Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Director: Paul Weitz
Cast: Chris Massoglia, John C. Reilly, Ken Watanabe, Salma Hayek, Josh Hutcherson
Genre: Fantasy, Comedie
Runtime: 109 min

Starring the fairly unknown Chriss Massoglia, the movie Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant roughly encompasses the first two books from the series The Saga of Darren Shan, the Vampire Blood trilogy, by author Darren Shan (real name is Darren O'Shaughnessy). Directed by Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz's brother who directed the New Moon movie from the Twilight Saga, also a teen vampire themed movie, Vampire's Assistant is a much more entertaining and fun movie than the tragic-romantic adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's books.

Unlike the glittery beautiful vampires of Twilight, Darren Shan's night creatures don't glow in the sun and don't transform humans into vampires by biting them. They actually age too, at a rate of about one tenth of the normal human being. This explains Madame Truska's (Salma Hayek) remark to  Mr. Crepsley (John C. Reilly), who is one of the lords of the Vampire Council, that “he's not what he used to be”, referring to age and looks. The true vampires from Shan's world feed just a little on humans and they let them live, holding a form of respect for their lives. Well, enough with the universe clarifications and book references.

The movie is surprisingly more thrilling and truer to the Anne Rice vision of vamps than any of the current teen vampire films. It's fun to watch, but not an overly memorable experience. It's filled with more action and interesting characters like Mr. Tiny, Murlough, Crepsley and the whole Cirque du Freak ensemble, like Ezra the Snake Boy, Girtha Teeth, the Wolfman and others, which takes the boredom out of most cynical moviegoers.

Best friends, Darren (Chris Massoglia) and Steve (Josh Hutcherson), are determined by fate to sneak out one night and go to an unusual freak show. Here they meet a couple of interesting characters, but the one that captures their attention exclusively is Mr. Larten Crepsley, first because Steve knows he is actually a vampire and wants to become one himself, and second because Darren is fascinated with Crepsley's Madam Octa, a hideous but perky venomous spider. The boys creep backstage after the show guided by completely different reasons. First, Steve wants to coerce Crepsley into turning him into a vampire, but upon the vampire's refusal on the reason that Steve is inherently evil and has “bad blood”, the boy threatens to grow up as a vampire hunter and hunt him down. Little does he know that his best friend has witnessed his shameful act, hidden in Crepsley's closet with a certain stolen spider. Fleeing the weird theater as soon as he gets the chance, Darren hides Octa in his backpack and carries the spider to school (real smart thinking). Here, Octa escapes of course and bites Steve who enters a coma and is going to die. Ridden with guilt, Darren rushes back to Crepsley and begs him to save his friend. The vampire accepts, but with a condition: that Darren become his half-vampire assistant.

The movie then follows Darren's problems of adaptation to his new life, of coping with his powers and accepting his current nature. Steve turns evil of course, becomes a vampanese and starts killing people. If you think about it a little, the plot is actually quite deep: the two characters reflect good versus evil that are bounded by a childhood friendship, which in the end will turn against them. I think a lot of teenagers will like this movie, since it doesn't pretend to be something that isn't, like in Twilight where everything always turns out ok, and even real fights are evaded (if you've read Breaking Down you know what I'm talking about).

So you're in for a treat if you go see this movie, take it lightly and remember: don't look vampires in the eyes! :)

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