El día en que el circo ambulante llegó a su barrio residencial, el joven Darren (Chris Massoglia) no podía sospechar que su vida iba a cambiar para siempre. Atrás quedaron las matrículas de honor y la familia. De la mano del vampiro Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly), se convirtió en un personaje sanguinario.
Darren se une al Cirque du Freak, en el que compartirá experiencias con otras criaturas monstruosas: un chico serpiente, un hombre lobo, una mujer barbuda (Salma Hayek) y un pregonero gigante (Ken Watanabe). Además, Darren se halla en mitad de la eterna guerra entre vampiros y solo él puede evitar que acaben con el mundo de los vivos.
Guión: Paul Weitz, Brian Helgeland
Libros: Darren Shan
Producción ejecutiva: Kerry Kohansky, Dan Kolsrud, Rodney Liber, Andrew Miano, Courtney Pledger, Sarah Radclyffe
Producción: Ewan Leslie, Lauren Shuler Donner
Coproducción: John Swallow
Música: Stephen Trask
Fotografía: J. Michael Muro
Montaje: Leslie Jones
Casting: Joseph Middleton
Diseño de producción: William Arnold
Dirección artística: Seth Reed
Vestuario: Judianna Makovsky
Maquillaje: David LeRoy Anderson, Lance Anderson, Steven E. Anderson, David A. Brooke, Fionagh Cush, Gabriel De Cunto, André Dubois, Earl Ellis, Mark Garbarino, Allison Gordin, Connie Grayson, Akihito Ikeda, Jamie Kelman, Steve Koch, Natasha Ladek, Darryl Lucas, Margaret Prentice, Brian Sipe, Dave Snyder, Khanh Trance, Scott Wheeler, Tom Woodruff Jr.
Departamento artístico: Jennifer R. Blair, Andrew Campbell, Cassie Catalanotto, Chris Clinton, James Clyne, Michelle Collier, Carl Denooyer, Dennis DeWaay, William Anthony Duncan, Jann K. Engel, Kasra Farahani, Eva Firshein, Jeff Garbacz, Julianna Kolakis, Larry D. Koszakovszky, Lance Larson, Kristin Lekki, Mara LePere-Schloop, Lindanne Lewis, Thomas Meikle, Molly Mikula, Robert J. Moore Jr., Rick Newsome, Steve Park, Beth Peterson, Jamie Rama, Derek Rocque, John Sanchez, Christian Scheurer, Michael Semon, Victoria St. Pierre, Thomas T. Taylor, Jeremy Thompson, Debra Trevino, Ralph Votaw, Bill Walters, Gary Warshaw, Nathaniel West, Randall D. Wilkins, Simeon Wilkins, Aaron Sims
Sonido: Paul Berolzheimer, Tom Caton, Christopher Flick, Jeff Gomillion, Kimberly Harris, Andy Koyama, Dana McCommon, Bill Meadows, Alyson Dee Moore, Beauxregard Neylon, Chris Quilty, John Roesch, Philip Rogers, Hugo Weng, David Wyman, Linda Yeaney, Ron Fremstad, Scott Stolz
Efectos especiales: Suma Abuzaineh, Suma Adams, Jason Barnett, Michael Broom, Ray Brown, Raymond J. Brown, Doug Butts, Val Crawford, Beau Crouch, Robert DeVine, Anthony Diaz, David Fedele, Horacio Fernandez, Damian Fisher, Steve Frakes, Anthony Grow, Michael Heintzelman, Bill Jacob, Hiroshi Katagiri, Prince Kurian, Mike Manzel, Tim Martin, Kevin McTurk, Steven Munson, Morgan Muta, Steve Newburn, Michael O'Brien, Ratna Pappert, Casey Pritchett, Darrell Pritchett, Mike Rotella, Don Rutherford, Frank Rydberg, Johnnie Saiko, Lynne Watson, David T. Woodruff
