Fang dancing after lights out

Jonathan Brugh's character Deacon's skills in What We Do In The Shadows include erotic dancing. The film's hilarious dancing scene was improvised.

Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement tell Lydia Jenkin how their love of vampires and 20-year friendship inspired a movie about a bunch of bloodsucking mates flatting together in Wellington.

View the hilarious trailer for What We Do In The Shadows, Taika Waititi's long-awaited follow-up to Boy, and a most peculiar dance sequence stands out:

Part Flashdance, part Mr Bean, comedian Jonathan Brugh's "erotic dance" is one of those comic moments that cannot be rehearsed, let alone scripted, and is all the more inspired for it. Designed to show what three vampire flatmates do of an evening at home, it certainly sets the bar high for anyone looking for extracurricular activities that can and should be confined behind closed doors.

"All we had in the script was, 'We're hanging out at home and [novice vampire] Nick [Cori Gonzalez Macuer] knocks at the window'," recalls Brugh. "So what are we doing at home? Are we watching TV? So I said, 'Didn't someone mention my character Deacon is an erotic dancer? Shall I do an erotic dance?' Both Taika and Jemaine Clement said a resounding, 'Yes! Yes!'."

The ensuing madness would curl the skin off a clove of garlic and will certainly have audiences rolling in the aisles when the movie opens nationwide on Thursday. Waititi and Clement have conceived some of the most insane scenes in a New Zealand movie since a certain fellow Wellingtonian, Peter Jackson, was making splatter films on a wing and a prayer.

Joint writers and directors, Waititi and Clement kept Brugh in the dark about much of the script, even though the 44-year-old Aucklander appeared in their short film based on the same idea eight years ago. It was an inspired move, allowing Brugh's comedic skills to bring to life a centuries' old vampire described as the "young bad boy of the group".

"Well, that's arguable, when you think about it," laughs Brugh. "I think that's the character's own perception of himself. It also says something about Taika's character, Viago, being the straight guy because Jemaine's character, Vladislav, is a torturer. So what's bad boy? I don't pay rent. Is that as bad as it gets?"

The impromptu nature of much of the filming kept Brugh on his toes. "It was fun because I didn't have to learn any lines, which is the large bane of my acting career. And it wasn't frightening because I'm good at improvising and I had a good handle on my character."

The improvisational approach meant the filmmakers were left with 100 hours of footage to edit into a 90-minute film. It took the directors and two editors a year to whittle it down, meaning many of Brugh's favourite takes and scenes were discarded, though perhaps they will live on on the DVD.

"We shot some great stuff that, romantically, I thought was awesome," recalls Brugh. "When the guys put all their favourite scenes together there was three hours. So you're basically cutting that in half. Half your favourite stuff is gone. But that's the reality of supplying the film."

A few scenes Brugh isn't unhappy were cut involved Viago and Deacon as Nazis who bully young children.

"When we presented the film in Berlin there was a whole lot of footage of Taika and myself being part of the Nazi vampire brigade and terrorising kids. I had my own personal problems with the material, especially not knowing what the script was. Being told I'd probably be a Nazi war criminal, but I can't see the script, that was hard. I wanted my family to like the film."

He need not have worried because, in Deacon's words, "When you're a vampire you become very sexy," and Brugh has created, if not a sexy vampire, at least a very funny one. What We Do In The Shadows promises to be a cult film, even without the presence of Nazis picking on kids. "Ah, thanks," he laughs.

What We Do In The Shadows opens Thursday.