Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is the movie adaptation of the first three books in the Saga of Darren Shan by Darren Shan. [I reviewed the first book here.] It was directed by Paul Weitz* and stars Chris Massoglia, Josh Hutcherson, Jessica Carlson, John C. Reilly, Salma Hayek, Ken Watanabe, Jane Krakowski and Willem Dafoe.

Plot:
Darren (Chris Massoglia) and Steve (Josh Hutcherson) are best friends. One day, they stumble upon a freak show. When Steve finds out that one of the performers – Mr. Crepsley (John C. Reilly) – is actually a vampire, he asks to be turned. Mr. Crepsley refuses. When through some twists and turns in the story, Darren becomes Mr. Crepsley’s assistant instead, it unhinges Steve completely and things are going to get really rough for Darren.

The movie was rather boring, I have to say. There was some ridiculousness and some enjoyable camp, but altogether, it was just… meh. Sad to see such a good supporting cast wasted.

The best scene of the film comes pretty early on: Willem Dafoe and John C. Reilly, both wearing incredbly ridiculous outfits and make-up discussing some kind of vampire war. If you can imagine this, you really have no reason to watch the film. It was pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, Ken Watanabe, Salma Hayek and Jane Krakowski were completely un(der)used. The kids were alright but I don’t think that the best actors could have made much of that script…

Speaking of the script: it was a very good decision to use the first three books of the series. As I understand it the twelve books can be divided into four trilogies and the movie used the first one. If the movie had been such a huge success that it needed sequels, we would have gotten them (I don’t think we will now, though). As it is, the story has an ending. Also, nothing much happens in the first book so we at least got some action.

But unfortunately they decided that to glue the three parts together, they had to telegraph the plot even more than the book did anyway. Very unnecessary.

Well. I hate to think of my time as wasted but…

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*yes, he is the brother of Chris Weitz. In blood and mind.