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Universal must have been rubbing their hands with glee at Mr Cullen’s deification. Darren Shan’s Cirque du Freak series were a big part of my childhood, so I’ve been eyeing its adaptation suspiciously for some time. Its release now, at the height of Meyer-dom, can only be a conveniently cynical act by the studio.

Don’t stop reading – unlike Twilight, these books are challenging, packed with surprisingly dark turns, and not a sparkle in sight. It wasn’t exactly Dostoyevsky – yet on a recent reread, I was pleased to discover it still packs a punch with adult eyes. Yes, every single chapter does end with an exclamation mark – as in “…and now the wolf was coming for me!” – but that is virtually the only concession Shan makes to his child audience. The series was peppered with violence, irony and a lack of easy answers. One particularly effective plot arc reunited long-dead Darren with his girlfriend – now a teacher, with a life of her own. The life of a vampire is not glamorous – Shan riffs off the earthiness of Bram Stoker, but without any of the allure. The

vampire legend is stripped down to merely increased strength and speed with an aversion to sunlight. Towards the end of the 12-book series – arranged into four loose trilogies – the plot wheeled higher than one could have ever anticipated, with paradoxes, time travel, alternate earths and even more tougher -than -tough decisions.

As a student of film, I’m well aware that adaptations can’t – and indeed, shouldn’t – stick rigidly to their source material. Preserving the mood, the tone or underlying message is far more valuable – and with the studio wanting to play up to an easy child market, it was exactly this I dreaded losing. So did it deliver the depth I enjoyed from the books, or was it watered down?

Even in my most optimistic moments, I didn’t envisage walking out of the cinema grinning. To my deep surprise, the plot was completely intact – and possibly more effective than the books for weaving in threads from all over the series. Unlike the books, it provides sulky loner Mr Crepsley with credible motivation for taking on the Assistant of the title. John C Reilly is great as the crusty and worldweary vamp, and he is accompanied by an imaginative collection of sideshow folk – including Salma Hayek with a beard, and a fey Willem Dafoe as fellow vampire Gavner. Most fun is cosmic puppetmaster Mr Tiny, dabbling with self fulfilling prophecies and deus ex machina, attending funerals with a bucket of popcorn and gleefully trying to stir up an apocalypse for his own amusement. And again, to my surprise, the tone remained dark – Darren is blackmailed into abandoning his family, while his lonely best friend Steve is failed by everyone. To cap it off: it was nicely shot, packed with imaginative touches and with a lovely shabby style. The one criticism I would make would be the irritating music – desperate to be Danny Elfman – but you can’t have it all.

The Vampire’s Assistant outdid all my expectations. But does this mean you should go see it? It might have been a better film for being less faithful: although introducing elements from later books was effective dramatically, it still felt like a rushed and cynical ploy to make you see the sequels. For me, who already has a huge investment in the characters, this was all very exciting – but on screen, it did feel very much like every other run-of-the-mill Prophesised Final Battle™ served up by fantasy fiction. This was capped by a cop-out ending which again, as a fan, made perfect sense – but would doubtless seem deeply unsatisfying to everyone else.

Final verdict? A very worthy addition to young teen cinema which in no way sells out its gothic origins. In a market packed by soulless cash-ins, you could do far worse than see this film. And for fanboys? Charna’s guts! Bring on film 2!

I watch as eight of the finest legs in rock take to the stage; seeing Franz Ferdinand playing as the clocks go back in this magnificently Victorian venue gives the whole thing a seedy timelessness, enhanced by their brittle brand of debauched pop.

The music comes almost nonstop for two hours. Aside from comparing the audience to a brothel that had not been redecorated in fifty years, they kept the chat to a minimum – much to my delight. Unless they keep performing as they speak, I believe bands should shut up on stage. There’s nothing so disappointing as the moment the music stops and the talking starts, and the rock god turns out to be as dull and stage-awkward as any mortal. Nothing was done about my other pet peeve though – why should the drum and bass be turned up so loud for live music that any guitar intricacies are lost, and playing the keyboard becomes entirely pointless?

