Psycho's Movie Reviews #121: Interview With The Vampire (1994)

Interview with the Vampire is a 1994 American gothic horror film directed by Neil Jordan, based on Anne Rice's 1976 novel of the same name, and starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. The film focuses on Lestat (Cruise) and Louis (Pitt), beginning with Louis's transformation into a vampire by Lestat in 1791. The film chronicles their time together, and their turning of ten-year-old Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) into a vampire. The narrative is framed by a present-day interview, in which Louis tells his story to a San Francisco reporter. The supporting cast features Christian Slater, Antonio Banderas, and Stephen Rea.

The film was released in November 1994 to generally positive reviews and was a commercial success. It received Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Original Score. Kirsten Dunst was additionally nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. A stand-alone sequel, Queen of the Damned, was released in 2002, with Stuart Townsend replacing Cruise as Lestat.

Plot

In modern-day San Francisco, reporter Daniel Molloy interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac, who claims to be a vampire. Louis describes his human life as a wealthy plantation owner in 1791 Spanish Louisiana. Despondent following the death of his wife and unborn child, he drunkenly wanders the waterfront of New Orleans one night and is attacked by the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt. Lestat senses Louis's dissatisfaction with life and offers to turn him into a vampire. Louis accepts, but quickly comes to regret it. While Lestat revels in the hunt and killing of humans, Louis resists his instinct to kill, instead drinking animal blood to sustain himself.

Eventually, amid an outbreak of plague in New Orleans, Louis feeds on a little girl whose mother died in the plague. To entice Louis to stay with him, Lestat turns the dying girl, Claudia, into a vampire. Together, they raise her as a daughter. Louis has a fatherly love for Claudia, while Lestat spoils and treats her more as a pupil, training her to become a merciless killer. Thirty years pass, and Claudia matures psychologically but remains a little girl in appearance and continues to be treated as such by Lestat. When she realizes that she will never grow older or become a mature woman, she is furious with Lestat and tells Louis that they should leave him. She tricks Lestat into drinking the "dead blood" of twin boys whom she killed by overdose with laudanum, which weakens Lestat, and then slits his throat. Though Louis is shocked and upset, he helps Claudia dump Lestat's body in an alligator swamp. They spend weeks planning a voyage to Europe to search for other vampires, but Lestat returns on the night of their departure, having survived on the blood of swamp creatures. Lestat attacks them, but Louis sets him on fire, allowing them to escape to their ship and depart.

After traveling around Europe and the Mediterranean but finding no other vampires, Louis and Claudia settle in Paris in 1870. Louis encounters vampires Santiago and Armand by chance. Armand invites Louis and Claudia to his coven, the Théâtre des Vampires, where vampires stage theatrical horror shows for humans. On their way out of the theater, Santiago reads Louis's mind and suspects that Louis and Claudia murdered Lestat. Armand warns Louis to send Claudia away for her own safety, and Louis stays with Armand to learn about the meaning of being a vampire. Claudia demands that Louis turn a human woman, Madeleine, into a vampire to be her new protector and companion, and he reluctantly complies. Shortly thereafter, the Parisian vampires abduct the three of them and punish them for Lestat's murder, imprisoning Louis in a coffin and trapping Claudia and Madeleine in a chamber, where sunlight burns them to ash. Armand does nothing to prevent this, but the next day he frees Louis. Seeking revenge, Louis returns to the theater at dawn and sets it on fire, killing all the vampires including Santiago. Armand arrives in time to help Louis escape the sunrise, and again offers him a place by his side. Louis rejects Armand and leaves, knowing Armand had allowed Claudia's murder.

As decades pass, Louis never recovers from the loss of Claudia and dejectedly explores the world alone. He returns to New Orleans in 1988 and one night encounters a decayed, weakened Lestat, living as a recluse in an abandoned mansion and surviving on rat blood as Louis once had. Lestat expresses regret for having turned Claudia into a vampire and asks Louis to rejoin him, but Louis declines and leaves. Louis concludes his interview with Molloy, prompting Molloy to beseech Louis to make him his new vampire companion. Louis is outraged that Molloy has not understood the tale of suffering he has related, and attacks Molloy to scare him into abandoning the idea. Molloy runs to his car and takes off, while playing the cassette tapes of Louis' interview in his car. On the Golden Gate Bridge, Lestat appears and attacks Molloy, taking control of the car. Revived by Molloy's blood, Lestat offers Molloy the choice that he "never had"—whether or not to become a vampire—and, laughing, continues driving.

Production

Development -

The rights to Rice's novel were initially purchased by Paramount Pictures in April 1976, shortly before the book was published. However, the script lingered in development hell for years, with the rights being sold to Lorimar before finally ending up with Warner Bros. Director Neil Jordan was approached by Warner Bros. to direct after the huge success of his movie The Crying Game (1992). Jordan was intrigued by the script, calling it "really interesting and slightly theatrical", but was especially interested after reading Rice's novel. He agreed to direct on the condition that he be allowed to write his own script, though he did not gain a writing credit. The themes of Catholic guilt which pervade the novel attracted Jordan, who called the story "the most wonderful parable about wallowing in guilt that I'd ever come across. But these things are unconscious, I don't have an agenda."

