Interview with the Vampire | Review

Watching a film that is closely entwined with its source material, without having actually read that source material, is always a tricky experience. In this case, my lack of familiarity with Anne Rice’s gothic horror novel of the same name, may impact this review, as I’m unable to distinguish some elements of book vs. film. Of course, there are purely filmic elements in Interview with the Vampire that can be discussed. The acting is astonishing. Not much can convince me to watch famed nutjob Tom Cruise on screen and actually enjoy it, but his performance is just incredible. It’s always wonderful when you can tell an actor is thoroughly having fun with a role. Brad Pitt is beautiful in this, but I think he may be outclassed both by Cruise, and little Kirsten Dunst. His morose demeanour, which is in part a result of his churlish character, and in part of Pitt’s own bout of depression during filming, becomes a bit difficult to watch by the second act. This is only broken in the final scene, when Cruise slips in and says what we’ve all been thinking: “Still hhhwhining Louis. Have you heard enough? I’ve had to listen to that for centuries”. It’s so rare for a child actress to absolutely steal the show, particularly when they’re acting alongside Hollywood heavyweights. But Dunst carries Interview With the Vampire from the moment she steps on screen, with her eerie ability to fuse precociousness, naïveté, and wisened melancholy. Absolutely mesmerizing.

As someone with a penchant for anything gothic, Interview with the Vampire ticks all my boxes with its gloomy, ornate sets and lacey cuffs. I might put in a request for Mina or Moderngurlz to review the costumes, because the detail that goes into portraying subtle passages of time, particularly with Claudia’s wardrobe, is a delight. The score and soundtrack imbue a heavy, melodramatic atmosphere onto the film. The viewing experience truly takes you back to Hollywood’s golden age - which is something I have not found with other contemporary films. There’s something about Interview with the Vampire that feels anachronistic of its own time, if that makes sense.

Now onto the thematic elements - which, through my own fault, may not be conventions of the film itself, but rather the book. Throughout its duration, I could not shake the feeling that Twilight owes much of its lore to Anne Rice. Upon reading about the 2011 feud between Rice and Stephanie Meyer, my inkling was validated. There is overwhelming similarity in the vampires’ physical traits (their unabashedly good looks, porcelain skin, bright eyes. etc.), transformation sequences, morality (Louis and Edward both being soft boy veggie vamps), covens as “found family”, and governing structures (Antonio Banderas and his band of vamp actors vs. the Volturi). Yet despite the similarities in lore, the overwhelming distinction between the two series is that Twilight seems to contradict its own moral tenets. Interview with the Vampire utilizes the vampire myth to pose many major questions about humanity. Most importantly - what does it mean to live without death? We see the great conflict that arises for vampires like Louis and Claudia. Claudia, who is most likely based off of Rice’s late daughter who died of cancer at age 6, is fixated on adult women. Her inability to grow up, to enter womanhood, is her source of inner turmoil. She therefore seeks solace in a mother figure, both to replace her own deceased mother, and to gain proximity to womanhood. Louis, whose mortal life was wrecked by grief, must now face grief over and over again for all of eternity, or choose to be amoral and alone. While Twilight plays with such questions on occasion, (should Edward allow Bella to enter a condemned life? Can Rosalie ever heal from the trauma of never being able to reproduce?) it never seems seriously interested in them. By the end of Twilight, Bella and Edward are living a happy life of immortality, completely indifferent to the many hardships it will bring, and has brought upon the Cullen family. I believe these disparities in theme and moral grounding can be attributed to a disparity in the writing abilities of Rice and Meyer.

Lastly, Interview with the Vampire has a very confusing relationship to race. I was unable to decipher where this film is an indictment of Louis’ identity as a slave owner, or a complete dismissal of it. I found myself tossing this question around: has Louis’, as a member of the oppressor class, already been wiped of humanity before he turned into a vampire? There is no real answer because the film does a lot of work to tell us that Louis is an inherently human, and moral vampire. And even in the first act, there are multiple instances where the enslaved characters allude to the fact that he is a “friendly, kind master” (an egregious paradox). Yet, in a way, the overriding moral ambiguity of the story can also lead us to read Interview with the Vampire as an allegory for oppression. Louis and Lestat, who exist as handsome white men at a time where structures of domination were completely entrenched around the world, take from others at will - particularly from enslaved women and sex workers. So perhaps it does not matter whether Louis is the “good” vampire or the “good” slave master. At the end of the day, he is both, and fails to truly renounce either identity. As Banderas says to him, “this, is the only real evil left.”