Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant Review

The projectionist could’ve run this film backwards, and I don’t think I would’ve noticed. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is a HollywoodHollywood reviews attempt to massage author Darren Shan’s 12-part saga of vampires and teenagers into a viable, cash-cow franchise. Spanning the first three novels, Assistant doesn’t tell a story as much as it hurls everything that isn’t nailed down against the wall to see what sticks. Labored and often tedious, the picture is a friendly stab at Burtonesque macabre antics, but director Paul Weitz is in way over his head trying to juggle huge portions of the grotesque and the epic. 16-year-old Darren (Chris Massoglia) is an average teen with good grades and a love for spiders. Finding a flyer for the Cirque du Freak sideshow, Darren decides to attend with impulsive best friend Steve (the limited Josh Hutcherson), finding [Read more...]

Review: Jailbait Zombie – An Emo-Erotica Free Vampire Tale!

I. Hate. VampiresVampires reviews. Present tense. But I might be softening up a bit thanks to my new hero, Mario Acevedo. The shame is that I used to really like vampires. I thought they were much more cool back when they were less cool. Back when their existence was considered tragic. A curse that offset the thrill of immortality. Then they became a clique of badass goths. Now the trend seems to be progressing through this phase and into emo erotica. Pardon the pun, but what the undead really needs is a bit of new life breathed into them. Someone should come along and re-think vampire lore from the ground-up. Actually, an author has already done this. Meet the hero I mentioned above, Mario Acevedo. [Read more...]