Interview with the Vampire (1994) Review

Synopsis

Based on the 1976 novel by Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles tells the autobiographical story of a Vampire named Louis de Pointe du Lac (played by Brad Pitt) being turned and taught by the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise). They are just very good vampire friends and totally not gay. 

After becoming a vampire, Louis discovers he has great powers, and uses them to have the poutiest mouth and become as emo as possible.

He makes a lot of friends along the way, including Kirsten Dunst playing a pedo’s dream, as well as Zorro.

Review of Interview with the Vampire (1994)

This is probably my favorite vampire movie, so I’m biased, but I still think it holds up. It focuses on the coolest part of the vampire stories, the vampires, and gets rid of the pesky humans.

This is also probably one of my favorite roles of Tom Cruise. His playfulness and arrogance as Lestat carries the majority of the movie. 

Kirsten Dunst also puts in one of the greatest performances of her career as a convincing forty year old in a child’s body.

Brad Pitt is the only one that upon rewatching becomes less interesting every reviewing. There’s really nothing for him to do other than pout and look pretty. But granted, he does that very well here.

What the film does best is maintain a vibe of sexy morbidness. 

Seeing this in my youth, I was distracted by the boobs in this movie, and only now realize how extremely gay coded the film is.

Louis’s alternating between reveling in being a vampire and being shamed by it really represented what it must have felt like to be gay in the early 90s.

The director Neil Jordan had just come off of directing The Crying Game and was really at the peak of his powers. Looking at his IMDB page, it’s only been downhill from here. 

Stan Winton’s special effects and makeup is perfectly understated and makes the vampires seem otherworldly and the killings properly visceral.

A lot of stars aligned with this film and I still think it stands the test of time. If you want to watch a bunch of sexy vampires almost kissing, this is the movie for you.

Score

10/10