Story
Sixteen-year-old Darren Shan (Chris Massogloia) is talked into attending the travelling freak show Cirque du Freak by his best friend Steve (Josh Hutcherson). While there, Steve realises that one of the performing freaks, a man called Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly), is a vampire.
Crepsley has a giant poisonous performing spider called Madame Octa, and Darren has a passion for spiders. Following the show, Darren decides to go backstage and ‘borrow’ Madame Octa. While Darren is taking the spider, he overhears Steve ask Crepsley to turn him (Steve) into a vampire. Crepsley refuses.
Darren manages to get away with the spider, which he takes to school the next day. Unfortunately, it escapes from Darren’s locker and bites Steve, who ends up in hospital in a coma. Darren goes back to Cirque du Freak to get an antidote from Crepsley. In return for the antidote, Darren must agree to becoming Crepsley’s assistant. This involves Darren being turned into a half-vampire. Following Darren’s transformation, Crepsley gives the antidote to Steve, who promptly recovers. But when Steve learns that Darren has been turned into a half-vampire, he becomes very jealous and vows revenge.
Themes
Freak shows; vampires; jealousy and revenge
Violence
The violence in this movie is at times quite brutal. But much of it is shown in comic-book style, with little or no blood and gore. Also, the majority of the action violence is confined to three major fight scenes. For example:
Sexual references
This movie contains occasional mild sexual innuendoes and references. For example:
- Crepsley finds pornographic magazines in Darren’s bedroom and asks why he doesn’t get it off the internet.
- A teenage girl asks Darren to take off his pants. Darren looks a little confused, but the girl explains that he has a tear in his pants that needs mending.
- Darren talks to Crepsley about liking a girl who has a tail. Crepsley says that he likes his female partner’s beard.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
This movie contains some use of substances. For example:
- In a couple of scenes, people drink wine from glasses but don’t seem drunk. A man suggests having ‘one for the road’ and drinks all the wine in his glass.
- A couple of times, Steve talks about his mother being drunk all the time. Steve appears resentful about this.
Nudity and sexual activity
This movie contains some partial nudity and sexual activity. For example:
- Women wear low-cut tops that reveal cleavage.
- A woman feeds a man cake icing from her fingertip. She breaks off her finger, places it her mouth and offers the other end to a man. They eat the finger and kiss passionately when they meet in the middle.
- During a performance of Cirque de Freak, a female performer wearing a low-cut and tight-fitting dress drags Darren onto the stage. She acts in a sensual way towards him, and he gently touches her face. Then she suddenly pulls away and slaps Darren across the face. She then instantly grows a beard. A similar scene occurs when Crepsley touches the woman’s face, after which Crepsley passionately kisses the woman on the lips.
Product placement
None of concern
Coarse language
This movie contains some coarse language, put-downs and name-calling.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is based up a series of books. It is a supernatural vampire thriller suited to an older adolescent audience. It contains numerous scenes and images capable of disturbing younger children.
The main message from this movie is that it doesn’t matter whether you are seen as a freak or otherwise. What matters is how you behave and how you treat others.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include self-sacrifice and courage. For example, Darren sacrifices his own life to save the life of his best friend. He also hangs onto his humanity by refusing to drink the blood of humans.
This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about issues such as Crepsley’s view of right and wrong. He thinks that because vampires don’t kill humans when they drink human blood, vampires are better than Vampanese, who do kill their victims. You might want to talk about whether Crepsley’s behaviour is still a kind of assault, because his victims don’t know what he’s doing to them.