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Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

2009

Paul Weitz

Chris Massoglia, John C. Reilly, Josh Hutcherson, Jessica Carlson ...

5.0

5,211

Fantasy. Horror. Thriller A young boy named Darren Shan meets a mysterious man (John C. Reilly) at a freak show who turns out to be a Vampire. After a series of events Darren must leave his normal life and go on the road with the Cirque Du Freak and become a Vampire.

	Author	Review
United States	Claudia Puig USA Today	"Reilly does a fine job (...) best of all, the movie doesn't take itself too seriously"	NEU
United States	Kirk Honeycutt The Hollywood Reporter	"Making a vampire movie without any bite is like removing guns from a Western."	NEG
United States	Andrea Gronvall Chicago Reader	"Mixing horror and comedy while minimizing the gore, writer-director Paul Weitz serves up a witty adventure fantasy with a tasty dollop of schadenfreude"	POS
United States	Kirk Honeycutt The Hollywood Reporter	"A vampire movie in sore need of a transfusion (...) udiences might get lost in this unwieldy mixture of the undead, teenage antics, failed comedy and circus freaks"	NEG
United States	Elizabeth Weitzman New York Daily News	"While 'Twilight' will make more money and get more attention, the darkly comic 'Cirque du Freak' boasts the shaggy charm of the natural underdog."	POS
United States	Peter Hartlaub SFGATE	"'Cirque du Freak' has a serious identity crisis, trying to be too many things at once and failing at most of them (...) In the end, all that's left is quirkiness and some OK special effects"	NEG
United States	James Berardinelli ReelViews	"A profoundly unsatisfying experience - and that doesn't consider the derivative nature of the plot and a lackluster performance by the lead actor."	NEU
United States	Desson Thomson The Washington Post	"Has its moments of fun, many of them having to do with Reilly's deadpan comic style. But the movie lacks the original edge of its better predecessors"	NEU
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"Jammed with story threads that don’t cohere, Cirque commits the cardinal sin for a vampire movie: It’s bloodless."	NEG

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