Jason Isaacs playing a vampire should be enough to get a movie onto your Halloween watchlist. Add Kieron Moore, a sinister traveling carnival, and the filmmakers who brought us The Boy Behind the Door, and it becomes an especially tempting way to spend the holiday. Vampire Carnival is bringing all of that home on October 30, leaving horror fans just enough time to squeeze another vampire movie into their October plans.
Thanksgiving’sNell Verlaque stars as Gemma, a grieving young woman drawn to a mysterious carnival that arrives in her town. Isaacs plays Toussaint, while Moore takes on Eric, a role that puts the Vampire Academy actor back among the undead. Between the carnival setting and a cast with plenty of experience making trouble in supernatural worlds, directors David Charbonier and Justin Douglas Powell have an enticing setup for a Halloween watch.
During an interview with Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, Moore discussed getting into character, right down to learning how to speak with his new teeth. “I had to beat the lisp pretty quickly,” he admitted. “First put them in, I was like, ‘Oh no, like this is gonna be terrible.’” The fangs required some homework, too. “I was practicing in my room with the fangs, like I took them home.” The carnival offered a more welcoming introduction to the production, at least behind the scenes. “I love it when you don’t have to pretend in regard to the scenery,” Moore said. For anyone who grew up wanting to run away and join the show, his enthusiasm will sound familiar:
“As a kid, you’re either terrified of the carnival or you’re like, ‘I could do this,’ you know, ‘I could run away and be part of the show.’”
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Classic Mystery Movie Are You? Clue · Rear Window · Se7en · Memento
Answer eight quick questions and we will tell you which one you are. Four films that solve a mystery in four completely different ways, from a comedy with three separate endings to a thriller told backwards.
🕯Clue(1985)
🪟Rear Window(1954)
📦Se7en(1995)
📸Memento(2000)
01
What kind of film night are you after? Pick the one that sounds most like you.
02
How would your friends describe you? Be honest.
03
What do you do when you are stuck at home? One answer only.
04
How do you react to a plot twist? Pick the closest answer.
05
Pick a room. No wrong answers here.
06
What is your memory like? Pick the closest answer.
07
How do you feel about endings? Think about the last film that got you.
08
What should a mystery film do to you? Last one. This is the one that decides it.
Roll Credits Your Film Is…
Clue went back into cinemas for its fortieth birthday with the three
endings handed out at random, which is a good reminder that the mystery film will try anything. Here
is yours, what it says about you, and the case for it being the best of the four.
Jonathan Lynn · Clue · 1985
Clue
You are the most fun thing in the room and you are not remotely
in control of it. Clue is a murder mystery built from a board game, played at farce speed by
one of the best comic ensembles ever assembled, and it refuses to commit to a single answer.
You keep the energy up and the plan loose, and people have a much better evening because
of it.
Three different endings were sent to different cinemas in 1985, so the answer depended
on which screen you walked into.
It flopped completely, found its audience on video, and went back into cinemas for its
fortieth anniversary with the endings randomised again.
Your flaw is that chaos is excellent company and a terrible plan.
Alfred Hitchcock · Rear Window · 1954
Rear Window
You watch, and you notice the thing everybody else walks past.
Hitchcock trapped James Stewart in one room with a broken leg and a view of his neighbours,
and built an entire thriller out of a man looking out of a window and being right.
You are quietly the most observant person in your circle and you clock changes before
anybody announces them.
The courtyard was one of the largest sets ever built at Paramount, with thirty-one
apartments and working plumbing.
It was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Director and is still taught as
the cleanest thriller ever constructed.
Your risk is that watching and doing something about it are not the same, and you know
it.
David Fincher · Se7en · 1995
Se7en
You take things on and you do not put them down. Fincher made a
serial killer film where the detectives are losing the entire time, shot it so dark the
studio complained, and refused to change an ending that everybody told him would sink the
film.
You are the one who keeps going after everybody else has accepted it cannot be solved.
New Line wanted a different ending and Brad Pitt reportedly refused to make the film
without the one they shot.
It turned Fincher from the director who had a bad time on Alien 3 into the defining
thriller director of his generation.
Your weakness is that carrying something this long does real damage, and you are usually
the last to notice.
Christopher Nolan · Memento · 2000
Memento
Nobody can quite follow your thinking and you get there anyway.
Nolan told the story backwards, so the audience knows as little as the man at the centre of
it does, and the whole film becomes an argument about how much of what you believe you
simply decided to believe.
You work things out sideways, and explaining the route takes longer than the answer did.
It was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing in 2002 and won
neither, which still annoys people.
It cost around nine million dollars, made over five times that, and built the career
that led to everything after.
Your flaw is trusting your own version of events slightly more than the evidence
supports.
Kieron Moore Had to Remind Himself He Was Acting Opposite Jason Isaacs
Vampire CarnivalImage via Aura Entertainment
Then there was the matter of working with Captain Hook himself. Sharing scenes with Isaacs meant Moore had to get past the understandable urge to watch him work. “On the first day, I kind of caught myself being like, ‘This guy is amazing, but get that out of your head,’” he recalled. “’Stop watching him, just be in there with him.’” The experience left Moore with more than another familiar name on his resume. “I just walked away being like, ‘That’s the kind of actor I want to be,’” he told Lovitt. Even the comparison between this production and Isaacs’ larger projects made an impression: “Some people try and coast through stuff. Jason never did that.”
As for Moore’s own contribution to the carnival’s dangers, Eric gave him plenty to work with. “I definitely didn’t come at him as a villain,” he explained. “I really just tried to find the person in there.” That approach still leaves room for a warning about the character: “I just think he’s a man with an obsession, really.”Vampire Carnival is at its most entertaining when it embraces the excess of its premise, letting its gorgeous setting and dangerous vampires do the seducing. Moore makes Eric compelling even when he’s making it very clear why Gemma should stay away. It’s an easy pick for a Halloween movie night, especially if your taste in vampires leans toward leather coats and red flags.
If your Halloween plans involve staying home and watching attractive vampires make terrible decisions, Vampire Carnival deserves a spot in the rotation. Vampire Carnival arrives on VOD October 30. Stay tuned at Collider for more.
