L'assistant du vampire

I watched a screening of this movie and loved it. I wasn't sure whether to expect a children's movie or adult movie, and it came out to be more like the latter. I grew up reading & watching "Goosebumps", and this movie made me feel like I was watching a "Goosebumps" film tailored for adults.

John C. Reilly does a really great job acting; it's nice to see him do something more challenging again. If you are turned off by his work in movies like Walk Hard, Talladega Nights, etc., give him a chance in this movie. He really impressed me. Patrick Fugit was my favorite actor in the film; his character was visually an eyesore but also in some odd way incredibly adorable. And Chris Massoglia, of course, was a great lead actor.

I would watch this film again when it officially comes out in theaters.

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.

My tween-age daughter has become a fan of all things vampire thanks to the "Twilight" books and films, so she asked me to take her to see this movie, even though it's based on a different series.

Although "Cirque du Freak" shows its "young adult" target audience, it was not as bad as many teen-oriented films I have seen. It had an interesting, if simplistic, storyline, and was effectively filmed. I agree with the comments that especially commend the Freak Show scene as an early high point, but the rest of the story moved along at about the right pace, and I never found myself bored.

I'm told the teen lead was very attractive, but he's not much of an actor. His evil counterpart, played by Josh Hutcherson of "RV," was somewhat better. I'm not a real John Reilly fan, but he did a good job in his leading role. Willem Dafoe was wasted playing, essentially, a vampire version of John Waters. I would hope that Ken Watanabe and Salma Hayek would have a bit more to do in future installments. Ditto Orlando Jones, who hasn't done much since the horrible "Evolution" nearly killed his career. I also hope the character of Mr. Tiny is written better in the future; this guy was a pain to watch, and came off more like a sweaty pedophile than a supernatural referee or whatever the hell he was supposed to be.

Parents: nothing to worry about here. I'm not even sure how it came in at PG-13, unless there was some mild profanity sprinkled in that I don't remember. This might be a little complicated for little ones, but ages 8 and over shouldn't be scared by anything they see here. Best of all, it's not too painful for adults to watch if you must. Then again, I'm a veteran of the Pokemon movies; I've been to movie hell, so I can sit through anything now.

This movie was surprisingly good, mind you I went it with zero expectations. The premise Is fairly well developed, but the storyline itself leaves a lot to be desired. There's no real conclusion to anything, there's a 'final fight' scene which is well choreographed but doesn't do much to actually end the movie. It seems like they were trying to set up a sequel that never happened. I enjoyed the rest of the movie, it was definitely for kids, but easy to watch.

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).