drink from me and live forever - Interview With The Vampire (1994)
THTH remains in its vampire era for a little while longer
Spoilers, natch, along with a trigger warning for things done to animals and blood in general because these vampires are MESSY.
Interview With The Vampire
Directed by: Neil Jordan
Based on: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976)
Starring: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst
Run time: 122 minutes
Original release date: November 11th 1994
but first: a moment of commotion for that tagline please
Quite possibly the horniest tagline I have ever seen, god bless.
prologue
Based on Anne Rice’s novel of the same name, the first in the Vampire Chronicles universe, 1994’s Interview with the Vampire celebrates thirty years since its release this year. Having spent most of last night in a Wikipedia fugue reading up on the series, I can confidently tell you that I will - for the purpose of this edition of the newsletter - stick to this movie and this movie alone because if I was to delve into its grander universe even a little bit, THIS WOULD HAPPEN.
So, for my sanity and yours, we’ll be keeping the wider context minimal. For now. Maybe.
Anyway.
Let me tell you a story.
Chapter one
Nighttime. San Francisco, 1994. In a non-descript apartment, reporter Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater) is seen setting up for an interview. His subject is gazing wistfully out of the window, talking to Molloy about the circumstances that led them to this interview. He tells Molloy - who is in disbelief - that he is a vampire, wishing to tell his life story. When Molloy expresses his disbelief, we get our first view of his subject: Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt). Pale, statuesque and deadly serious, he manages to convince Molloy of his being a vampire remarkably quickly (seriously, all he has to do is a bit of flashy moving about, Molloy is both easily impressed and as we will discover a sweet dumb angel bébé) before he sits down and starts his story.
In 1791 Spanish Louisiana, Louis is a wealthy plantation owner (… fucking hell mate) unable to cope with the grief of losing his wife and unborn child. He is in full self-destruction mode, drinking sadly by his wife’s graveside and looking for trouble all over New Orleans. One night, he drunkenly dares his irate opponent in a game of cards to shoot him in the heart - what he does not yet know is that he is being watched by a shadowy figure, one who follows him as he makes off with a sex worker. Cornered by her pimp, Louis is both saved and definitely not saved by said shadowy figure tearing the pimp (and the sex worker) apart before biting down on a faint Louis’s neck and taking him up in flight.
Lestat is a menace
This is our introduction to Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise, the film’s official winner of the “Doing The Most” Olympics and it’s not even close), a vampire who has sensed Louis’s discontent with his life and offers to turn him and breathe a new, different life into him. And while Louis accepts (noting with some regret that he misses seeing the sun rise), he quicky comes to regret his decision, not just because he regrets choosing the vampire life but also because Lestat is a fucking menace in the most hilariously over the top way.
Famously, Anne Rice was not sold on Tom Cruise as her Lestat (she wanted Julian Sands) until she saw the finished film and I can see why you’d need convincing, especially if you come into this movie with no prior knowledge of the material like I did. Cruise just is Rice’s “Brat Prince” - dancing on the delicate line between deadly/deadly serious and delectably camp, Lestat is at turns exasperated with Louis’s reluctance to kill (Louis instead opts to feed on animals, leaving a trail of dead rats in his wake) and also just deeply in love with his new companion.
Claudia… is also a menace but looks like a porcelain doll so there’s that
One night, in despair at his fate in life, Louis storms off into the city. He is drawn to a house in which he finds a young girl weeping at the side of her mother, recently dead of the plague. Louis, acting on some sort of instinct, starts to feed on the little girl, something which amuses Lestat greatly when he catches up with Louis at the house.
Later, Louis is alarmed to learn Lestat has brought the girl to their home, intending to turn her in order to entice Louis to stay with him. The girl, Claudia (teeny tiny Kirsten Dunst, angelic and also superbly evil) appears to take to vampirism like a duck to water, which is to say she actually hurts Lestat when she drinks from him so thirsty is she for blood.
Claudia’s transformation is impeccable - with her ringlet curls and angelic eyes, she is the personification of innocence, which makes her all the more deadly. And for thirty years, they live as a sort of family. Louis is a father figure, Lestat is her mentor - the comedy that arises from Lestat despairing at Claudia just leaving corpses drained of blood around the house is spectacular, it’s the best dynamic in the film (“not in the house!”).
Thirty years had passed, yet her body remained that of an eternal child. Her eyes alone told the story of her age, staring out from under her doll-like curls, with a questioning that will one day need an answer. - Louis
But eventually, while Claudia matures psychologically, she grows increasingly frustrated at remaining stuck in the body of a ten-year-old. It’s then she learns the full truth of her existence, feeling betrayed by both Lestat and Louis. The scene where she grabs a pair of scissors, chops her curls off and storms off to her room, only to scream as she discovers they’ve immediately grown back is both comical and deeply sad - here she is, cursed to remain stuck between two selves forever. And this is where the dynamic between the three fractures irreparably - Claudia basically convinces Louis that they should leave Lestat and pulls off an elaborate plan involving two twin boys, laudanum and the knowledge that vampires are not to drink “dead” blood. With Lestat severely weakened, Claudia dramatically slits his throat (her going “lift me up” to Louis as the blood oozes onto the carpet and towards the hem of her dress is A Moment, seriously, for an otherwise serious movie it does a splendid line in morbid comedy) and flees with Louis, but not before setting Lestat’s charred remains into the swamps (allow me to point to this scene when I tell you that this movie would be a brilliant double bill with Neil Jordan’s other horror classic, The Company of Wolves, because the visual language is very similar, especially here).
“you’ve been a very, very naughty girl!”