With David Geffen producing, the movie was given a $70 million budget, unprecedented for a film in the vampire genre.

Casting

Author Anne Rice adapted her 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire into a screenplay with French actor Alain Delon in mind for the role of Louis. Later on, when Interview entered the casting stage, British actor Julian Sands was championed by Anne Rice and fans of the novel to play Lestat, but because Sands was not a well-known name at the time (being only famed for his performance in A Room with a View), he was rejected and the role was given to Tom Cruise. Because of his star power, Cruise received a record $10 million salary and a percentage of the profits. The casting 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". She recommended a number of other actors including John Malkovich, Peter Weller, Jeremy Irons, and Alexander Godunov. Val Kilmer was offered the role of Louis but turned it down. She suggested that Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise switch roles, stating that "I tried for a long time to tell them that they should just reverse these roles—have Brad Pitt play Lestat and have Tom Cruise play Louis. Of course, they don't listen to me."

Eventually, Rice became 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." She called Cruise to compliment him and admit that she was wrong.

Due to Rice's perception of Hollywood's homophobia, at one point she rewrote the part of Louis, changing his sex to female, in order to specifically heterosexualize the character's relationship with Lestat. At the time, Rice felt it was the only way to get the film made, and singer-actress Cher was considered for the part. A song titled "Lovers Forever", which Cher wrote along with Shirley Eikhard for the film's soundtrack, got rejected as Pitt was ultimately cast for the role, though a dance-pop version of the song was released on Cher's 2013 album, Closer to the Truth.

Originally, River Phoenix was cast for the role of Daniel Molloy (as Anne Rice liked the idea), but he died four weeks before he was due to begin filming. When Christian Slater was cast in his place as Molloy, he donated his entire salary to Phoenix's favourite charitable organizations. The film has a dedication to Phoenix after the end credits. Eleven-year-old actress Kirsten Dunst was spotted by talent scouts and was the first girl tested for the role of Claudia.

Filming

Filming took place primarily in New Orleans and in London, with limited location shooting done in San Francisco and Paris. Louis's plantation was a combination of primarily Destrehan Plantation, just west of New Orleans, and Oak Alley Plantation in nearby Vacherie. The depiction of 18th- and early-19th-century New Orleans was achieved with a combination of location shooting in the French Quarter of New Orleans and filming on a purpose-built waterfront set along the Mississippi river. Production then moved to London, where interior sets were constructed at Pinewood Studios. The sets designed by Dante Ferretti included the interiors of Louis, Lestat and Claudia's New Orleans townhouse, Claudia and Louis's Paris hotel suite, the Théâtre des Vampires (built on Pinewood's 007 Stage), and the catacombs where the Parisien vampires live. Shooting took place in San Francisco, mainly on the Golden Gate Bridge, with the external façade of Louis's hotel located at the intersection of Taylor Street, Market Street, and Golden Gate Avenue. In Paris the exterior and lobby of the Opera Garnier were dressed to film Louis and Claudia's arrival at their hotel in Paris.

Brad Pitt admitted in a 2011 interview with Entertainment Weekly that he was "miserable" while making the film and even tried to buy himself out of his contract at one point. Pitt called the production "six-months of f---king darkness" because of the almost-exclusive night shoots, filmed mostly in London in the depths of winter, which sent him into a depression. The script, which he received only two weeks prior to filming, was also a source of disappointment. He unfavourably contrasted the character of Louis which he had admired in the book to that presented in the script: "In the book you have this guy asking, 'Who am I?' Which was probably applicable to me at that time: 'Am I good? Am I of the angels? Am I bad? Am I of the devil?' In the book it is a guy going on this search of discovery. And in the meantime, he has this Lestat character that he's entranced by and abhors. ... In the movie, they took the sensational aspects of Lestat and made that the pulse of the film, and those things are very enjoyable and very good, but for me, there was just nothing to do—you just sit and watch.

Special effects

Visual effects were overseen by Stan Winston and his team, while the newly founded Digital Domain was responsible for creating the digital effects under Visual Effects Supervisor Robert Legato. Director Neil Jordan was initially hesitant to use Stan Winston Studios, because they had gained a reputation for specializing in large-scale animatronics and CGI with Jurassic Park and Terminator 2: Judgment Day; Interview with the Vampire was going to require mostly makeup effects. Winston designed the characters' vampire appearances and makeup effects, including a technique for stencilling translucent blue veins on the actors' faces. This required the actors to hang upside down for 30 minutes, so that the blood would rush to their heads and cause their veins to protrude, enabling the makeup artists to trace realistic patterns.

