Review: The Screenwriter of THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT Needed Some Assistance

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Review: The Screenwriter of THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT Needed Some Assistance

Posted on 23 October 2009 by Brent Hartinger, Editor

One Torch (Out of Five)

We’re in the middle of a full-fledged vampire-mania. Has anyone noticed?

After the break-out success of Underworld, Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries, you might be tempted to think that Hollywood can do no wrong when it comes to vampire-themed stories.

You’d be wrong.

Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, the long-delayed movie opening today, is a major misfire, and I’ll be shocked if, when all is said and done, it isn’t an equally major box office flop.

Truthfully, I’m sick to death of vampires. But even I can see that most of the recent successes work, more or less, as good entertainment.

The Vampire’s Assistant doesn’t. Which is a real shame, because it’s based on a series of surprisingly fun children’s books, The Saga of Darren Shan (usually referred to as Cirque du Freak).

The trailers make it sound like this movie is a remake of I Was a Teenage Vampire, but that’s not really the story here at all.

In fact, the movie starts quite strong, with “goody-two-shoes” Darren being pressured by his parents not to hang out with his “bad boy” best friend Steve. When they sneak out at night to visit a traveling “Cirque du Freak” — a mysterious freakshow — Darren finds his rebellious streak at last, sneaking backstage to learn that several of the freaks are, in fact, vampires.

Soon Darren’s impetuousness leads to his friend Steve’s near-death. In exchange for saving Steve’s life, one of the vampires makes a deal that Darren become his assistant — which also means his becoming a half-vampire (although this is apparently no different from a “full” vampire, except he can go out during the day).

But there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Both Darren and Steve, it seems, have an important, if completely coincidental, destiny in an ongoing battle between “vampires” and the much more brutal “vampaneze.” Problem is, they might end up fighting on opposites sides of the war.

As usual, the movie’s problems all come down to the screenplay. The Vampire’s Assistant is an adaptation of the first three entries in the book series, but this requires a major rearranging and reinventing of events. The end result comes across as way too convoluted, glossing over some important things and shoehorning in plenty of unnecessary ones.

Why does Darren like spiders (a major plot point) and why is Steve drawn to vampires (another major plot point)? The movie spends all of ten seconds explaining it with the narration that says “it’s in our blood.”

As a result, the movie’s central conflict between Darren and Steve feels forced — and seems to require Steve becoming a wholly different character halfway through the movie.

Meanwhile, John C. Reilly’s Mr. Crepsley, the central vampire, is very different from the books — and the characterization falls almost completely flat. (Journey to the Center of the Earth’s Josh Hutcherson, an ordinarily appealing actor, is also seriously miscast, as Steve.)

Even the movie’s “freaks” — a luscious palette for a fantasy filmmaker if there ever was one — come across as surprisingly cliched and boring (although the actual “freak show” at the beginning of the movie does work quite well).

Surprisingly, the movie was written and directed by Paul Weitz, Oscar-nominated (with his brother Chris) for About a Boy. Then again, they also directed the wildly over-praised American Pie.

I have no idea if the current vampire-mania is going to continue unabated. But if it doesn’t, we can point to The Vampire’s Assistant and say, “That was the beginning of the end.”