colin Robinson. Nandor wants a fresh start abroad, and Nadja gets an invitation to join the Supreme Vampiric Council in London. Laszlo locks Guillermo in a coffin and ships him to London with Nadja, and then writes to Nadja that a baby resembling Colin Robinson has burst out of the dead Colin Robinson.
A baby who is also an employee
A year later Laszlo is raising Baby Colin, whom he calls Boy, and Nadja and Nandor come back from their trips. Nandor finds a Djinn in a lamp who grants him 52 wishes, and he uses them to bring back his 37 dead wives so he can choose one to remarry. The vampires open a nightclub, and Baby Colin's performances keep it busy while he grows fast enough to wreck the house, and school gets suggested. Nadja's wraith workers form a union, and Nandor's wedding to Marwa approaches with Nandor sure that someone is sabotaging it. Laszlo signs the house up for a home-renovation show, and Nadja kills one of the hosts the moment he walks in. The vampires hypnotize the other host and the crew to think he's sick. Baby Colin finally grows into an adult body, discovers he is an energy vampire, and finds the original Colin Robinson's diaries, which restore his memories but erase the year he spent as Baby Colin. Guillermo, tired of being a familiar, leaves with the money he embezzled from the club and asks Derek at a convenience store to turn him into a vampire.
The last season has a camera crew and a new job
In season 5 the vampires try to cheer up Guillermo without knowing what he asked Derek for. Laszlo mixes Guillermo's DNA with stray animals and creates hybrids, Colin Robinson runs for comptroller, and Guillermo breaks a foot. When Nandor finds out that Guillermo got himself turned into a vampire, he is furious and Guillermo flees. In season 6, the vampires wake their fifth housemate, Jerry, whom they forgot to rouse back in 1996. Jerry is shocked that they never conquered the New World and that a human camera crew lives with them. Laszlo hunts for a human head so he can resurrect dead people, and Colin Robinson drives for a ride-share app. Guillermo gets a job in the mail room of Cannon Capital Strategies, and he ends up firing Nandor, who vanishes and turns up on a radio recording. Nandor discovers a window behind his curtains and decides the neighbors are shapeshifters, though the house next door is just an Airbnb. A vampire event goes wrong and turns into a manhunt through the city. Guillermo quits Cannon Capital, and he and Nandor start a partnership to fight injustice.
The ending, explained
The film crew says it has gathered what it needs and will stop filming. Nadja hypnotizes the viewers so that each of them sees whatever ending they prefer, and the series then shows three endings, each imitating a different kind of show. Before that, Guillermo and Nandor have started a partnership to fight injustice, and Nadja has quit Cannon Capital as well.
The post-credits ruling
Yes, there is a very short clip in the middle of the credits. The credits pause for it and then carry on.
Questions people ask at 1am
The whole plot of What We Do in the Shadows is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
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