Director: Paul Weitz
Starring: John C. Reilly, Josh Hutcherson, Chris Massoglia, Ken Watanabe, Salma Hayek, Willem Dafoe, Jessica Carlson, Michael Cerveris, Ray Stevenson, Patrick Fugit, Daniel Newman, Morgan Saylor, Colleen Camp, Orlando Jones, Kristen Schaal, Jane Krakowski, Tom Woodruff Jr.
Cert: 12
Region: B
Length: 109mins
Video: AVC, 1080p, 2.35:1
Audio: DTS-HD 5.1 MA
Languages: English, Spanish, French, DVS
Subtitles: English (SDH), Spanish, French

The Weitz brothers have had a rather hit and miss career since co-directing American Pie. Chris fumbled the ending to The Golden Compass but scored a no-brainer hit with New Moon whilst older sibling Paul pottered around on dull projects like In Good Company (so-so) and American Dreamz (arse). Well with Cirque du Freak he's finally found something to sink his teeth into. This stylish vampire fantasy proves to be his best work by far, but it's sullied by the lack of a satisfying climax and therefore it won't get a sequel in which to tie up all the loose story threads (hmm, just like The Golden Compass; Maybe the inability to end a film runs in the Weitz family).

Cirque du Freak is adapted from the first three novels in the popular 12-book series The Saga of Darren Shan. Teenager Darren (Massoglia) seems perfectly normal except for the fact he loves spiders and his best friend Steve (Hutcherson) is a sucker for vampires (no pun intended). Destiny literally comes calling in the form of villainous puppet-master Mr Tiny (Cerveris), who hands the boys a flyer for a one-night-only freak show to be held in town. Bad influence Steve drags Darren there to find a bearded lady (Hayek), a vampire named Leyton Crepsley (Reilly) and his dancing spider, Madam Octa.

After the show Darren - for reasons that aren't very clear - steals the spider and starts a chain reaction that leads to him becoming half vampire. Meanwhile Steve, believing his friend to be dead rather than just undead, swears allegiance to the Vampanese; evil vampires who kill humans instead of just harmlessly feeding off them as Crepsley does. While Darren gets used to his new life as a vampire, living at Mr Tall's freak show and sharing a tent with Evra the snake boy (Fugit), Steve learns of Darren's betrayal and goes postal under the tutelage of fellow Vampanese, Murlaugh.

There are, quite inevitably, echoes of Harry Potter in Darren's adventures - he abandons normalcy to live amongst 'gifted' people, he falls for a fellow student (here its monkey girl Rebecca) and learns to use his powers to fight the forces of evil - yet people forget these hero themes were kicking around long before J.K. Rowling started doodling in a London cafe (Star Wars anyone?). Cirque du Freak also has the misfortune - or advantage depending on how you look at it - of following a similar path to Twilight in that there are good and evil vampires, a tween love story and a lead character who refuses to drink human blood. But while the Twilight quadrilogy has already secured its place on the big screen, Cirque du Freak needed to make a mint in order for any sequels to be greenlit. Since it made just $30 million internationally we're once again left with a Weitz film that leaves the audience with a cliffhanger that'll never be resolved - at least on screen.