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Review: Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

By Kirsty Leckie-Palmer
Monday 2nd November 2009
To hazard that this film may be hitching a free ride between Twilight films for the vampire-deprived teen market might seem like tautology but some films are so wretchedly commercial that they beg derision. Cirque du Freak is a flimsily contrived adaptation of the Darren Shan books, and smacks of a protracted advertisement for franchise attention; watching it gives the impression of weak instalment rather than fully fledged, emotion-invested piece of film-making. Best friends Darren (Chris Massoglia) and Steve (Josh Hutcherson) sneak out to visit into a freak show which has arrived in their home town, and become captive audience to a veritable smorgasbord of oddity, including a woman with the power to regrow her limbs and a wolfman who bites them off. The master of ceremonies is vampire Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly), who blackmails Darren into becoming the undead to save Steve’s life. He leaves home to live in the freak show campsite until a showdown with excluded Steve and his new friends the Vampanese, who don’t stop short of draining their victims of blood rather than taking a few polite sips. The story’s merits derive from the imagination of its author - its plot is a passable teenage bookshelf adaptation. Sadly, the film is continually careless and let down by such gimmicks as a blue CGI tarantula (why go to the effort - it looks spray-painted so it may as well be), a lacklustre bearded Salma Hayek and a bargain-bin Vincent Price-Alike. For adolescents, there is very little to evoke nostalgia for childhood or ensnare hormonal aspirations to adult independence. Much of the freak-show portion is geared around the fairly superfluous edification it’s wrong to mock those who are different. Casting John C. Reilly as a time-worn vampiric guide and not bringing out the superb pathos which he can command as an actor is utter travesty, and charisma falls short of the two young protagonists, who seem to have learned to act courtesy of Hogwarts school of Wincecraft and Tepidry. However, if you like the books, you’re twelve and have an attention-span that can be satisfied with poor effects and monetary expectation, Cirque du Freak might just be your thing. 


 Rating: Two Stars