Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a
1994 film, based on the 1976 novel
Interview with the Vampire by
Anne Rice. The film was directed by
Neil Jordan, and stars
Tom Cruise,
Brad Pitt,
Antonio Banderas, and
Kirsten Dunst.
PlotIn present time, San Francisco reporter Daniel (
Christian Slater), is sitting in a room with a man named Louis (
Brad Pitt), who claims to be a vampire. Daniel is unconvinced until Louis turns on the light and instantly appears in front of him, moving extremely fast. Daniel agrees to interview Louis, who recalls his previous life and his turn to darkness.
It is 1791, and Louis is struggling to cope with the loss of his wife and child not caring if he lives or dies. The vampire Lestat (
Tom Cruise) attacks him but also offers him a chance to be reborn. Louis decides to take him up on the offer and Lestat proceeds to transform him into a vampire. Lestat begins showing Louis how to live the life of a vampire: sleeping in coffins by day and preying on unsuspecting mortals by night. Louis is not comfortable bringing harm to humans however, and opts for draining the blood of animals instead. Louis continues to defy every attempt that Lestat makes to turn Louis to the vampire lifestyle, having retained his conscience. A fed up Louis finally succumbs and bites his maid and then kills her. He burns down his estate and he and Lestat flee, now homeless.
While wandering the streets of New Orleans, the two continue to terrorize the public with Louis still trying to refuse Lestat's ways. Again Louis gives in to his blood lust and bites a young girl, Claudia (
Kirsten Dunst). Lestat arrives at the scene and congratulates him but Louis takes off, disgusted by his actions. However, Lestat later takes him to the girl, who has become ill from the blood loss. With a promise to make her better Lestat transforms her too, as part of his plan to make her his and Louis's daughter to prevent Louis from leaving. Louis reluctantly accepts her but his scorn for Lestat grows.
Claudia, under Lestat, soon turns into a merciless killer, draining everyone around her of their blood, while all the time developing a strong bond with Louis as father and daughter. Thirty years pass and Claudia is left wondering why she is stuck in the body of an eternal child. Lestat explains that she can never grow up due to the effects of the transformation, which she resents him for. She asks Louis how she came to be and Louis takes her to the place where he bit her 30 years before. Outraged, Claudia expresses her hate for him too and walks away, leaving Louis by himself in tears. However, Claudia forgives him for the deed, citing him as "my love, my maker", showing their close bond. She wishes that they leave New Orleans but Louis knows Lestat would never allow them to leave. With that in mind, Claudia tricks Lestat into drinking blood from two dead children. Weakened, she slashes his throat and she and Louis dump his body in a swamp but he later returns, having drained the energy from crocodiles and other swamp life to survive. He attacks the two but Louis sets him on fire and flees to Paris with Claudia, leaving Lestat for dead.
In Paris, Louis and Claudia live in perfect harmony but he is still bothered by the question of how vampires and such an evil came to be. While walking the streets, he is met by a vampire called Armand (
Antonio Banderas), who tells him that there are other vampires in Paris and tells him he knows the answers he has been searching for. With that in mind, Louis takes Claudia to see the vampires' show at the Theater. Armand later takes him to their lair and offers him a place by his side while telling him Claudia must leave him. Louis refuses to leave his beloved daughter and turns to leave. Armand warns him that the vampires know about Lestat's murder and that it is forbidden for vampires to kill another vampire. Louis leaves.
Brad Pitt as Louis
Back at his residence he finds that Claudia has brought home a woman, intent on making the woman, named Madeline, her mother, realizing that Louis may leave her to join Armand. Claudia demands that he transform Madeline but Louis is reluctant to do so. He gives her what she wants and tells her they are finally even, having breathed his last breath of mortality still within him by turning Madeline into a vampire. Soon after the Parisian vampires abduct all three of them, imprisoning Louis in a metal coffin meant for all eternity and exposing Claudia and Madeline to sunlight, destroying them. Armand frees Louis, who searches for Claudia and is horrified and grief-stricken to find that the vampires have killed her and Madeline. He later takes revenge upon them all, save for Armand, and burns them alive in their own theater as they sleep. Armand arrives in time to help him escape and once again offers him a place by his side. Louis once again refuses, knowing that Armand did nothing to prevent the vampires from murdering Claudia, and leaves him for good.