Digital effects were used mainly to add small details or to enhance certain physical effects, like the burning of the New Orleans set or the burning of Louis's plantation, whereby CGI flames were imposed on a miniature of the house. The most difficult digital effects to illustrate were Louis and Claudia's transformations into vampires, which were technologically very advanced for the time. The scene where Claudia cuts Lestat's throat was achieved by transferring from Tom Cruise bleeding from a prosthetic wound to an animatronic model designed to 'wither' as it bled out, enhanced with CGI blood. Winston also sculpted the rough model for the charred remains of Claudia and Madeleine, using archival photographs of victims from Hiroshima for inspiration.

Pre-screening

A rough-cut of Interview was shown to test audiences, who according to producer David Geffen felt "there was a little too much blood and violence." The screenings were held over the objection of Neil Jordan, who was planning on further paring down the length of the film before previewing it, but Geffen wanted to show the longer version in order to "get a feel for what the audience wanted." Eventually about 20 minutes' worth of footage was either cut or re-arranged before the theatrical version was ready.

Release/Reception/Box Office

On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 55 reviews, with a rating average of 5.9/10. The site's consensus reads: "Despite lacking some of the book's subtler shadings, and suffering from some clumsy casting, Interview with the Vampire benefits from Neil Jordan's atmospheric direction and a surfeit of gothic thrills." On Metacritic the film holds a score of 59 out of 100 based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Praise from The New York Times' Janet Maslin and the Chicago Sun-Times' Roger Ebert was tempered by negative reviews by The Washington Post's Rita Kempley and Desson Howe and Time magazine's Richard Corliss.

Oprah Winfrey walked out of an advance screening of the movie only 10 minutes in, because of the gore and dark themes. She considered cancelling an interview with Tom Cruise promoting the film, stating, "I believe there are forces of light and darkness in the world, and I don't want to be a contributor to the force of darkness".

Interview with the Vampire was a box-office success. The film opened on November 11, 1994 (Veterans Day) and opening weekend grosses amounted to $36.4 million, a November record, placing it in the number one position at the US box office above The Santa Clause which opened with $19.3 million. However, some in the industry disputed the figure and the range of estimates by others were from $34 to $37 million. In subsequent weeks it struggled against Star Trek Generations and The Santa Clause. Total gross in the United States was $105 million, while the worldwide gross was $224 million, with an estimated budget of $60 million.

Budget $60 million

Box office $223.7 million

My Review

For better or worse Anne Rice has redefined what a vampire is in movies and literature. Before there was the Twilight saga there was Anne writing her novels and seeing Interview With A Vampire we see that vampire now means Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. No longer is it Bela Lugosi with his continental suaveness and Hungarian accent. But Cruise and Pitt are just as deadly, maybe more so. The film is exactly what it says. Journalist Christian Slater has tracked down Brad Pitt whom he interviews. Pitt tells him about his afterlife as a vampire dating from colonial New Orleans with a few highlights in New Orleans and Paris where he settled in the Third Republic years. There's also young Kirsten Dunst who masters a most difficult role as a child vampire. She's matured, but rather strangely.

I, like Anne Rice, was initially dismayed that Tom Cruise had been cast as Lestat. But when I saw the film, I had to admit that he absolutely nailed the role. I had always thought of Cruise as a pretty boy, and not really a serious actor, especially since he failed in his attempt at a Streepian accent in "Far and Away". However, he perfectly portrayed Lestat for what he is, a monster with a monstrous ego. I think that this was the first film I had seen with Brad Pitt, followed shortly by "Legends of the Fall" so to me his acting credentials were impeccable, in spite of my female friends swooning over him. The rest of the cast was excellent as well, with the only minor quibble that Antonio Banderas was too old for the part of Armand. Kirsten Dunst was adorably evil. The cinematography was beautiful, considering that almost all of the film (of course) takes place at night. One note on the supposed "homo-eroticism" in the film. I have the advantage, having read Rice's books, so here is the deal on that. In Rice's world, the vampires are absolutely sexless. Therefore, gender has no meaning to them. When a vampire loves another, or a mortal, it is truly from the heart, as no sexuality of any kind ever enters into it. The only thing to them that is close, is the kill. Killing is highly "erotic" to vampires. However, this too is really asexual, and so again, gender has no bearing on the eroticism of the kill. I think that some elements of this, which apparently came across as homo-eroticism, were included in the screenplay just to emphasize how different, how non-human, that vampires are.

Interview with the Vampire is such an unusual horror movie, it stands up incredibly well many years later, it's lavish, decadent and sumptuous. The filming and direction are wonderful, it never fails to impress. It's a very different style of horror, it has softer tones, and yet it's blood thirsty when needed. The story telling itself is one of the film's major strengths, it's a captivating watch, splitting vampire lust and cravings against a very human element.

Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are both fantastic, I'd argue it's one of Cruise's best performances, the whole supporting cast are great.

In conclusion I definitely recommend you give this movie a watch. I've watched it many times, I've never once lost interest in it. It's a great watch. 8/10!