If you want to be a vampire, you've got to follow the rules. At least, that's the case in Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi's What We Do in the Shadows, an FX series spinning out of the film of the same name. The vampire mockumenatry masterminds were very particular about their characters following "the rules."

"If they eat human food, they get sick. But leeches they can chew on or suck on to get the blood out, but the actual leech meat they can't. Jemaine is very particular," executive producer Paul Simms explained during a set visit attended by CBR.

"They burst into flame in sunlight. They're not like uncomfortable by it," added writer Stefanie Robinson. "You know how in some vampire movies, they're just sort of frightened by it."

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"No, they actually will burst into flames," Simms agreed. "The one that I think has impacted the show the most in a frustrating way is the idea that vampires need to be invited in somewhere, because we're always writing scenes like, 'Okay, then they go into the person's house' and Jemaine is like, 'Well, hold it. They need to be invited into the house.' I think he refers to it as The Lost Boys rules, doesn't he? His general rule set is based on the ones established in The Lost Boys."

"I didn't create them!" Clement said. "They've mostly stayed the same from the movie. I mean, all the rules have, but they've got some other powers, these ones, that we didn't see in the movie. We go by basic 70s, 80s vampire movie rules, with a bit of 30s. They can turn into bats. They can't go in the sun. They don't sparkle in the sun. They die. What else? You have to be invited in. In a lot of literature, vampires have to be invited in to private property, but this is a documentary, so these are the actual rules. They have to be invited into any kind of building."

As to why it was so important to follow these rules, he continued, "It's good to have limitations. It makes it harder for them. Because vampires have so many powers, they also have to have weaknesses."

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"I think most people probably wouldn't care if you broke character or if you made a character go for a swim in the ocean, but they officially aren't allowed to, according to vampire lore," Waititi pitched in. "They're not allowed to go in salt or seawater. They can't swim in seawater.

"When we have the actors improvising stuff, but if I'm listening, I'll go, 'They can't swim!' If they improvise that. 'They couldn't do that!'" Clement recalled.

"Can't blaspheme. Can't eat," Kayvan Novak, who plays Nandor the Relentless, added.

"I've turned 'Oh my god' to 'Oh my goodness' so many times. Gotta watch out for that," agreed Nadja actor Natasia Demetriou.

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"Well, with some of the stuff, we've researched a lot of vampire law and the rules and some are so weird that, if you told someone to explain it in the film, people would think that you were just being a bit over-the-top," Waititi mused. "My favorite one is that one way to get rid of a vampire if he's in your village is to seal his socks, fill them with garlic, tie them up and throw them in the river and he's forced to chase his socks, to go get his socks back. Then he'll get the socks, and obviously they'll be filled with garlic, and he's like, 'Aaah!' Stuck there on the banks of the river."

Even though What We Do in the Shadow's characters are "real" vampires, they aren't immune from the influence of popular culture. That was certainly the case with Deacon (Jonny Brugh), one of the vampires introduced in the film. "Like Jonny Brugh's character in the movie, because he wasn't really around when people dressed like that, he's very much kind of rock star, like leather pants and stuff, so it's like a mix of what he used to wear and probably things he saw in The Lost Boys or True Blood," Clement recalled.

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Clement and vampire pop culture go way back. "Taika and I were both fans of vampire movies, and when we would get people to improvise the film, we were more surprised that people don't know the vampire rules like we do," he explained. "We thought everyone was a vampire nerd."

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"I think the first one -- I always forget the name of it -- the first one I saw was a Christopher Lee one," he continued. "I think it's called The Scars of Dracula. I mean, I was about four or five and I got up. I think he could hear the TV and there was a scene of this bat dropping blood onto a skeleton that becomes Christopher Lee and that freaked me out so much. I think I had nightmares for years after that and it's definitely related to why I'm still making a vampire thing."

"I liked some Fright Night, Salem's Lot. Some great newer ones: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Let the Right One In. Lost Boys is a lot of fun. I've seen so many! I don't keep up with them all now, but definitely I'd watch anything that had a vampire in it while I was growing up," he added.

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"Jemaine has always sort of been interested in vampires, so he'll always be throwing out references or ones that I've never even heard of. I think he's seen all of them," Simms said. "We did have a variety of vampire encyclopedias and Bram Stoker's Dracula and a lot of extensive debates about do they eat food, do they not eat food and people having different citations for yes they can eat food but they don't like it, no if they do eat food they get sick. Very little of that ended up being relevant to the show, but it took up a lot of our conversational time to get those details right."

"The one that I keep going back to, or that we go back to or reference a lot, is definitely Interview with a Vampire. I think that that one is sort of always in conversation in some way," Robinson mused. "I was sort of the target demographic for Twilight when that came out. I was in high school when all of that stuff was happening, so I have a pretty extensive Twilight knowledge, I would say. I think we touch on a lot of them, but it's been fun sort of rewatching these movies. Bram Stoker's Dracula."

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Robinson wasn't the only member of What We Do in the Shadows that was impacted by Interview With a Vampire. "I do like Interview With a Vampire," Guillermo actor Harvey Guillen shared. "I just remember watching Kirsten [Dunst] as a little girl, an actress, and I was like, '[gasp] I want to do that! I want to be a kid actor.'"


Arriving Wednesday, March 27 at 10 pm ET/PT on FX, What We Do in the Shadows stars Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetriou, Matt Berry, Harvey Guillen and Doug Jones. Taika Waititi will direct the series and co-produce alongside Jemaine Clement, Scott Rudin, Paul Simms and Garrett Basch.