CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT

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Scattershot and comically unbalanced, "Cirque du Freak" is a wannabe horror film that feels like it was filmed underwater.

Teenage best friends Steve (Josh Hutcherson) and Darren (Chris Massoglia) buy their way into a troop of freaks performing at their local small-town theater.

Mr. Ribs is so named because his internal organs are exposed.

There's also a monkey girl — a tribute to her simian tail. Miscast as the show is John C. Reilly as the show's vampire-about-town Larten Crepsley.

Steve recognizes Crepsley as an immortal bloodsucker from a book that Steve values because he aspires to undead status.

A visit from the nefarious Mr. Tiny and one misplaced psychedelic-colored giant tarantula later, and the boys choose mutually-exclusive paths into evil. Darren suffers the ultimate insult in order to become a vampire to save Steve from a coma induced by the spider's bite. Steve teams up with Mr. Tiny, whose close ties to a less sophisticated tribe of vampires known as the "Vampaneze" play into his plot to provoke a long-simmering war between the Vampires and the Vampaneze.

A pot-shot subplot romance between Rebecca (Jessica Carlson) and Darren turns out to be the most redeeming aspect of this woefully misguided film, based on a series of books by Darren Shan.

Rated PG-13. 108 mins.