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.

Gee, this cover made highschool fun.

Earlier today, a friend of mine posted a link to this webpage that has reviews of several of Laurell K. Hamilton’s books; namely her Anita Blake series. It was nice to know that I wasn’t alone in my opinions of the series, but it was definitely a depressing reminder.

I remember I discovered the series by accident and also accidentally ended up purchasing and reading the fourth book first. (I’m always on the lookout for a good supernatural read, and the back copy caught my interest.) Even without all of the background on the characters I probably should have had, I devoured the book in one evening. I immediately went back for more and worked my way up to book eight.

The descent into the sickness of the author seemed sudden, but when I really took a look back, I realized that it had always been slowly edging that way. The first couple of books were pretty chaste, the following ones added a little sex as the character’s relationships evolved and grew, then a little more and then BAM, the bus dropped us off at Sex Ville. The character I had started to respect as a strong, uncompromising female was suddenly the sex-toy of every supernatural critter she came across.

There have been eight more books since I halted my reading (I stopped after Narcissus in Chains), and from everything I’ve read they only get more screwed up. I honestly should have stopped at Obsidian Butterfly, which was an altogether disgusting novel.

A couple of years ago I actually went to a Comic Con panel featuring Laurell K. Hamilton. Her reasoning for this change in tone across the series is that when she began it she was going through a tough relationship break. When she found someone new and was apparently having fantastic sex (too much information), the tone shifted. I can understand that, but I still don’t see exactly how awesome sex translates to her character banging everything she comes across. If anything, I think it would have meant a shift towards her character being in one really fantastic relationship instead of becoming the whore of the underworld.

Beyond becoming simply too disgusting for me to want to read, there’s the issue of her Anita Blake character becoming ridiculously overpowered. Seriously. Check the Wikipedia article and read just what powers this woman now has. I’m all for unique characters with interesting abilities, but there comes a point where they are no longer interesting or even relatable. It also seemed that at last glance she had all the best parts of the powers and very little of the downsides and consequences. She’s supposedly infected with at least half a dozen lycanthropic strains at this point, yet she shifts into none of them. Give me a break.

Every character I’d cared about has been pretty mucked up beyond recognition by this stage of the series. If I wanted to read smut, I’d buy smut, which brings me to my final point. I don’t know who made the decision to change the book covers, but whoever you are, you suck. I started reading the series around mid-highschool, and at the time the covers were pretty innocuous. Shortly after that I ended up with half-naked women on the front which resulted in strange looks from classmates and teachers. I was left to defend myself and assure everyone I wasn’t reading porn, but I’m not sure if anyone believed me. It was bad enough that the title of the first book was Guilt Pleasures without having a naked, purple-lit torso with rose petals gracing the front.

Don't be sad, I still think you're sexy.

While my allegiance obvious lies with werewolves, my love of vampires runs a close (but not too close) second. Let’s face it, vampires are pretty damn cool, and I am always down to chill with my blood-sucking brethren.

So why do I prefer werewolves? What about them is more appealing? Beyond that fact that I think werewolves have a more fascinating mythology and are often stylistically cooler, I would have to say sympathy and empathy.

Werewolves, on the whole, are people who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Characters like Larry Talbot and David Kessler were just normal guys to whom Fate dealt an unfair hand. Aspects of their lives were taken completely out of their control and they were tortured with the knowledge that there’s nothing they can do to stop it. (Be honest; who hasn’t felt that way at one time or another?) I think the ryhme from the original 1941 Wolf Man sums this up pretty well:

Even a man who is pure in heart
and says his prayers by night,
may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.

Sorry Joe Shmoe, you are screwed.

To add to the above connection that some may feel with werewolf characters, I think it’s also pretty safe to say we’ve all felt our own inner “beasts” creeping up from our subconscious from time to time. Be it the flaring of a temper, feelings of jealousy or greed, or plain old bad-assery. Werewolves just take this a step further by physically transforming to coincide with the mental transformation.

Now with vampires, it seems to me that there are far less of the remorseful variety. There are definitely some, and even a few of the less sympathetic examples bear some form regret, but it’s not as amplified as it is with werewolves. Many of the daylight-challenged seem to take up the “well, a vampire’s got to eat” attitude. While all of this goes a long way as far as creating a truly terrifying villain, it also makes for a less relateable character.

Oh woe is me. I must kill you to sustain my immortal and sexy life. Boo hoo.

I am aware that there are numerous exceptions to everything I’ve stated above. The unwilling vampire recruit, Michael, from Lost Boys, and the violent Eddie Quist from The Howling are just a two examples. There’s also the neither here nor there “monsters” from origins such as the Twilight series. Still, you can’t deny the largely consistent depictions of werewolves and vampires across film, literature and more.

In the end, no matter which you prefer, vampires make bigger box office dollars. I’ve read numerous theories about this, but it really doesn’t matter. Vampires will always trump werewolves in terms of popularity.

Some things never change. (Well, the werewolves do…you know what I mean.)