Oct 091994
 
four reels

Louis (Brad Pitt), a vampire, tells a writer (Christian Slater) his life’s story. In 1791, he met the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise) in New Orleans. Lestat transformed him, but Louis, already depressed, couldn’t accept his murderous nature. To keep him as a companion, Lestat turned a little girl, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), into a vampire.

The Hunger started a move toward a new kind of vampire film, one where vampires are the heroes and villains. These aren’t monster movies, with humans striving to defeat the evil beasts, but sensual soap operas with blood drinking acting as a metaphor for sex. Interview with the Vampire completed what The Hunger started, resembling a gothic romance far more than it does Dracula. The vampires, tortured souls with overly precise pronunciation, are pale and beautiful. Clad in elegant garments, they exist in a world of rich colors, lush surroundings, and dramatic music.  This isn’t horror, and it’s quite silly, but also engaging.

The film follows Anne Rice’s novel fairly closely with the only significant change being the aging of the powerful vampire Armand, who was a youth in the book, but becomes Antonio Banderas for the screen. It’s a good change. The book was an estrogen-fueled angst-fest, and so is the film. Louis spends a majority of the film whining. “Oh, how horrible it is to be young and powerful and pretty forever.” Poor guy. That is the movie’s greatest failing. I’ll ignore that petulance is never a good basis for a story, and instead focus on Interview with the Vampire’s inability to convince me that being a vampire would be anything other than a great time.  Over and over, the vampires say how bad it is, but it’s never believable. They don’t have the answers to the meaning of life, but then who does? They don’t need to kill unless they want to and have no problems with crucifixes, garlic, or running water. The only downside is having to avoid the sun, and I do that anyway.  The story requires that the viewer emphasize with Louis, but I just wanted to punch him and yell “grow up.”  He only becomes sympathetic when he seeks vengeance, and that’s late in the film.

But, as a slow exercise in the pouting of sulking vampires, it’s remarkably good. Costuming, set design, sound, music, and cinematography are beyond reproach. Few films look better. The effects and makeup don’t overwhelm the story but do their job of turning mortals into vampires.

Pitt and Banderas are better than usual, but it is Tom Cruise who is the surprise. He embodies the arrogant but charming Lestat. I’m not sure if Cruise finally figured how to act or if the stylized nature of the role fit him better than his other parts. Either way, I can’t imagine anyone improving on his performance. And yet, the film is stolen by the young Kirsten Dunst. She is unsettlingly sexy as a thirty-year-old imprisoned in a twelve-year-old body.

I can’t pin down how I feel about Interview’s attempts to titillate. The entire film is a thinly veiled homosexual romp with significant pedophiliac tendencies. It’s all kept socially acceptable by changing the fluids exchanged from semen to blood. It is effective, and yet it feels like a copout. Why not just make a full-out homosexual vampire film? I suppose the Bible Belt isn’t ready for that (but how do they feel about vampires alone?), nor is it likely that Cruise would be willing to star.

Even with Interview with the Vampire’s many problems (those mentioned above, and others such as Claudia taking thirty years to realize she isn’t going to grow up), it is a seductive film. Its world, and the images it creates are not easily dismissed, and I find myself drifting back into Louis’s and Lestat’s lives, thinking how I would have done things differently.

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