Another vampire film is premiering on Friday, 10/23, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire Assistant. The source material this time is a series of young adult books known as “Cirque du Freak” or “The Saga of Darren Shan,” written by Darren O’Shaughnessy — who writes under his protagonist’s name, Darren Shan. Below is the trailer and an early review of this film.
Review: `Cirque du Freak’ a vampire Frankenstein
By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer
It’s getting downright batty trying to keep all these vampires straight.
You have your traditional vampires (“Nosferatu”), your blond slayer foils (“Buffy: The Vampire Slayer”), your sexy vamps (“True Blood”), your Euro children vampires (“Let the Right One In”) and your melancholy teenage variety (“Twilight”).
The undead are not only alive, they’re also multiplying and creating new vampire species and subspecies faster than fruit flies. Each has its own version of the mythology: Fangs are optional, bloodthirstiness varies.
The latest entry to this overcrowded field is “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant,” which arrives with quixotic dreams of a franchise of its own.
We meet the world of “Cirque du Freak” through Darren (Chris Massoglia), a popular, straight-A high-schooler whom his rebellious best friend, Steve (Josh Hutcherson), calls “Mr. Perfect.” His parents lecture him on the path to a “happy, productive” life with the depressingly rigid mantra: “College. Job. Family.”
Though Darren is wide-eyed and naive, he harbors a love of spiders. Steve idolizes vampires. Darren shrugs that these obsessions are “in our blood” — and director Paul Weitz sees fit to prove it to us with a sudden zoom into Darren’s capillaries, where little spiders dance around double helixes.
Both get a front-row seat to their dark secrets when a traveling freak show comes to town. They’re lured in by a mysterious flyer tossed from a spooky black car (license plate: “DES-TINY”).
Click here to read the rest of this review
this review doesn’t do the movie justice…have seen it and it’s much better than this review leads you to believe.
[Reply]
has anybody read this series? i thought about it months ago but when i read the blurbs i wasnt all that interested but this movie doesnt look as bad as i thought it would…
[Reply]
I have read the whole series…it’s for a younger audience obviously, but it’s still very absorbing. The basic story is, a boy steals the performing spider of a vampire, which bites his friend and nearly kills him. In return for the cure, he agrees to become a vampire, and the assistant/protege of the head vampire (played by John C. Reilly). They have changed a few things…in the book the main character was only 11-12, but I think they made him 16 in the movie. These vamps don’t have fangs…they use their fingernails. They also don’t kill their victims, they knock them out and then just a take a little bit of blood. Like the Charlaine Harris books, they are a pretty easy read, but very absorbing, and very dark. They put a little more comedy in the movie, but not as much as the trailer would lead you to believe. If this movie does well, they plan to make more which would be great, as the series gets better as it goes along. If you are a vamp fan (and didn’t like the TWilight vamps), see this one!!
[Reply]
The kid who plays Darren looks a lot like Ralph Machio (Karate Kid) when he was a kid, but cuter! Looks like he could be his son!
[Reply]