Efectos visuales: Kiran Ahlawat, Imran Ahmed, Shish Aikat, Mohammad Akram, Erik Akutagawa, Chih-Jen Chang Andy, Nicholas Augello, Bill Houston Ball, Sachin Bangera, Tony Barraza, Allen Battino, Brooke Beane, Bryan Bentley, Zoltán Benyó, Scott Berri, Jeetendra G. Bhagtani, Abhishek Bharadwaj, Nikhil Bhatnagar, Adam Blank, Sathish Kumar Bodicherla, Sanchari Bose, Ryan Bradley, Ronn Brown, Nicholas Burkard, Paul Bush, Jeffrey Castel De Oro, Theju Chandran, Shyam Chand, Gordon Chapman, Sandesh Chonkar, Samik Roy Choudhury, Patrick Clancey, Sam Clark, Ronnie Cleland, Daniel Aristoteles Collins, Marcus Collins, Chris Consani, Krystal Cooper, Doug Cram, Yoshi DeHerrera, Jose L. De Juan, Nikhil Deshmukh, Chrysta Dieterly, Nicolas Donel, Jeff Dotson, Nancy Duff, Colin Elliott, Jenn Epstein, Devin Fairbairn, Paul Fedor, Janet Freedland, Josh Fritchie, Sarah Fuller, Papp Gabriella, Ginesh Gandhi, Alex Garcia, Walter Garcia, Denil George, Divakar Ghodake, Daniel Gilbert, Lori Green, Stephanie Greenquist, Aaron Grey, Chris Grun, Anthony Harris, John Lake Harvey, Phil Holland, Mark Hopper, Erica Hornung, Eric Horton, Steven Hur, Nick Hyman, Neeraj Ingle, Mark Jacyszyn, Sandeep Jawalkar, Jimmy Jewell, Mack Kablan, Tex Kadonaga, Kamalakkannan, Rohit Karandadi, Gunjan Kathale, Yogesh Kaushal, Chris J. Kenny, Sam Kim, Karen Klein, Alex Ko, Stuart Krempin, Naveen Kumar, James Ledwell, Hannah K. Lees, Young Lee, Danny Lei, Kevin Lin, Matt Logue, Mary Lynn Machado, Nikki Makar, Jason Malinowsky, Sudip Mallick, Shawn Mason, Daniel McCurley, Cory L. McNeill, Daniel Mejia, Sheila Molnar, Shawn Monaghan, Rohini Montenegro, Meg Morris, Ram Mohan Nadam Reddy, Brandon Nelson, Blake Nickle, Onesimus Nuernberger, Shannon Leigh Olds, Zach Parrish, Stephen Parsey, Promit Pattnaik, Vishal Pawar, Angelica Perez, Seth Peterson, Tim Pixton, Rajesh Putta, Vivek Ram, Nachiarkovil Durairaj Rangesh, Pavani Rao, Sanjay Rao, Shrinidhi Rao, Andres Rascon, Marina Ratina, Sunil Rawat, Rick Rische, Taylor W. Rockwell, Andrea Romero, Marc Rubone, Diksha Sagar, Ai Saimoto, Salar Saleh, Arnab Sanyal, Vijay Selvam, Argha Sen, Seshaprasad, Behnam Shafiebeik, Divyesh Shah, Siddharth Shah, Heekyung Shin, Peter Sidoriak, Anna Silvey, Jason Simmons, Brad Smith, Jeff W. Smith, Marc Smith, Arpit Soni, Dinesh Soni, Seshadri Srinidhi, Jennifer Stratton, Frederick George Stuhrberg, Yuki Sugimoto, David Sweeney, Gábor Székely, Ria Tamok, Aashima Taneja, Will Telford, Lynda Thompson, John Vassallo, Gergely Velki, Rakesh Venugopalan, Parikh Vishal, Brian Walters, Darrin Wehser, Alison Yerxa, Péter Zavorszky, Brandy Zumkley, Harrison Hays, L. Patrick McCormack, Ryan Swanno
Animación: Emil Bidiuc, Scott Claus, Amanda Dague, Elisabeth Franklin, Namita Gotephode, Beth Sleven
Casting: Robin Batherson, Lauren Dickey, Elizabeth Dionne, Lisa Mae Fincannon, Mark Fincannon, Geraldine Glenn, Jonathan Clay Harris, Jason Landry
Vestuario: Laura Baker, Marilyn Brum, Tiffany Busche, Pedro Chavez, Christy Hebert Crouch, Holly Davis, Carol Demarti, Dominick De Rasmo, Dana Embree, David Paulin, Suzanne Robertson, Michael A. Russell, Sanford Slepak, Christian Cordella
Departamento editorial: James Andrykowski, Todd Fulkerson, Michael Hatzer, Nikita Kleverov, Curtis Lindersmith, Lee Wimer
Departamento musical: Pete Anthony, Joseph Bonn, Amanda Goodpaster, Greg Hayes, Darren McKenzie, Igor Nemirovsky, Tim Rodier, Lior Rosner, Andrew Shulman, Edgardo Simone, Gina Zimmitti
Departamento de transportes: Phil Balani, Bryan C. Cawthon, Reggie Louque, Don Violett