Directed by Paul Weitz; screenplay by Paul Weitz and Brian Helgeland, from the series of books by Darren Shan.

Hey, you know what we really need? Another teenage vampire epic, but with, like, really weird looking folks populating the cast. And maybe we can tie up the fate of the supernatural world in the conflict between two best friends turned (im)mortal enemies. Think a tweener Tru Blood (without all the sex) by way of Freaks, or better yet, a Twilight saga for teenage boys, without all the icky romantic torment and gooey longing and emo-vampires.

John C. Reilly as The Vampire

There’s plenty of other references I could call to mind in describing Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant: the dark carnival riding into town out of Something Wicked This Way Comes, which turns out to be a refuge for outcasts like the HBO series Carnivale, while there’s a conspiracy afoot to shatter the fragile truce between the (relatively) good and evil poles of the supernatural world that plays out an awful lot like Nightwatch.

That’s not to say that this film, adapted from the first couple of novels in the series by Darren Shan, is in any way inspired by/ripped off from any of the above-mentioned films. It’s just that the whole supernatural franchise thing itself is awfully derivative. The wellspring reaches back to Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia (the books, not the movies, themselves drawn for the myths and legends of numerous cultures and religions) and should, conceivably, continue in new variations forever, the classic conflicts reworked for the social worlds of each new epoch. But at the moment it’s running dry as every publisher and film studio looks for its own series and ends up redressing the same archetypes without coming up with any fresh stories.

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The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (dir: Tony Scott)

The original 1974 The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is a kind of blue collar cult film, a smartly done crime thriller about smart crooks, a smart transit cop and a battle of wits over the hijacking of a subway car and the ransoming of the passenger. A terrific concept, great plotting and shoes-on-the-street police work.

Tony Scott, the director behind some of the emptiest action flash and confoundingly vacant thrillers of the past few decades, takes the helm of this remake and defies expectations. Directing from a solidly plotted script by Brian Helgeland, who isn’t slavish to the original film (the film credits John Godey’s novel but not the 1976 screenplay adaptation), he delivers a focused and refreshingly straightforward thriller that forgoes the usual high tech confusion and contrived high-concept twists so often laid in to surprise audiences.

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