Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant Movie Review

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009)

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Written by: Paul Weitz and Brian Helgeland (screenplay), Darren Shan (series of books)
Directed by:  Paul Weitz
Starring: Chris Massoglia, John C. Reilly, Salma Hayek, Josh Hutcherson, Ray Stevenson, Ken Watanabe, Salma Hayek, Orlando Jones, Frankie Raison, Willem Dafoe
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
Teenager Darren Shan meets a mysterious man at a freak show who turns out to be a vampire. After a series of events, Darren must leave his normal life and go on the road with the Cirque du Freak and become a vampire.

Verdict
I could never figure out the intended tone. Is this a comedy, drama, or satire? There's a lot of silliness to this, and the side characters in the circus are poorly developed. This movie includes a vampire civil war, tween romance, tween feud, and a lot more. The problem is it's underdeveloped and boring. The big fight at the end is bathroom break material.
Skip it.

Review
Hearkening back to when vampire-teenage movies were all the rage. I kept wondering, What is this? It doesn't do anything particularly well. It's part vampire origin story, part comedy, part best friend feud, part tween romance, and part vampire civil war. The movie's plan was to throw so much at you that you'd have to like some aspect of the story. There is a lot of bad.

Darren loves spiders.

A magic car specifically throws a flyer out the window to Darren. That's top level marketing to reach one person at a time. Darren and his friend Steve go to this freak show.

When trying to purchase a ticket, a little elf bites Steve and that doesn't concern either boy. they don't even find it remarkable that elves are real. It doesn't even register any amount of surprise.

We're introduced to the members of the circus, and my favorite has to be the man with two bellies who coughs up a bike and rides away. These "freaks" are intriguing but this movie fails to capitalize on them at all. They get a neat introduction and that's the end of it.

John C. Reilly plays a vampire.

Darren becomes a half vampire. The plot mechanisms to reach that point seem a bit odd with Darren deciding to steal a spider owned by a vampire. It has to be intentional that the spider's colors are blue and red like Spider-Man.
I liked some of the vampire myths that were dispelled and showing us what it's really like, but it's such a small footnote that it doesn't really help the movie.

There are numerous scenes that seem to be comedic, but I have to wonder if it's unintentional. At one point Reilly and Dafoe's characters talk about bad blood and start spitting on the ground for effect.

Darren is part of the civil war between Vampires and the Vampirenese.

This could have been a decent comedy or subpar satire. Instead it's a boring tween movie. It's a dumb movie that's low effort.