INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994)

Before the glitzy skin and high-stakes teenage dramas of modern vampire films and shows, the blood-drinking immortals were mostly relegated to low-budget B-movies. A couple of more lavish productions in the 1990s elevated vampires to the glamorous status they now hold in pop culture, including Interview with the Vampire. Adapted from the 1976 novel of the same name by Anne Rice, with a screenplay by the author herself, the film turned bloodsucking vampires into Hollywood blockbuster material.

Interview with the Vampire is narrated by a 200-year-old vampire named Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt), who sits down for the titular interview with a radio journalist named Daniel Malloy (Christian Slater) to recall his life story. They meet in a motel in San Francisco in the early-1990s; a long tracking shot walks the viewer through the city’s busy streets, up to Louis’ ominous figure standing at the room’s window. Formerly a wealthy Creole plantation and slave owner from New Orleans, Louis lost his wife and child to childbirth, and his will to live along with them. His subsequent reckless antics gather the attention of Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise), a handsome vampire from the Old World. Lestat tracks Louis down and gives him a choice: he will either deliver him to death’s door or give him the gift of immortality. Louis chooses the latter, becoming Lestat’s companion.

Much like the vampires of the popular Twilight (2008-2012) saga, Louis is a humanist vampire; he loathes having to kill humans to feed and lives off animal blood for a while. Lestat is the one to show him he can do so, grabbing a rat and draining it of its blood in Louis’ crystal wine cup at the dinner table. Where Louis is sensitive and brooding, Lestat is selfish and exuberant; he relishes his power and loves to hunt humans for sport and sustenance, and their differences in morals drive a wedge between the two. Louis is driven mad by his hunger for blood and his reluctance to feed, ultimately caving in and feeding on a young girl whose mother died from the plague. Lestat sees a perfect opportunity to trap Louis to his side and acquire a new protégé: he turns the girl, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), and gives her to Louis as the child he never had.

The classic two-guys-and-a-girl trope is mixed with abusive and dysfunctional family dynamics here: Lestat is the abusive, narcissistic parent, and Louis is the co-dependent, victimised parent. Claudia is the glue to the two men’s fraught relationship and develops a platonic love for Louis, while becoming a bloodthirsty pupil of sorts for Lestat. Their life might seem glamorous from the outside, but Interview with the Vampire isn’t about romanticising immortality; rather, it points out all the flaws behind the curse of remaining young forever. Louis is the main window for the audience into this curse, but Claudia comes to see things as he does, despising Lestat for stealing her life from her: she’s stuck inside a child’s body, unable to grow and change into the woman she now is mentally.

Director Neil Jordan envisioned the story as a sort of metaphor for Hollywood, which inspired him in his casting choice as well. In a behind-the-scenes documentary, he says:

“My thought in casting both Brad and Tom was basically that in a strange way, the world of a vampire is not that different from the life of a massive Hollywood star. You’re kept from the day life, the daylight. You live in a strange kind of seclusion.”

While Pitt delivers an appropriately broody Louis, it’s Cruise who most shines as Lestat. He tried to capture Lestat’s emotional foundation, capturing him as a character who believes he is doing what is right, even if it appears as wrong to others. His performance in Interview is one of the best of his career: he sheds his clean, all-American guy image and embraces the zany Lestat wholeheartedly, in a display of sensuality and brashness he never exhibited again. Rice was vocally against Cruise’s casting, as were many fans of the book. She eventually came around after seeing the film, and ended up claiming Cruise as the perfect Lestat in the same behind-the-scenes documentary:

“He got the incredible strength of Lestat, he got the sense of humour of Lestat, he got the boldness of Lestat. Lestat really is just a strident, powerful being.”

Nevertheless, the real star of the film is Kirsten Dunst as Claudia. Only 12-years-old when the film was released, the young actress was able to channel the old soul living in a young body with amazing gusto. Both Cruise and Pitt were very effusive in their praise of Dunst and her performance, impressed by her intelligence and her presence.

Homoeroticism and queer subtext is aplenty in Interview with the Vampire: the original novels were more explicit about the queer aspects of their stories and characters, whereas the film keeps it implicit. Bloodsucking seems to be an immensely pleasurable experience for both the vampire and the victim (that is until the victim realises what’s happening). Lestat and Louis are after all in a companionship, raising a daughter together. While the chemistry between them isn’t as strong as it should be to support their decades-long relationship, the heat is turned on a lot more between Louis and Armand (Antonio Banderas), the head of a vampire coven operating in the horror theatre in Paris with fellow vampire and actor Santiago (Stephen Rea). They exchange longing glances and furtive touches, and Claudia declares it to Louis when she realises she might lose him, telling him he “wants you as you want him.”

The whole production was lavish and layered, bringing the vampires’ story to life. Stan Winston, in charge of special effects and make-up, designed the vampires’ subtle but striking make-up. They looked as if sculpted from marble, with a captivating translucency that let pale blue veins peak through. Winston collaborated with Rob Legato for SFX, focusing on practical work as much as possible. The gore was excellent, with the scenes of Lestat’s blood draining from his body after Claudia slices his throat and Louis slicing Santiago in half with a scythe being the standout scenes to that effect. The use of computer-generated effects was subtle, almost invisible, which in turn made the film age gracefully. The sets were also breathtaking in their lavishness and attention to detail, in particular, the Parisian crypt where the theatre coven resides and the trio’s many opulent apartments.

Interview with the Vampire had a long, arduous production process, and it was ultimately producer David Geffen who made it possible. He believed in the film and poured his resources into it, a gamble that paid off. With its star-studded cast and luxurious production, the film’s budget came up to a total of $60M, which it widely surpassed at the worldwide box office with a total international gross of $224M. Reception was mixed, and Oprah Winfrey famously walked out of a screening after only ten minutes; the gore and dark themes were not suited for everybody, as the film’s R-rating indicated. It was nominated for numerous awards for its art direction, cinematography, make-up, and effects, as well as for the actors’ performances. Interview with the Vampire helped redefine the fabled creatures’ place in genre movies, bringing them into the mainstream where they are still firmly installed 30 years later.

USA | 1994 | 122 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • FRENCH

Cast & Crew

director: Neil Jordan.
writer: Anne Rice (based on her novel).
starring: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Stephen Rea, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst, Domiziana Giordano & Thandiwe Newton.