I want a sweet duster like that.

I finally managed to grab my Bluray copy of Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. I saw the movie in theatres originally and I was itching to see it again.

To give a short summary; kids go to see freak show, vampire has cool pet spider, kid screws with vampire’s pet spider, spider bites kid’s friend, kid goes to ask vampire to help friend, vampire bites kid, vampire saves friend, friend wants to be bitten by vampire, Salma Hayek with a beard. Everyone got that? (In all seriousness, the story is fairly solid and I’m just too lazy to type it all up. You can read an actual synopsis here.)

While I very much enjoyed this movie, it got slammed by critics. This is one of those rare times where I can kind of understand why they had problems with it. It’s a movie that can’t seem to decide if it’s for kids or for teenagers, so ends up being for neither. There is language and violence that make this difficult to show a kid, but there are elements that teenagers are going to find too juvenile.

The fact that the movie didn’t do well is really a shame. It’s a fun movie with an interesting array of characters. John C. Reilly wasn’t an actor that came to mind when I thought “vampire”, but that’s kind of what’s nice about it. Oddly enough, the real show stealer is Evra the Snake Boy, played by Patrick Fugit. He managed to infuse a fair amount of comedy into his character and make him seem less like someone who is half serpent and more like a teenager with some unfortunate form of green acne.

The overall character designs for the film are fun and interesting. (Even though it certainly had one of the ugliest, if not THE ugliest, wolf men I’ve ever seen.) Even though many of the freaks at the cirque are bit characters, each actor seemed to work really hard to infuse them with some sort of distinct personality. With such a large cast it’s nice to see a group effort rather than characters that are really nothing more than set dressings.

The effects in the film aren’t great, but they’re passable. It was nice to see that they attempted practical effects when possible instead of going a pure CGI route. The actual style of the film is very sharp and appealing.

At its core, the film has a lot of heart and likable characters. It probably needed some more sorting to help it better find its audience, but ends up being highly entertaining regardless. I’d actually love to see a sequel, but with the abysmal reviews, I’m fairly sure one won’t be made. Luckily it is based off of a book series, so there’s still a way to find out what happens next.

If you’re inclined to give it a chance, I would encourage it. It has more elements to enjoy than to criticize.

Final Score: 4 out of 5.