Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009)

“Vampires suck.” That’s a line from Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. I laughed at that line not just for its double meaning, but also because it reflects my own opinion. There’s a lot of vampire stuff in popular culture these days, from True Blood and The Vampire Diaries on television to the Twilight series of books and movies, and, quite frankly, I don’t see the appeal of it all.

Unlike the classic Bram Stoker tale Dracula and its real-life inspiration Vlad the Impaler, these contemporary tales seem to be primarily geared toward adolescents. The lead characters are usually teenagers or young adults, and the stories often feature a slant of “forbidden” romance between the living and the (un)dead. Besides the frequent use of white pancake makeup and contact lenses, these teens are also prone to romanticized notions of the “life” of a vampire and pontificating dialogue with their vampire “mentors” about the loneliness of eternal existence and the morality of preying on the living. These tales also like to be selective about what classic vampire-story details will be observed or disregarded — do they change into bats, for example. (“That’s bullshit,” says Crepsley [John C. Reilly], the vampiric leading man in Cirque du Freak.)

I trace these commonalities of the modern-day bloodsucker genre back through the recent Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series and movie, as well as Anne Rice’s books and films about her vampire Lestat, back to 1987 and the releases of two significant films of the genre: Near Dark — a clever “vampire Western” that never once uses the word “vampire” — and The Lost Boys, which featured numerous ’80s teen heartthrobs in its cast, and a great last line spoken by Barnard Hughes as the grandfather: “One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach…all the damn vampires.” I can relate.

I write this to illustrate my fear of possibly being forced to endure another teenage suckfest. Instead, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the film, in spite of its weaknesses. Like its aforementioned predecessors, Cirque du Freak centers on teenagers, specifically best friends Darren (Chris Massoglia) and Steve (Josh Hutcherson). Darren digs spiders; Steve thinks vampires — at least the ones in books — are cool. They come across a handbill for a one-night-only freak show in a decrepit theater, and a very tall emcee with a sloping head (Ken Watanabe, star of Letters From Iwo Jima) welcomes them to a show featuring not only the vampire Crepsley dancing with a large spider, but also a “swallower” with two giant bellies (Frankie Faison), a green and scaly “snake boy” (Patrick Fugit from Almost Famous), a woman who can cut off her limbs and regenerate them (Jane Krakowski of 30 Rock), and the sexiest bearded lady you’ll ever see (Salma Hayek).

Of course, the two boys get into mischief, and soon Darren ends up a “half-vampire” working as Crepsley’s assistant and living with the freaks in their camp, while Steve eventually becomes his rival, siding with the bald and rotund Mr. Tiny (Michael Cerveris, Broadway’s Tony-winning Sweeney Todd) and Crepsley’s nemesis, Murlaugh (the awesome Ray Stevenson, Titus Pullo in HBO’s Rome).

There’s plenty of bright actor wattage featured here, and I haven’t even mentioned the presence of Willem Dafoe and Orlando Jones. The array of talent was impressive, but I was dismayed at how little some of them were utilized. Krakowski, for instance, makes an impressive appearance in the opening freak show, but apart from a very brief interaction with Darren later at the camp, we don’t see much of her. Ditto for Orlando Jones. Dafoe gets a lengthy dialogue scene with Crepsley, but beyond the scar on his neck and his foppish taste in clothing and grooming, almost nothing is explained about him. Salma Hayek’s character, beautiful even as her beard instantaneously grows out, has a romantic history with Crepsley, but she also has foreboding visions and weird waking “blackouts” regarding Darren, and this subplot is never fully resolved. There’s also a lot of strangely disjointed editing; sometimes it seems purposeful, like when a character suddenly appears across the room to disorient us, but more often it feels awkward, as though scenes and transitions were excised merely to meet a shorter running time, resulting in a choppy narrative which leaves the viewer struggling to fill in the details.

As the lead character, Crepsley gets to fill in some of his lengthy backstory as he mentors Darren in the ways of the vampire, and John C. Reilly has loads of fun with the role. But there’s also too much confusing chatter about the purpose of dapper-in-purple Mr. Tiny, and about vampires fighting the “vampanese” whatever they are (it’s never made clear), and about truces and rules and, of course, a vampire council, which usually figures into most of these modern vampire stories. Personally, I can’t see any appeal, romantic or otherwise, in an eternal existence that includes council meetings of any kind. I’m usually half-dead myself by the time I get out of meetings with living people; if I have to spend an undead eternity attending meetings and obeying councils, please save me from the vampires!

It becomes obvious — beyond the colon-punctuated, subtitled movie title — that Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is attempting to establish a franchise for future sequels. Here’s hoping that some of these freaky characters will be more “fleshed out” (so to speak) in later installments. It has its charms, quirks, and laughs, along with some cool visual effects. But it could’ve been much stronger at establishing its world and delineating its characters to make the audience feel more invested in this story and future adventures. Instead, it plays like an extended prologue to a future tale, or an appetizer rather than an entrée. Like the vampire’s assistant, you can taste it, but drink with caution.