Solid, but the TV show is proving a better adaptation

Vampire movies steadily became reasons to fill the screen with heartthrob actors and perhaps nowhere is this more prevalent than “Interview with the Vampire”. The adaptation of the Anne Rice novel supported a host of handsome faces, some of which she wasn’t pleased with, and despite a host of flaws, was also a handsome production.


Beginning in present day San Francisco, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) sits in a spare motel room recounting to a journalist (Christian Slater) his story. Upon revealing himself to be a vampire, he takes us back to New Orleans in the 1700’s, where a Louis who’s fallen into misery is given what’s called the “dark gift” by the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise).


This results in a friendship of sorts as the decades old vampire and his new progeny pick apart high society, punishing those with secret, devious thoughts that only Lestat can hear. He has no issue with killing, in fact he seems to enjoy it as a nonstop hedonistic bloodletting. It is Louis who begins to find the life repellent after a short while.


He refuses to kill but also begins to feel as if he’s losing himself to Lestat’s more dominant personality. Lestat laughs as his spawn clings to the paltry remains of rats and the like to survive, occasionally trying to get the point that killing is their nature. Meanwhile, no one seems to bat an eye at these two guys living together nor do we see much affection going on between them.


To try and appease Louis, Lestat makes a pet for him of sorts. Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) is a young girl orphaned after the plague and Lestat saves her by turning her as well. Only problem is she has a greedier need for blood than even Lestat and still the impetuousness of a child. The three become a traveling family; a sort of “My Two Dads” featuring a little terror.


Directed by “The Crying Game’s” Neil Jordan, he gets to the heart of characters whose gifts are really their curse. For Louis, it’s a life given over to sin. For Claudia, it’s a life of neverending girlhood. Jordan lets these two wallow in their torment; I won’t say that isn’t fine cerebral horror, but you wish he also let these two loose to discover themselves a bit more in their new forms.


Nonetheless, Pitt makes it compelling, seeming to constantly be in mourning, his soulful eyes conveying an innocence he regrettably knows has been corrupted for good. Dunst is really the true find here though- going from uncontrolled to raging with spite, she not only holds her own with Cruise and Pitt but seems smarter and wiser than both of them.


And Cruise really gets off on playing an asshole, so much so you wish he would do it more often. His Lestat is consumed and amused with collecting people for his own entertainment, giving in to overindulgence and cruelty. The one thing missing is the carnal pleasure of the character. This movie is oddly lacking in sensuality- either of the homo or hetero variety.


The production design and make-up are top-notch though, setting a perfectly ominous tone off of old-fashioned southern plantations and town, dark, foggy streets, and underground catacombs of Paris. The effects making the vamps climb and fly all look really good and the make-up is chillingly pale, with painted-on veins completing it nicely.


There isn’t much story to speak of but the film continues to keep movie. There is a betrayal and a last-ditch effort by Louis and Claudia to save themselves and try to figure out where they come from.


It’s in the last third where they meet Armand (Antonio Banderas) and the continuously mugging Santiago (Stephen Rea), Paris vamps who have figured out a way to kill humans under the guise of kitschy theater. It’s an ominous clandestine society which has answers, but also rules which lead to tragedy as well as brutal revenge.


In the end the movie is suitably bloody, often suspenseful, and really does look great all the way around, as does the cast. Where it comes up short the most is in sexuality. Vampires are passionate, sexual, hedonistic beings. Here they just seem tormented by being all three of those things. Barely, the good outweighs the bad here. Still, I believe the TV show is proving to be the better, more truly great adaptation.