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Freak Accident

What's tall, blood-thirsty and prone to crashing various media outlets? No, not Dr. Phil -- vampires. These fanged plasma suckers are popping up everywhere these days, from "Twilight" and HBO's "True Blood" to the CW's "The Vampire Diaries." Now there's "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant," based on a young adult U.K. book by Darren Shan. If the last is any indication, it's time for a new trend, pronto.

"Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" is even more irritating and convoluted than its title, if you can believe it. The tale trails 16-year-old Darren (TV actor Chris Massoglia), who is "popular enough" in school, as he stumbles upon a local freak show with his bad-news buddy Steve ("Bridge to Terabithia's" Josh Hutcherson). Headed by vampire Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly), the show includes a bearded lady (Salma Hayek), reptilian rocker (Patrick Fugit) and a limb remover (Jane Krakowski), to name a few. Darren gets the brilliant idea to steal Crepsley's poisonous spider, and before long he is forced to become a half-vampire lackey, fake his own death and move into a community of freaks.

Of vampires, Crepsley says matter-of-factly, "It's a lonely life but there's lots of it," and the movie feels the same way. It seems longer than its hour-and-a-half running time, suffering from tonal whiplash and an identity crisis. Is it a black comedy? A horror film? Cheesy teen flick in the vein of "Teen Wolf"? It's a bigger mystery than how director Paul Weitz, who wrote the script with Brian Helgeland, can churn out a wonderful film like "About A Boy" and then follow it up with the abysmal "American Dreamz" and now this cloying drivel.

It doesn't help that Reilly looks like some kind of British punk rock version of Ronald McDonald and is reduced to lines like "Your blood tastes of evil!" He does his best with the material but the mere sight of him is more amusing than anything he says or does. Then there's the issue of Massoglia, who is far too lightweight to carry a film. Yes, he's pretty in an Emile Hirsch kind of way, but he can't emote and it's excruciating to watch him try. Faring better is edgy everyman Hutcherson, even though his character is a heap of clichés (his transition to the dark side, a la Darth Vader, is as lame as it sounds).

It's mildly interesting to see some familiar faces looking ridiculous in "The Vampire's Assistant," such as Willem Dafoe in a wimpy drawn-on moustache or Ken Watanabe with his over-the-top hand gestures. But for every hint of promise, there are 15 atrocious lines of dialogue and another Gollum-resembling CGI critter prancing around in a hood. Suddenly, death by bloody neck doesn't seem so unappealing.