I was pretty surprised to learn after I saw the movie that Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is an adaptation of three novels. Three! I was surprised, not because the movie is focused and concise (on the contrary, it’s actually all over the place and drags on and on) but because if I had to take a guess, I would wager that it’s based on only parts of a novel. So why is it that it feels like nothing happens?
The books in question are Cirque du Freak, The Vampire’s Assistant and Tunnels of Blood; the first three in the Saga of Darren Shan series of vampire novels written by Darren Shan about Darren Shan (oy), the boy who would become a half-vampire personal assistant to a vampire, involving him in centuries-old civil war between two bloodsucking factions. But that’s not until later, in Book 4 onward. This movie prepares for it well, by functioning entirely as an impatient setup for a sequel.
Darren (Chris Massoglia) is a normal high school kid with friends and good grades, but feels like his parents are pressuring him into a set path. It’s not teenage insecure projection, because the film actually has a scene where Darren’s father scolds him to stay on the three steps (“College! Job! Family!”). The script is mostly that kind of overt dialogue, including the film’s nonsense headslapper motto: “It’s not about what you are. It’s about who you are.” Slap.
Darren learns to defy that routine ol’ lifepath when one day a traveling freak carnival comes to town. The Cirque du Freak members are not so much the Tod Browning outcast variety, but more like the X-Men type. One of them is Mr. Crepsley (John C. Reilly), a centuries-old vampire who performs acts with his venomous pet spider. After the spider bites Darren’s troubled best friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson), Darren makes a deal with Crepsley: save his best friend's life, and he’ll leave his to become his assistant.
For a movie that puts emphasis in a fantasy-based quest, it’s woefully underplotted. Much of it is of Darren adjusting to being a vampire. There’s fleeting fun in how they do this, especially in Crepsley’s exasperated reaction to vampire myths:
“Can I turn into a fog or a bat too?”
“No. That’s bullshit.”
Since I haven’t read the books, I’m not too savvy on the other rules. The film certainly doesn’t make it a priority to explore them. Darren is a half-vampire. What makes that different from a normal vampire? Apparently nothing, except for the fact that he can walk around in daytime. Darren still hungers for blood, he still has all the cool vampire powers, and he’s still sort of immortal. It’s really unfair that half-vampires always get to be more powerful than full-on vampires.
The aforementioned civil war is between vampires who kill for blood, called Vampaneze, and vampires who don’t, called… vampires. Although in a brief cameo as Crepsley’s friend, Willem Dafoe calls their kind “The Last of the Mo-freak-ans.” The sad thing is, I can’t tell if that’s a joke or not with this movie.
The director of this movie, Paul Weitz, has a brother, Chris Weitz, who directed the Twilight sequel New Moon. While Twilight treats its vampires like sexy, mysterious royalties, Vampire’s Assistant presents them as desperate freaks of nature. These vamps certainly don’t brood in foggy atmosphere with their fangs tucked all cutesy. Darren remains his typical boring self throughout, while Crepsley is a middle-aged gaudy vaudevillian with a Sgt. Pepper coat and Rod Stewart hair. Ray Stevenson, who plays Crepsley’s Vampaneze nemesis, looks like a homeless Punisher.
The way the film is shot is very stagey and exaggerated. I couldn’t help but snicker when the film’s villain would walk into a room accompanied by purple backlight, a fog machine and dutch angles—like some kind of Power Rangers villain. It’s obviously aimed more at 11-year-olds, regardless of all the cursing and violence (though let’s be honest, that’s exactly why an 11-year-old would eat it up). Maybe if it had an actual story to tell, or wondrous visuals, or more of the demented dark humor that we get when the film focuses on the Cirque members, it’d work in another capacity; but the film prefers to keep them deep in the background.
It’s sad that when I picture a movie about an actual personal assistant to a vampire—you know, scheduling his brooding appointments and updating his blood donor list—it looks way more exciting in my mind than what I actually saw in this movie.
"Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" opens October 23, 2009 and is rated PG13. Adventure, Fantasy. Directed by Paul Weitz. Written by Paul Weitz and Brian Helgeland. Starring John C Reilly, Ray Stevenson, Salma Hayek, Willem Dafoe, Ken Watanabe, Josh Hutcherson, Chris Massoglia, Patrick Fugit.
