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Film Review: Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant
Posted by: – Oct 23, 2009
It is a strange experience being literally the only person in a movie theater. To walk down a long hallway to a lonely auditorium, take the time to pick the perfect seat front and center, and realize that back in the projection booth, someone is about to start the show just for you. This was my experience with Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. One would think the film would be perfect to draw some crowds. It is essentially a mixture of Harry Potter and Twilight, and it is no secret how popular those franchises are. It seems pop culture is fickle, but in this case the masses were right to stay away.
The film focuses on two teenagers, Darren and Steve. They are best friends despite their different upbringings and attitudes. Darren gets good grades and his parents adore him. Steve, on the other hand, does not have a father and his mother is a drunk. He cuts classes at school and he excels at getting Darren into trouble with him. Darren’s parents are not fond of Steve, which is understandable when he does things like talking Darren into sneaking out in the middle of the night to attend a traveling freak show that is stopping in their town. Unfortunately, the show turns out to be much more than the harmless entertainment the boys were expecting.
The freak show houses dozens of strange characters. A very tall man with a misshapen head runs things, and serves as ringmaster for the show. He introduces a bearded lady, and a wolf-man, and a man with two stomachs. The main act, though, is Larten Crepsley, as played by John C. Reilly, a magician who is actually a vampire. The boys sneak into his dressing room after the show, overhear his private conversations, and before too much longer, they wind up on opposite sides of a vampire war. It seems vampires are split in two factions. Half of them, like Crepsley, choose not to kill people when they feed on blood. They merely drink a little bit out of a small incision, and let everyone carry on as they would. The rest of the vampires are more violent than that. They enjoy hunting and killing people to feed on. They do not just take a few drops, they drain their victims entirely. The former ways appeal to Darren who has noble reasons for becoming a vampire, but Steve decides to take the more violent route. The boys were apparently always destined to fight in the vampire war.
The main problem with this movie is the complete lack of detail given to the characters. So much of Crepsley’s past is hinted at, but so little actually discussed that it just becomes frustrating. He also has a friend played by Willem Dafoe. He pops in at the beginning of the film and again at the end. We do not really know who he is beyond the fact that he is a vampire friend of Crepsley, and we do not know why he disappeared for the duration of the movie. He sure acts like he is up to something important, though. It probably has something to do with the greatest mystery of the film, the villain. Mr. Tiny is a flamboyant fat man in a purple suit. He controls the evil vampires and recruits Steve to their side. Everyone is afraid of him, but there does not seem to be any reason why. He says he is not a magical being, just a man, and yet he is said to have been alive for hundreds of years and he definitely demonstrates some magic abilities. It is as though the filmmakers are deliberately spouting false information just to make sure everyone is paying attention.
Young men learning to harness magical powers and vampires at war may be major plot points in other film and book franchises, but that does not mean it works every time. It takes more than a couple of plot devices to make a film successful. Perhaps the end result of this film would have been better if the filmmakers had included more information on the central characters. Better yet, they could also avoid contradicting the information they do provide. “Who is that, and why should I care?” are the worst questions for an audience to be wondering about during a film. Fortunately, though, empty movie theaters are unable to ask questions.
By Gareth Mussen
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