'Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant' Movie Review

Vampires are everywhere nowadays (yes, I'm a master of the obvious). You've got The Vampire Diaries aiming for the Buffy/Angel audience and True Blood with its sex, violence and adult humor after the 21+ crowd. Then there's Twilight, which didn't really start the whole vampire lovefest but certainly kicked it up quite a few notches. Twilight, with its fangless vegetarian vampires and lovesick high school students, is a romance rather than a horror story, aiming for the hearts of women in general, and teen girls in particular.

Now into the vampire mix comes Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, based on a series of popular young adult books. The Vampire's Assistant is looking to engage the Twilight crowd, though it's much more guy-friendly than Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga. While Cirque du Freak and Twilight are aiming for close to the same demographic, The Vampire's Assistant differs from Twilight in its approach to the fanged ones. The vampires in The Vampire's Assistant are lethal, not sexy, and it's bad etiquette to make a teen into a vampire. Twilight's main family of vampires is dangerous, but can live among humans because they don't drink blood. The Vampire's Assistant sticks to the normal vampire conventions in most respects - vampires can't go out in the daylight, they don't sparkle, and they drink human blood.

And, most notably, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant differs from Twilight in production value. The Vampire's Assistant has the look and feel of a big studio production, with its gorgeous sets and top quality effects. Writer/director Weitz and his behind-the-scenes crew deliver a beautiful freaky world in which we can believe vampires and other bizarre creatures exist.

The Story

Darren (Chris Massoglia) is a good kid. He's bright, well-behaved, and a decent student. His best friend, Steve (Josh Hutcherson), is his polar opposite. Steve's a troublemaker from a dysfunctional family who doesn't like authority figures. Darren's parents aren't too keen on their son's friendship with Steve, and after Steve gets Darren into trouble at school, they say enough is enough.

But, as typical with teens, they don't listen to Darren's parents. They share an interest in the bizarre (Steve loves vampires, Darren's fixated on spiders) and so when an opportunity to visit a freak show comes their way, they jump on it. Inside an abandoned theater, the two teens take their seats to watch some of the strangest 'freaks' imaginable hit the stage one at a time, each one-upping the previous entertainer. There's a Snake Boy who wants to be a rock star, a bloodthirsty Wolfman, the bearded Madame Truska, and the man in charge of it all, a gigantic man with a misshapen head known as Mr Tall. But it's when Larten Crepsley (John C Reilly) takes the stage with his talented and lethal spider, Octa, that the night takes a dangerous turn. Steve immediately recognizes Crepsley for what he is - a vampire.

When Darren takes off to get a closer look at the spider, Steve confronts Crepsley, nearly demanding to be made a vampire. Crepsley denies his request, which sets in motion a tragic turn of events. Soon after, Darren and Steve find themselves intimately involved in the terrifying world of vampires, caught up on opposite sides in a deadly battle between two opposing forces: vampires and the more brutal vampaneze.

The Cast

John C Reilly's Crepsley is the glue that holds the story together, and Reilly's the actor who holds the cast together. His gleeful and at times over the top performance is the centerpiece in this fantasy tale. Josh Hutcherson and newcomer Chris Massoglia are good as the best friends who become central characters in a vampire war. Ken Watanabe as the towering Mr Tall, Salma Hayek as the bearded but beautiful Madame Truska, Willem Dafoe in weird silent movie star makeup as a vampire cohort of Crepsley's, and Michael Cerveris as the puppet-master manipulating all these abnormal characters all turn in terrific performances. Cerveris in particular is a delight to watch as he brings the humongous, otherworldly character, Mr Tiny, to life while sporting one of the most realistic fat suits ever created.

The Bottom Line

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant is, at times, an uneasy mix of silliness and drama. It may have worked better if writer/director Paul Weitz and screenwriter Brian Helgeland had just abandoned any attempts at seriousness and adopted a more playful tone throughout. But then it would have also been abandoning the source material. The books have their lighter moments, but in general they take this fantastical world of warring vampire factions and circus freaks seriously. Keeping the readers of the books happy had to have been a big concern of the screenwriters, though combining three books into one movie and changing the course of one major character's storyline so early on likely won't sit well with some readers.

Like the books, the film is aiming at teens. But Weitz and Helgeland have crafted a film that doesn't alienate other age groups. By not talking down to its target audience, The Vampire's Assistant appeals to a wide-range of moviegoers.

Universal Pictures added The Vampire's Assistant to the film's title late in the game, a smooth marketing move that capitalizes on the current vampire craze. And Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant is sure to benefit from the fact that vampires are a hot commodity right now. The Vampire's Assistant won't go down in history as the best of the lot, but it's a decent, entertaining addition to the genre.

GRADE: B

The Vampire's Assistant was directed by Paul Weitz and is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense supernatural violence and action, disturbing images, thematic elements and some language.

Theatrical Release: October 23, 2009