Cirque du Freak: Vampire’s Assistant Review

Published by Jeff Leins on: October 25th, 2009

In the past year it feels like the world has been swept up in vampire fever.  An HBO series uses blood drinkers to teach us about intolerance, a CW show about teen vamps has been picked up for a full first season, and the unavoidable Twilight franchise is roaring to a sequel with Chris Weitz’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant draws comparison not just by it’s bloodthirsty subject matter, but from the dueling work of brothers in the teen supernatural, Chris and Paul Weitz.  The latter cut his teeth with the raunchy comedy American Pie before a series of average dramas leading up to this departure and bland career blunder.

A half hour in I was wishing for Edward’s brooding demeanor over Darren the Assistant, a dull, timid character that becomes half-vampire and half-boring.

Unlike Twilight, this movie has more than just donors and receivers.  There is a bearded lady (Salma Hayek, still gorgeous), a snake-boy hybrid (Patrick Fugit), a monkey girl, a wolf man, a dwarf with an elongated forehead, and various other freakish deformities.  Like the jumble of oddities that make up the circus, The Vampire’s Assistant is a mishmash of an awkward coming of age fantasy and a mild horror show aimed at teens.

Darren (Chris Massoglia) is a straight A-student and all-around average teen when he visits a mysterious local freak show with his best friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson).  It’s there they’re first introduced to the circus troupe’s stable of aberrations, like 200-year-old vampire Larten Crepsley (a grossly underused John C. Reilly) and his pet poisonous spider.

When the mischievous Steve is bitten by the eight-legged creature, Darren offers himself as a sacrifice to Crepsley in exchange for the antidote that saves his friend.  By becoming a half-vampire, Darren unknowingly joins a brewing battle between two vampire sects and soon he’s pitted against Steve, a defector to the dark side of the corpses.

The special effects work separates it from Twilight, particularly the blurs of super speed called “flitting.”  The inevitable clash between the warring factions is a bit more impressive and violent too, though by that point there’s barely an audience favorite in the fight.

An adaptation of the first two books in a 12-part young adult saga by Darren Shan, the forgettable film consolidates the hero’s vampiric transformation and revelation of who he is as a result.  However, with so many subplots and characters pouring from the pages, it feels like the novels would be better served as a TV series than a messy amalgam that only hits the high points.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is a grotesque mixture of joyless elements and even it’s younger target audience will wonder where the wonder went.

2 out of 5.