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Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Review By: Tom Herrmann
TomHerrmann@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: D

If you haven’t seen anything related to vampires lately you must be trying very hard to avoid them. They are the hot thing in movies, TV, and books right now; with titles like Twilight and True Blood are two vampire outlets that are receiving great acclaim. The thing that makes the modern trend of vampires different than past trends is, well, everything. These aren’t vampires styled like Bela Lugosi‘s Dracula, and especially not like Max Schreck’s Nosferatu. Obviously something as iconic as a vampire is due to change over time, especially over the period of about eighty years, since vampires first graced the movie screen, but now that vampires are playing the good guys on the ordinary it just doesn’t feel right.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant has done quite well in capturing everything that is bothersome about this fad. Darren (Chris Massoglia) is a cliché 16-year-old as far as children’s films go. He is straight lace and does most of what his parents tell him, aside from hanging out with his one troublesome friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson). Darren becomes a little less ordinary after he and Steve attend a freak show where Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly) turns Darren into a vampire. Darren, unaware of the consequences, now has trouble accepting that he is no longer normal while living with the rest of the freaks. This becomes a secondary problem when Murlough (Ray Stevenson) comes to battle his sect of vampire against Crepsley’s.

For those of you who haven’t realized yet, John C. Reilly is the star from Step Brothers who isn’t Will Farrell. That said, it’s hard to figure out exactly what he is doing here and why he thought this would be a good career move. To go from staring in popular comedies to this generic, pre-teen oriented, horror-adventure movie seems like quite a leap in the wrong direction. His acting wasn’t even apt for the role he took on. Instead of it coming off as classical acting, it just sounded like he was always out of breathe or at least not very concerned. Then again none of the acting was notable, similarly to the dialog which had Rebecca (Jessica Carlson) spew out such gems as, “Being human isn’t about what you are, it’s about who you are.” No Rebecca, it is clearly about what you are.

In case the thought hasn’t come across in full yet, this entire film plays somewhat like an elongated episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?. All of the pieces are here: the horrendous acting, the shoddy script, the story that focuses on a young person facing their issues without the help of their parents, and the not-at-all-frightening horror aspect. The only two real differences are the false sense of ...