Cirque du Freak: El aprendiz de vampiro

I threw this on after a bad day not wanting anything too heavy, expecting a typical crappy teen movie, but it was much better than I expected. It was interesting and funny without crossing over into being campy. Josh Hutcherson's role was a bit too stereotypical, but I rather liked John C. Reilly's character. Not a mind-blowing movie, but worth the watch imo.

I have seen Twilight New Moon (hasnt everyone!?) and also the Korean bloody vampire movie Thirst but I guess the closest this comes is the older Interview with a Vampire, story is a long way off.

Basically this is a comedy movie for kids up to 16 or so and if you are an adult like me and still enjoyed it, good for you! Pleasant story line, I am not familiar with the books but my 11 year old ought to be better hooked on these books than the Twilight ones which have been hyped up too much. give credit here where credit is due, a good original story with lots of fun moments and if they did take out from the original trailer, it is all the more better for the film.

Good vampire movie overall, nothing horrific, nothing cheesy like Twilight movie, nothing too nasty, just a nice film to watch for all the family. Go spoil yourself and have a scream or two, it wont hurt!

Although I worked in a bookstore a while back, I never actually did read a single of the Darren Shan books, although just familiar with them from the genre and the covers. So I wasn't even aware that this movie was based on those, until I watched the DVD extras after having seen the movie.

I found this movie in a secondhand store, and thought to myself 'a vampire movie with John C. Reilly, well that ought to be unusual', and so I picked it up and decided to give it a go.

I will say that, much like "Twilight", this vampire movie is a vampire movie for a teenage audience. However, unlike "Twilight", this movie is not about love, sparkly vampires (though the big hair is here!) or werewolves (again, there is one of those as well). "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" is a bit more gloomy and dark compared to the lovefest known as "Twilight". However, that being said, it is not really enough to make it overly suitable for an audience out of their teenage years. I was waiting and hoping for a bit more than the movie did deliver.

The story is about a young boy named Darren (played by Chris Massoglia) and his friend Steve (played by Josh Hutcherson) who come across a traveling freak show that is in town for one night only. They go there and enter a world of bizarre oddities and a brooding war between vampires.

"Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" does have some rather impressive names to the cast list. Despite my first initial puzzlement about John C. Reilly being in a vampire movie, then he actually did a good job, and comes to show his diversity of being an actor outside the comedy genre. But the movie also has Salma Hayek, Willem Dafoe, Frankie Faison, Ken Watanabe and Ray Stevenson to the cast list. And much has probably be said about this already, but seeing Salma Hayek with a beard was just fun - and most impressively was that she carried it so well.

One of the better things in the movie, was the costume design and the set designs. There were so many nice details to the clothing, and especially to the fream show camp. Keep your eyes open here, because there is a lot of really nice treats to behold. And if you get the DVD with the extras on it, I suggest you take the tour of the camp, because it is really worth it.

"Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" is a teenage movie and a movie for fans of the Darren Shan books, I am sure. I found it to be entertaining enough for a single watching, but I doubt I will ever make a second watching out of it. It was just a bit too much out of my interest. As much as I have strained to point out the target audience age of this movie, then "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" was still more enjoyable than "Twilight" (of which, I mistakenly saw the first movie, and stayed well clear of all that came afterwards).

The film 'Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant' is directed by Paul Weitz. The film takes place in America, shown through common American features. This film is a vampire teen thriller which was quite exciting and contains lots of action. The acting was good especially from Darren and Mr Crepsley as they show emotion clearly. For me, the best moment has to be when Mr. Crepsley and the Vampanese leader had a fight as it was up in tempo and thrilling. I really enjoyed the film because it was very different from most vampire films. This makes it unique. If I had to change anything, I'd make it more realistic and believable. I would recommend this film if you like cheesy action films.

This movie was actually very entertaining. I didn't expect much going in but I actually liked the story. While I thought it was going to be a Twilight ripoff, I think it actually made in fun of Twilight a little bit--which made for great fun. The acting was better than expected. I was especially surprised by John C. Reilly. I absolutely loved his character! I agree with others when I say that it's actually refreshing to see him in a more serious role. The movie was interesting, unique, caring, and humorous. I definitely recommend seeing the movie. I think it's going to be a great series. I look forward to seeing the next movie.