Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Movie Info

The nuclear vampire family

A reporter named Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater) who collects peoples’ life stories finds an interesting subject in San Francisco. When the interview begins, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) reveals he is a vampire who was transformed into a vampire by a mysterious vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise) in 1791 in Louisiana, and Daniel learns that eternal life as a vampire has its price.  As Lestat and Louis travel through the ages, they create a vampire child named Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) to make their own vampire family…but being trapped for eternity with a family can be a curse itself.

We’re not gay right…it’s kind of like being metrosexual…right?

Directed by Neil Jordan, Interview with the Vampire (or sometimes called Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles) adapts the first novel in Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles that was published in 1976. The movie was well received and nominated for Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Art Direction.  Multiple sequels were planned but only Queen of the Damned (which combined aspects of the second and third novels The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned) was released in 2002 with no returning cast members.

I remember going into Interview with the Vampire rather blind…I liked vampires and I liked vampire movies (I had not read any of the books at the time).  The movie takes a different approach to a vampire movie by focusing on characters that normally are the foils and evil…and giving them personality.

Interview with the Vampire was a stylish film. It is a gothic period piece meets a vampire film and mixed with an erotic thriller. The characters have a strange genderless sexuality to them (something that brought the film a lot of attention and some controversy at the time of its release). Both Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise were “heartthrobs” at the time and to have them practically making out on screen was kind of scandalous.  Originally Rice rejected Cruise as Lestat but then had a change of heart when she saw the film.

I want some more.

The story is pretty smart and touches on things that people might not think about in the life a vampire (the Claudia character alone demonstrates this struggle and really makes the movie worth watching).  Mostly the story is about history and the changing world.  These characters are immortal and have seen the coming of electricity, film, cars, and the modern world and as much as the world changes, they do not.  That is interesting in addition to the ideas of how over time, they would deal with the changing society.

Tom Cruise really plays up his Lestat into a an almost cartoonish over-the-top while Brad Pitt plays the morose Louis as rather mopey.  The movie has a lot of fun aspects including Kirsten Dunst’s Claudia who steals every scene she is in (it was her big film premiere and she was blessed with a great character).  Christian Slater pretty much plays Christian Slater and Thandie Newton has a small role as Yvette.  Stephen Rea and Antonio Banderas both play vampires that show different sides of being immortal.

Hey Louis…ditch the kid & hook-up with me!

Despite being a vampire film, there aren’t many scares and there aren’t supposed to be…these aren’t violent vampires like ’Salem’s Lot or The Lost Boys. The closest you get to scares is the ending sequence with the Theatre des Vampire’s vampire attack. The vampires are rather cool and Claudia’s fate is rather horrifying. Also mix that with Lestat’s return and a movie with no scares still manages to turn out rather creepy.

Interview with the Vampire is kind of a prelude to films like Twilight. That isn’t meant as an insult to Interview with the Vampire because a series like Twilight could learn from a film like Interview with the Vampire.  It manages to merge a horror aspect with a romance and style without being 100% cheesy (there is some cheese-factor involved though). Interview with the Vampire isn’t for everyone but give it a chance.  Interview with the Vampire was planned for sequels but it was only followed by followed by Queen of the Damned in 2002 which merged the stories of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned.

Related Links:

Queen of the Damned (2002)