Director Paul Weitz fails to capture any plausible magic or teen angst in this superficial treatment of the first trilogy in Darren Shan's popular book series for young adults. The casting of bland Chris Massoglia is no help, either; he plays Darren Shan, the small-town youth who unknowingly breaks a 200-year-old truce between warring vampire factions when he becomes involved in the vaudevillian lives of a group of misunderstood sideshow freaks. At least John C Reilly brings some class to his role as Shan's undead mentor Larten Crepsley. But there's so much plot information and so many colourful characters (played by the likes of Salma Hayek and Willem Dafoe) crammed into this unevenly toned coming-of-age fantasy, it seems more about setting up the sequels than making a decent original. With a new set of vampiric rules (powerful super spit, narcoleptic breath exhalation) proving as hokey as the creatively moribund visual effects (the ragged super-fast running sequences being the worst contenders), this attempt to emulate the Harry Potter franchise is an unwieldy combination of botched humour and larky thrills.

When Darren Shan is taken to a circus that's chock-full of sideshow oddities, he meets a vampire and receives a life-changing bite on the neck.