After spending several weeks planning a voyage to Europe, in search of other vampires, Louis and Claudia are ready to depart when essentially, this happens:
That’s right, guess who survived on animal blood and clawed his way out of the swamp and is now sat playing the piano with the curtains waving around him like he’s in a fucking Meatloaf music video! It’s our boy Lestat! His body is about as structurally sound as a piece of wet cardboard, but he lives! AND HE’S VERY CROSS WITH YOU!
This, of course, puts the shits up Louis and Claudia. Lestat attacks but Louis manages to set him (and the entire apartment) on fire and flees with Claudia to the ship which will carry them to Europe. Safe on the boat, Louis notes to Molloy that he will keep regretting what he did, and as he and Claudia travel Europe to search for more vampires, he laments not being able to recall the true colour of the ocean.
chapter two (aka everything that happens in Paris, aka the bit of the movie which is not as good so be prepared)
September 1870. Louis and Claudia have settled in Paris after travelling around Europe and the Mediterranean in their till now fruitless search for other vampires. They settle into a comfortable groove there - any scene in which Claudia is twirling around gleefully in another fancy dress is a good one - until, by chance, Louis finally encounters another vampire while walking the street at night.
The vampire in question is Santiago (Stephen Rea), and I have some questions here, namely: 1) why is Stephen Rea playing Santiago as a mix of Michael Sheen in Twilight and Neil Patrick Harris as The Celestial Toymaker (NEITHER OF WHICH HAD HAPPENED YET AT THE TIME) and 2) why is Stephen Rea also Christoph Waltz?
In case it’s not clear, he is not my favourite part of the film, but he does come as a package deal with another, more intriguing vampire: Armand (Antonio Banderas), the leader of the Théâtre des Vampires, a coven which stages Grand Guignol-style stage shows in which the vampires pretend to be humans pretending to be vampires (Claudia gasping “AVANT GARDE!” like she’s Frasier Crane <3333). Louis and Claudia are invited to be in the audience for one of their shows, and Louis is alarmed by the actual human sacrifice taking place live on stage, which is played off as an act by the troupe (the vibes of it are very similar to Jada Pinkett Smith in the opening to Scream 2 except people just leave a bit disgusted instead of, you know, actually helping this poor woman).
On the way out, Santiago manages to read Louis’s mind and suspects that he and Claudia murdered Lestat. Louis correctly assumes that Claudia is in danger, but stays with Armand as he sees in him a new tutor. Claudia senses Louis may want to leave her, and demand he turn a human woman to be her new companion. Madeleine (Domiziana Giordano), the owner of a shop selling porcelain dolls (of course), seems willing (it’s implied she has lost a daughter) - Louis, however, seems not so, although he eventually relents.
Suppose death had a heart to love and to release you, to whom would he turn this passion? Would you chose a person from the crowd there? A person to suffer as you suffer? - Santiago
The three of them are then immediately abducted by the theatre troupe, who trap Louis in a coffin and lock Claudia and Madeleine (poor Madeleine, justice for her) into a chamber with an open ceiling, and a terrified Claudia burns to death in Madeleine’s arms at sunrise. Armand, having done exactly nothing to prevent this from happening, frees Louis, who goes sicko mode in the best scene of this section of the film as he burns down the catacombs that house the theatre troupe and scythes Santiago in twain (it is exactly as amazing as you would like it to be).
Armand returns and saves Louis from the oncoming sunrise, but has his offer of a place by his side rejected as Louis cannot forgive him for letting Claudia’s death happen.
chapter three
Decades pass, and Louis never recovers from the loss of Claudia. He explores the world alone, finding some solace in the emerging art of cinema (very relatable tbqh) as it allows him to see the sunrise once again.
Feeling compelled to return to New Orleans in 1988, he is lured to an abandoned mansion by a distinct scent. In the mansion he finds a decaying, barely alive Lestat. Having survived on rat blood (oh how the turns have tabled), Lestat is full of regret at what happened all those years ago and asks Louis if he’s come to rejoin him. Louis, sadly, rejects him, and does not see him again.
chapter three and a half
Back in the present day, Louis concludes his interview with Molloy and in a spectacular moment of “I have completely misunderstood the point of what you’ve just tried to tell me”, Molloy immediately begs him to turn him into a vampire. Louis, understandably frustrated (he specifically says “then I’ve failed again” which is interesting because it suggests this is not the first time he has tried to tell his story), decides to scare the shit out of Molloy to drive home the point he was trying to make. Molloy flees, and while listening to the cassettes of his interview, driving along the Golden Gate Bridge, is suddenly attacked by the messy bitch who lives for drama himself, Lestat. He takes control of the car after biting Molloy, stating that he’ll give him the choice he himself never had (whether or not to become a vampire) and drives off, laughing his little frilly socks off to the tune of Sympathy for the Devil.
The only thing that could have made that ending note more perfect is if Lestat was somehow driving off into the night to Cunty by Kevin Jz Prodigy, it’s deliciously camp.
yes it’s trash but it’s beautiful
While parts of this movie have not aged well (I am not here for the setup of Louis as a “nice slave owner”, miss me entirely with that bullshit) and the pace takes a definite dip once they get to Paris, Interview With the Vampire remains a baroque, indulgent delight. Visually sumptuous, morbidly funny and with an S-tier Tom Cruise performance as a centerpiece, it’s no wonder it still has a huge fanbase (if the sold out anniversary screening I attended last night is anything to go by).
As a side note, the excellent Juvenalia podcast was clearly on the same vibe as me this week as their new episode is about Interview With the Vampire - if you’re still in the mood for more Lestat chat, do give them a listen.