The Vampire’s Assistant (Review)

It’s already ended as far as I am concerned.

Look, if you’re 13 or 14, you’ve probably seen let’s say 100 or so movies. That includes all the Shreks, Toy Story’s and Madagascars, and likely all the Harry Potters. If that is the case I can really see you finding something of value in The Vampire’s Assistant.

I have not seen the Harry Potters nor the Twilights, any of them, nor have I read the books. I have no judgment to make about them, that’s just the facts.

I went into The Vampire’s Assistant with low expectations, and if Salma wasn’t in it there is a 93% chance I wouldn’t have bothered, in retrospect I guess I was right, this is a young teen’s movie with practically nothing for adults.

The film deals with two young boys, Darren is as “normal” as they come, a good student, popular enough and a pretty good kid all round, only he is mates with Steve, a troubled boy who seems to have internal issues and resents almost everything. After an early run-in Darren’s parents “advise” him to stay away from Steve altogether. (This actually happened to me in my earlier years, although in that case I was a watered-down Steve.)

Of course even Darren has some issue with authority figures, and the two decide to go to a local underground (illegal) freak show, named conveniently enough Cirque Du Freak to check it out.

Now I won’t explain too much about the freak show, the very concept lends itself to the inclusion of a myriad of unbelievable and fantastic creatures and abnormal people. Suffice to say there is a wolfman, midgets, people with various deformities and Salma as the bearded lady. Basically anything that can be done nowadays with CGI is done, (I’ll get to why that is an issue later on).

During the show the local authorities show to shut things down, and in the ensuing chaos both Darren and Steve go their separate ways and each find themselves hearing and seeing more than they bargained for, unwittingly becoming embroiled in an ancient battle between two warring parties of vampires, of which John C. Reilly as Krepsley and Willem Dafoe as Purl are members. Steve is disillusioned with being a human and wants to be a vampire, however it is Darren that is chosen by Krepsley to fill the titular occupation. The catch is that he must be seen to be dead for this to be able to fulfil the duties of his role.

Hey Presto! Darren is dead, buried, unearthed and is now a ½ vampire, with all the positives and minuses that go along with the job.

__________________________________________________

So this is where Cirque Du Freak really starts, Darren is “in”, and is welcomed into the Freak-Reserve, where all members are neutral and a tenuous truce holds. In the ensuing days Darren meets a (seemingly normal) girl named Rebecca, finds out that Salma is Krepsley’s bearded-ladyfriend, and realises that things will never be the same.

At the same time the bad guy named Mr Tiny introduces himself to young Steve, informs him that Darren is not only alive but is living HIS dream, and suggests that he might be of assistance in a plan that will benefit them both…

OK, you see where I am going with this.

The problems with The Vampire’s Assistant:

– Salma is a hot chick who when aroused in any way grows a beard. Not a good start when you have one of the hottest women on the planet and just when things get interesting she sprouts a 3 day growth. (I love Jimmy Kimmel’s comment though in an interview with Ms Hayek about that very fact, “That wouldn’t slow me down for 1 second.”) Also, this is a PG film, so we aren’t even allowed some gratuitous cleavage to lessen the blow.

– CGI is all well and good, but in the case of this film it is a well-worn crutch (and no I am not talking about Sharon Stone here). I am fine with CGI where nothing else would be possible, this is a fantasy story after all, but here too often it felt like the CGI was the story, as in “look what we did with computers!”

– There is not one memorable scene in the film. Not one character jumped out as being ultra-cool or ultra-bad, it’s like the film-makers decided that no-one could be too anything for fear of pushing this story into either non-PG or non-mainstream waters. When in doubt they simply always played it safe, even a PG movie doesn’t have to always play it safe.

– Like zombies, surely vampires have almost been done to death? Over the last few years we know how they eat, how and where they sleep, what kills them and a plethora of different but really the same things about them. A wrinkle here or there is hardly noteworthy or even interesting to this point. Soooo…

– When the action finally arrives it is so el-cheapo and dare I say it sub-TV show standard that it made the journey to get there all the more frustrating. Put another way, My Name is Earl had better action sequences.

The finale in The Vampire’s Assistant was so manufactured, so sterile, that it was so obviously only there to put a full stop to part 1 and justify a part 2 somewhere down the line.

Somehow The Vampire’s Assistant looked more like a “product” than any film I have watched for a while bar The Collector, (which I absolutely loathed by the way). Sure the acting was OK and things moved along at a nice pace, and I suppose it told a story, even if the story was very predictable.

This movie is like a precocious and headstrong teen that wants to be an adult even though it isn’t quite ready. It coughs its way through a couple of cigarettes and spouts tough talk that doesn’t make sense, but ultimately it just comes across as another try hard not yet ready for the real world.

Put another way this movie is a little like Beetlejuice was many years ago, only without the crazy asides, the humour or the redeeming feature of a commanding character like Beetlejuice himself.

Hopefully the target teen market takes more out of this.

Vampires and zombies top my list of overdone characters, yet somehow I can’t stop watching them. Movies like this will change that.

Final Rating – 6 / 10. A great example of a “So What” movie. It actually sounds like an OK premise, but the dearth of action, humour or interest kills that promise.

About OGR

While I try to throw a joke or two into proceedings when I can all of the opinions presented in my reviews are genuine. I don't expect that all will agree with my thoughts at all times nor would it be any fun if you did, so don't be shy in telling me where you think I went wrong... and hopefully if you think I got it right for once. Don't be shy, half the fun is in the conversation after the movie.
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