Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Review by Bret Walker

Most books do not translate well to the silver screen. Many times Hollywood, in its rush to produce a story into a film, leaves out details that make the story fall flat. This is not the case in this adaptation of Anne Rice's 1976 bestseller novel of the same name. Interview is full of the sights and sounds, the imagery, the pageantry that Rice portrayed in her book for good reason: Mrs. Rice herself penned the screen adaptation.

Brad Pitt is Louis, the vampire damned to walk the earth in search of the answer to the eternal question: why am I here? While this question has been explored often in the cinema, rarely has it ever been raised by one of the undead. The meaning of life is the stuff of feel-good movies, not the phantasmagoric tales of vampires. Yet this probing search for the meaning of his existence is what connects the audience with the tragic life of Louis.

It begins in the bayou of Louisiana, at the turn of the 19th century. Louis is the 24-year old widower who finds no more worth in his life, and begins a search to end it. Fate instead puts his path across that of Lestat's. Lestat is a lonely vampire seeking meaning in his own life, searching for his meaning and offering Louis a choice that, Lestat claims, he was never offered. Louis takes his offer and thus ends his life as a mortal and begins it as one of the walking dead. Although Lestat serves as a sort of mentor for Louis in his newfound life, he offers a one-dimensional perspective on what it is to be a vampire, and Louis desires more depth to his purpose.

Sensing a distance growing between them, Lestat offers Louis a consolation: a twelve-year-old girl named Claudia who has lost her mother to the plague is turned into a vampire by Lestat and is adopted by the two as a daughter. Needless to say that her new existence becomes topic of reflection as well. This brings her closer to Louis and drives a void between the two and Lestat. When they find that Lestat has nothing to offer the two in terms of answers, they flee his company and embark on a voyage of discovery together.

In searching for more of their kind for the answers to the questions they are plagued by, they come across a group of vampires in Paris, France, led by Armand, the dark and brooding vampire. Armand is the oldest of the living vampires, and finds a beauty and purity in Louis that he cannot let go.

Louis' narrative is hypnotic and lush with the imagery of bygone eras. The interviewer fails to see the pain and injust in Louis' tale and instead begs to become one of his kind. Louis refuses to comply, but in the end, the interviewer is offered the same choice by Lestat, and the audience is left with its own question: does he take the offer as Louis did or learn from his plight?

Rice and Jordan bring to the screen an excellent adaptation of Rice's tale of the vampire seeking answers that never come. While the effects are occasionally lacking even for 1994 (Stephen Rea performs a dance up a wall and to the ceiling of a tunnel, and the camera shakes with every footstep), the cinematography is excellent, painting beautiful pictures of the landscape throughout the 19th century in Louisiana and Europe. The fact that Louis' existence is confined to the darkness of night makes small challenge to the director; although the majority of scenes take place at night, the imagery is still quite beautiful and draws the audience in like a warm blanket on a cold winter's night.

The task of "turning the corner" for many actors and actresses who begin in roles as children or teenagers is a difficult one. Pitt, Cruise, and Slater all turn that corner effectively in this film. Although it can be argued that Cruise had portrayed adult characters before Interview, none have been as adult as the brooding and dark Lestat. I admit that I was skeptical about his performance in this film. When I read the book, I had envisioned someone like Christopher Walken or even Stephen Rea (who portrayed Armand's lackey in this film), certainly someone more dark and mysterious than the regularly aloof Cruise. I was pleasantly surprised by his performance, one which led to roles more deserving of his previously untapped acting ability. Where his performances had been decidely one- and two-dimensional, Lestat offered Cruise an opportunity to explore emotions he'd never before shown on celluloid. His performance alone is well worth the price of admission.

Sometimes sweet, morbidly funny, usually gory, Interview presents a unique perspective on an age old question and offers an excellent two-hour repast for lovers of this genre. Anyone who has read the Vampire Chronicles by Rice will not be disappointed in this film, and will instead perhaps be left asking a question of their own: When will the next installment (The Vampire Lestat) arrive?

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Lair of the Vampire, a tribute to Interview With the Vampire and all things dark

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