One thing that has always kept me from appreciating The Franz is a lack of variety.  Individually all their songs are perfect pop treats, but over the course of an album sound annoyingly similar. And over the course of a concert, that chunky bass is so insistent that I find myself becoming quickly fatigued. One of the problems is a set list targeted at all their dancier tracks – no ‘Eleanor Put Your Boots On’, ‘No Fade Together’, no ‘Katherine Kiss Me’. Exciting, but the silences and slow moments are what give the noise their power. Perhaps I wasn’t drunk enough to appreciate it – at £4.40 for a vodka and coke the size of a Calpol dose, why would I be? This was most obvious as the concert dribbled into a lengthy, repetitive instrumental, and then into nothingness.

‘Michael’ and ‘Take Me Out’ are obvious highpoints, but recent lead single ‘Ulysses’ is unable to match the heady atmosphere of the album on that loud stage. Part one ends with an invigorating drum-jam, with the entire band running about and bashing away on a set at the front of the stage.

Alex Kapranos described the new album as: “music of the night: to fling yourself around your room to as you psyche yourself for a night of hedonism, for the dance-floor, flirtation, for your desolate heart-stop, for losing it and loving losing it, for the chemical surge in your bloodstream. It’s for that lonely hour gently rocking yourself waiting for dawn and it all to be even again.”

I include it partly because it’s a fine quote, and partly because it sums this evening up so well. I figure maybe some dancing shoes and a hipflask would have made the night better, but Franz Ferdinand show enough flair to justify the trip down to Brixton…just.

The Metro announces that for the first time, an armed police unit will deployed to deal with gun crime. Well what a fine way to escalate the situation. I remember watching a gun rights lobbyist for on American news claim that the way to stop school shootings was to arm the students so they could then defend themselves. We laughed, and then felt a bit sick. Because in what world would introducing more guns on campus make it less likely someone got shot?

Britain is one of the very few countries that does not regularly arm its police – the sight of bobbies with sub-machine guns is so incongruous, the idea so bizarre that Hot Fuzz built a whole comedy from that one joke. I wouldn’t be so naive to suggest that the entire beat go gun-free. When I see an armed policeman at the airport or on the tube, it makes me feel safer – but that is in a controlled atmosphere, one where no one in their right mind would commit crime, at least not without serious planning and intent. One which would not naturally turn into a Mexican standoff except on very, very bad days. On the streets, in your shops, near your houses, casual and unexpected, it can only engender an atmosphere of fear.

One of the regularly aired motives for carrying a knife is “for protection”. If Bob across the street didn’t have one, then I wouldn’t need one. I presume this applies to gun crime also – now Bob has a gun, he might shoot me if I don’t also get a gun. Oh, how to stay safe now every single cop I come across is armed?

One reason I have avoided studying in America is strong distaste for the gun culture. I freely admit I am no psychologist – if I know anything of crime, then I’ve learnt it from crime movies. But it seems to me a simple matter of numbers. If I wanted to hold up a British shop, all I’d need was a replica gun or a kitchen knife. And I could probably manage it merely by shouting loudly and looking a bit scary. Nine times out of ten, nobody would get hurt. In America, guns are legal if properly licensed. So to hold up an American shop, I’d have to factor in that the shopkeeper was likely to be armed. I would need to get a real, working gun – and I would need to be thoroughly prepared to use it, just in case the shopkeeper was prepared to use his. Mexican standoff. Suddenly, there are twice as many guns in the equation – the situation intensifies, and chance of violence, injury, death can only double to match.

With the news that armed police are not only on the street, but making regular pre-emptive sweeps, if I didn’t already have a gun, I’d make sure I got one pretty darn fast. It’s a simple matter of defence. The Associated Press quotes a London engineer: “Every single police officer should have a gun. Criminals might be carrying weapons, and the police officer is endangering himself by not having one.” What he doesn’t consider is that if police officers are known to be armed, you can be sure that every criminal will carry a gun.