Decades pass with Louis exploring the world by himself, alone. He later finds Lestat, still alive but forever traumatized. He asks Louis to rejoin him, like old times, but Louis rejects him and leaves. At this point Louis concludes the interview, which Daniel, the interviewer, cannot accept. He asks Louis to transform him so he can see what is truly like to be like him, but Louis grasps him in a fit of rage and vanishes. Daniel hurriedly runs out of the hotel room into his parked car and drives away, feeling happy with his interview as he plays it through the cassette player. Just then, Lestat attacks him and takes control of the car. He then offers Daniel "the choice [he] never had."
Cast
Differences between the book and the film
Film-F:
Book-B:
F:Louis is grief-stricken over the death of his wife and child.
B:Louis is depressed and blames himself for the death of his brother.
F:After Lestat 'sires' Louis, they sleep in separate coffins.
B:In the novel, Louis and Lestat initially share a coffin.
F:Lestat never appears in Paris after Louis sets him on fire in New Orleans.
B:After Claudia and Madeleine are destroyed, Louis encounters Lestat at the
Théâtre des Vampires, where he has testified to Armand that Claudia had tried to kill him.
F:Claudia cuts off her hair in a fit of rage in order to try and change her appearance. It grows back immediately afterwards.
B:Lestat's mother does this in "The Vampire Lestat" after Lestat changes her into a vampire in order to save her from death.
F:When Lestat drinks from the twin boys Claudia has given him as a "gift" (both have been drugged with
laudanum, Claudia says she used "brandywine"), he is severely weakened as drinking "dead blood" has negative effects on vampires.
B:It is not the dead blood that weakens Lestat, it is the fact that Claudia has drugged them with
absinthe and laudanum.
F:At the end of the film, Daniel the interviewer is attacked in his car by Lestat, who implies that he'll turn him into a vampire.
B:Daniel leaves Louis intending to seek out Lestat in New Orleans. He is turned into a vampire by Armand in The Queen of the Damned.
F:It is implied that Claudia and Louis travel to various countries without finding any other vampires.
B:Louis and Claudia find a race of mindless vampires in Transylvania.
F:After the burning of the Théâtre des Vampires, Louis rejects Armand and travels the world alone.
B:After the burning of the Théâtre des Vampires, Louis and Armand travel the world together, until parting ways in New Orleans.
F:There is no mention whatsoever of any of Lestat's family.
B:Lestat's father is still alive, yet blind and near death.
F:Lestat viciously kills the prostitutes in the hotel room, which in turn upsets Louis, making him wander the streets of New Orleans in a depressed daze, until he comes upon Claudia and feeds on her.
B:Lestat kills the prostitutes in the hotel after Louis feeds on Claudia. Claudia is in an orphan hospital, on the verge of dying from her wounds when this scene takes place.
F:Claudia appears to be around 11 years of age when she's turned into a vampire.
B:Claudia is said to be no older than 5 years old when she's turned into a vampire.
F:The Vampires cry regular tears and do not sweat.
B:The Vampires in the books weep tears of blood and their sweat is also tinged with blood.
F:After Louis burns down his manor, he and Lestat seek refuge in a "filthy cemetery".
B:After Louis burns down Pointe Du Lac Manor, he seeks the help of a beautiful plantation master by the name of Babette. He convinces her to give him and Lestat shelter from the sun. The next night, she attempts to kill Louis, thinking he's from the Devil himself.
Casting
British actor,
Julian Sands was considered to play the role of Lestat by Rice herself, but because Sands was not a known name, being only famed for his performance in
A Room with a View, he was rejected and the role was given to Tom Cruise. This was initially criticized by Anne Rice, who said that Cruise was "no more my Vampire Lestat than Edward G. Robinson is Rhett Butler" and the casting was "so bizarre, it's almost impossible to imagine how it's going to work." Nevertheless, she was satisfied with Cruise's performance after seeing the completed film, saying that "from the moment he appeared, Tom was Lestat for me" and "That Tom did make Lestat work was something I could not see in a crystal ball," yet Cruise's casting remains controversial[
citation needed].
River Phoenix originally was cast for the role of the interviewer before he died.
[1] The film was dedicated to him.
Soundtrack
Trivia
In the Spider-Man novelization, Harry tells Mary Jane that he is reading Interview with the Vampire. Mary Jane replies that she saw the movie and the little kid in it creeped her out.
Kirsten Dunst plays Claudia in Interview with the Vampire and Mary Jane Watson in
Spider-Man.
References
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