It’s easy to think that fan vitriol and campaigns launched in order to change the adaption of a beloved property in the midst of filming are a relatively new thing, but some of our younger readers (assuming we have any) may be shocked to learn that it’s not a new thing at all. Take, for example, the casting of Tom Cruise as the role of the vampire Lestat in Neil Jordan’s take on Anne Rice’s legendary series collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles that stirred up considerable ire when when her breakout, amoral and highly complex character seemed set to be played by Maverick from Top Gun. Most interestingly of all, leading the charge was Anne Rice herself who claimed the Cruise was “no more my vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler”.
However, believe it or not, sometimes Hollywood knows better than the fans do (see also fan outrage at the first announcements that Heath Ledger was The Joker and Danial Craig was James Bond) and the resulting movie not only proved Rice wrong, but gave us one if the most sumptuous, brooding and beautiful vampire movies ever made. Let’s start the interview.
After being approached by a strange, mysterious and very broody man, San Francisco reporter Daniel Molloy agrees to interview him only to be stunned at the revelation that he’s an actual vampire. However, instead of having the idea of plundering the contents of his arteries, Louis de Pointe du Lac figures that he’d like his epic and tragic story to be told and recorded.
The tale begins with Louis a human, 24 year old plantation owner in New Orleans during the year 1791 who seems to have taken up brooding duties long before vampirism set in due to a dead wife and unborn child. In fact, his self destructive behaviour is so pronounced, it catches the attention of Lestat de Lioncourt, a vampire who finds the idea of a manic depressed immortal great sport and turns Louis after giving him a choice.
From there, Lastat becomes Louis’ mentor in this new life, but while it first frustrates him, his pupil’s reluctance to give up his humanity and feed on humans soon amuses him and the two soon travel, leaving death and yet more existential hand wringing in their wake.
However, Lestat’s malevolently mischievous ways reach their zenith when, in an attempt to keep Louis from leaving him, he turns Claudia, a young girl, into a vampire to give Louis the family conections he still seems to long for. However, the arrival of Claudia causes it’s own particular set of issues as she will never age beyond looking like a pristine little doll and after thirty years of continuous, pre-pubescent existence, she proves to be every bit the cold hearted manipulator that Lestat ever was.
But beyond Lestat lay Paris and a meeting with the charismatic Armand who leads a troupe of vampires who mascarade as actors in the Théâtre des Vampires. However, yet more tragedy lay in wait when they fall foul of ancient vampire laws. Being a Vampire is hard, man.
While the fangs would always be out for an adaptation of such a beloved book, I have to say that as a gothic, lavish and deeply brooding vampire movie, Interview With The Vampire still holds up impressively, even after all these years. The main reason is that despite making his name on The Crying Game a couple of years earlier, Neil Jordan actually had a hell of a lot prior experience with fantastical and baroque horror thanks to the startling trippy, adult fairy tale, A Company Of Wolves. However, while that movie had a plot that could be charitably described as nebulous at best, Rice’s gateway novel tells of a complex and nuanced relationship that spans around two hundred years. Thankfully, Jordan is more than up to the task and spins a lush tale pumped full of tragedy, yearning and the pondering if the nature of good and evil.
To go straight to the earlier controversy, Tom Cruise immediately soothes over those casting issues by dodging his smug white kid persona and instead presents Lestat as a preening, cold-blooded prick whose predatory nature has him playing with both partners and prey with the controlling glee of a particularly cruel cat. While he genuinely cares for his moody protégé, Louis, Lestat’s love language seems to be to gaslight the ever loving shit out of him whenever he can – even going so far as to turn a child.
In response, Brad Pitt’s Louis is subduded and depressed, fixing his “creator” with those big, beautiful eyes of his from under luscious hair and as both actors are renowned for their glamorous looks, their casting proves to be even more perfect than their perfect, almost translucent skin. In fact, one of the accusations leveled at the film on its release is that the film dialled back the homoerotic content, but watching it now it’s actually pretty impressive how much of that still made it through. At no point do Louis and Lestat feel like a couple dudes doing various vampire dude stuff and instead they bicker, bitch and barely tolerate each other like an old married couple and this cements even further with the arrival of Kirsten Dunst’s Claudia.
Ah yes, Dunst. Pretty much tying with Natalie Portman in Leon and Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense as the mind blowing performance from a child during the 90s, the girl who would be Mary Jane Watson nails the murderous little moppet by accurately portraying a thirty year-old woman forever trapped in the form of what’s essentially a blood thirsting Shirley Temple. The chemistry between the three of them is spot on which makes their eventual collapse all the more thrilling and the later arrival of Antonio Banderas and his theatre of cackling vamps not only adds to the epic nature of the piece, but he seems far more comfortable with the more homoerotic aspects of the story thanks to years spent working with Pedro Almodóvar.
What is also refreshing for a huge, lavish, star-studded horror blockbuster is that Jordan isn’t afraid for his insanely pretty cast to get their hands dirty as the red stuff flows. Be it Lestat tormenting his victims by drawing blood from a breast or opening a vein to Louis going full vengence on a coven of vamps armed with gallons of flammable oil and a big-ass scythe which allows him to biscect his enemies in a way that far more striking that just a dull, old stake.
If I’m being utterly truthful, I haven’t actually read that much Rice so maybe someone who is more devout to the original text may disagree, but Interview With The Vampire still stands tall as something of an original experience. After all, Rice isn’t exactly adapted every day and sightings of Pitt and Cruise in horror films are rarer than the steak a vampire would undoubtedly order, but when it comes to big, romanticized, grandiose horror, Louis’ titular interview is the best around since the likes of Hammer shut their doors.
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