Vampire Carnival Review: Twilight Meets the Fairground, and It Doesn't Hold Together

A mortal twentysomething caught between two hunky vampire carnival workers is the premise of Vampire Carnival, a film that trades on Twilight comparisons and, according to the Guardian's review, winds up "disappointingly disjointed".

The Guardian's critic opened with the film's sharpest line: "Does this whole Edward Cullen act actually work?" It's a fair question, because the movie wears its influences openly. Willowy mortal Gemma, played by Nell Verlaque, arrives at a hot vampire carnival with her friends and finds herself in what the review calls a "pointy-toothed tug of war" between two men.

On one side: tender Italian hunk Sebastian, played by Alvise Rigo. On the other: her bad-boy ex Eric, played by Kieron Moore, who has apparently joined the circus as the ostentatiously self-harming Man Who Feels No Pain after years of absence. When Gemma strolls in with pals Ryan (Corrado Martini) and Olivia (Pauline Chávez), the review notes dryly, "the ab count nearly outdoes the haemoglobin one."

What's actually going on at this carnival?

Gemma, the review explains, is still regrouping after her father's suicide an unspecified time earlier. Her mum is relieved when she takes a night off from grieving at the local fair. That's the emotional setup — grief as the doorway to the supernatural.

The mechanism underneath is a coven. When Sebastian invites Gemma into the carnival's "orgiastic inner sanctum," she learns the workers are bloodsuckers operating under leader Toussaint, played by Jason Isaac. The coven follows a strict no-killing code. For potential initiates like Gemma, that means obtaining consent.

"No means no," Sebastian says — a line the review frames as the voice of an "immortal softboi." It's the film's clearest gesture toward a consent-and-ethics framework for its vampires, and it's one of the details that gives the first act its enlivening charge.

What does this change for the viewer?

Not much, sadly. The review's verdict is that this "good-looking whirligig" — a carnival spinning with visual appeal — starts strong and then falls apart structurally. Good looks, but as the critic puts it, "not much to chew on."

So what does that mean practically? If you're after a Twilight-flavored romance with a carnival setting and a consent-conscious coven, the first half delivers. If you want a story that holds its pieces together, the review suggests you'll leave hungry.

The film's real tension is between its ingredients and its assembly: a grief subplot, a love triangle, a no-killing vampire code, and a circus of attractions. The Guardian's take is that they never cohere — a handsomely mounted ride that judders partway through.