Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Your body’s dying. Pay no attention, It happens to us all.

— Lestat

I haven’t seen Interview with the Vampire in years. It has been so long that I forgot that Neil Jordan directed the film that was based on the book by Anne Rice. She wrote the screenplay and was famously know for disliking Tom Cruise being cast as Lestat. I still enjoy watching it again.

Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) is a 200-year-old vampire recounts his life story to an interviewer, Daniel Malloy (Christian Slater) in his sparse apartment in San Francisco. At first, Malloy doesn’t believe that he is one, but Louis’ ability to movie stealth speed convinces him.

Louis starts in beginning circa 1791 Louisiana when his wife and child die within a year each other. He doesn’t want to live until he meets Lestat de Lioncourt  (Tom Cruise), a vampire that could grant him his wish for death.

Louis decides that he wants to have the gift of immortality. Newly turned, Lestat teaches Louis about how to be a vampire. Lestat has an unquenchable thirst for blood, going through three victims a night. Louis has the hunger, the desire, the thirst for blood, but he doesn’t want to take a human’s life. Over time, Louis hates Lestat for giving him his undead life. He resents him.

Lestat turns his attentions to the slaves in the surrounding area that rises concern with their servant girl, Yvette (Thandie Newton). When Louis’ desire takes over and tries to bite her, the slaves along with himself burns the mansion him and Lestat share, down.

Louis is always tortured about being vampire. They become nomads, moving from the place to place, feeding the people of New Orleans. Everything comes to a head when Louis couldn’t kill a young woman that Lestat wants him to do.

On the streets, a young orphaned girl is dying of the plague, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst). Louis takes pity on her. She is taken in and fed Lestat’s blood when she turns. She becomes their surrogate daughter when the thirst takes over her.

She becomes Lestat’s protégé. She matched his thirst for the kill. Lestat want to rule over their lives. Over three decades pass and Claudia wonders why she cannot grow up. Both Claudia and Louis are tortured because they realize that they will never grow old, never die. They want to leave Lestat.

I was swept up with the allure of these vampires. The dialogue is still sharp. The costumes were fantastic. I have a few minor gripes with Antonio Bandera’s heavy accent as Armand. Sometimes I couldn’t understand what he was saying. You can tell that there was some wire work in this movie. It shows. There is also a portion of the film that I need explained. Spoiler section time.

Judgment: A great vampire story that makes you wonder why people are into Twilight.

Rating: ****1/2

(SPOILER SECTION)

After Claudia betrays Lestat by slicing his throat, he bleeds all over the carpet, her and Louie dump his body in the Mississippi. When the two want to leave, Lestat comes back as a zombie vampire to kill them. Louis sets him on fire, New Orleans burns to the ground. Fast forward to 1988 where Louis is back in New Orleans, he could sell Lestat who is still in his same clothes from when they left. At the end of the movie, Lestat bites Malloy in San Francisco and he knows how to drive a car.

My question is how does Lestat survive all that when Louis burned that vampire hive in France the very same way. They burned to a crisp, but when the same thing happened to Lestat he manages to survive. How does that happen?