Movie Review of Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Journalist Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater) is a self-confessed 'collector of people's lives'.  He interviews any individual, who seems like they may have an interesting story to tell. 

He met Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) in an alleyway.  He never did get a good look at the man who claimed to be a vampire. Molloy didn't see him properly until they were in the hotel room with the tape recorder poised to hear the tale.

In truth Molloy thought it was all some big joke.  An American freak trying to present himself as more than he actually is.  An outcast, a nobody, existing on the outskirts of society and attempting to seem 'cool' with this vampire nonsense.

He was wrong. Louis is terrifyingly, horrifically, all that he said he was.  He has been dead for over two hundred years, feeding on blood each day to sate his desperate hunger.   Now he's ready to tell his life story, in all its grisly detail.

Most of the movie recreates, in elongated flashback, two centuries in one vampire's life. Along the way, we meet the decadent Lestat and the tragic Claudia, not to mention the enigmatic Armand and his Theater of Vampires.

They all leave a trail of death and destruction in their wake, even the ones who are trying to stay human until the 'dark gift' swallows them whole.

Before he received the 'dark gift' of vampirism from Lestat, Louis wanted to die. He'd lost his wife and child. He had nothing left to live for, give or take a plantation full of slaves. 

It was his hedonistic life-style, courting death at every turn, which attracted Lestat in the first place. But the second that Louis had it all, he wanted to give it all away.  He couldn't kill.  He didn't want to feast on human prey.  He wanted his own humanity back.

Thus began an eternity of guilt, suffering and trying to fight against his very nature.  It wound Lestat up no end.

Their early days together become a study in how to turn a highly sensitive and compassionate human being into a monstrous predator.  Lestat has several tricks up his lacy sleeve, each one more ghastly than the next.  Until he finally hits upon a way to keep Louis close.  They become a nightmarish family, when Lestat turns a twelve year old girl into a vampire, just so Louis will stay to look after her.

Yet for all of his protestations, there was a savage side to Louis too. When provoked, he could enact a terrible revenge.  He's the archetypal poster boy for the rhyme, 'when he's good, he's very, very good; but when he's bad, he's horrid.'

Interview with the Vampire, both book and movie, depicts the thinking, feeling person's vampiric undead.  The sex and horror runs as the usual undercurrent, but mostly it's about the emotionality of the thing.  Lestat calls Louis his philosopher.  Later Armand refers to the young vampire as the 'broken heart of the age'. 

They're both right, and Louis carries his heart-broken philosophical musings from the 18th century American deep south, back into the darkness of the Old World, and finally into the 20th century interview room.  He proves that vampires can cry and grieve.

However, I sniffed at the time (and now) at Antonio Banderas as Armand. He's a great actor, whom I love in other movies, but he's not Armand.

Armand is supposed to be seventeen. Antonio Banderas was thirty-four at the time the movie was released. Also Armand is Russian, but Antonio played him with a distinctly Spanish accent.  Why would a 400 year old Russian teenager, living in France, have a Spanish accent?

The distance between the book and film details have colored what is otherwise a great performance by Antonio Banderas.  I might even get over it one day and just enjoy it for what it is.

At the time, especial praise was given for Kirsten Dunst's portrayal of Claudia.  She did nail it, as several awards for the role confirmed.  It's impossible now to think of Claudia without picturing the young actress.

She was only ten years old when she played the part.  The strangeness is that she's slightly wooden, when she's being the twelve year old Claudia.  But once the vampiric role calls for her to act as a grown woman in a child's body, she is utterly convincing.

So much so that I always assumed that it was a diminutive adult actress who played Claudia. It's only looking it up to write this review that I've been pleasantly surprised by the truth!

There's a kind of Easter Egg to watch out for in the closing credits.  That's the memorial to River Phoenix.  He was meant to play Daniel Molloy, but died four weeks before filming.  His friend Christian Slater stepped into the role at very short notice and refused payment for it. 

Slater's salary was eventually donated to River Phoenix's favorite charities in his name.

Before I rewatched Interview with the Vampire, I thought that it was going to pass the Bechdel Test. After all, it's a movie that I've seen several times before.  I could picture a couple of scenes, which would probably make the grade.

It not only failed miserably, but it was painful to watch the lengths to which the director went to ensure that was the case.

The Bechdel Test requires that two named female characters have a conversation, which can't be about a male character. That shouldn't have been a problem. I knew where this movie would pass.

The major scenes which I had in mind was the whole sequence with Madeleine (Domiziana Giordano) and Claudia (Kirsten Dunst). I watched as their meeting occurred in silence.  The conversation was implied, as the camera took a long angle out of earshot. 

I watched further as they outlined their plans with Louis.  But they merely took it in turns to talk to Louis.  It was a powerful, beautiful scene, in which no word was actually exchanged between the two female characters.

Yet there was more to come.  I rested easily, knowing that they'd be alone together during a very climactic scene.  It was another failure!  At one point, Claudia yells Madeleine's name, but the woman responds only with a look and expansive body language.  If non-verbal communication could win the day, then this one had it hands down.  But it can't. The Bechdel Test requires conversation.  Even in extremity, they couldn't manage that.

There were two more near misses earlier in the movie.  At one time, a seamstress cuts herself, but only Claudia actually speaks and the seamstress isn't named. 

Later on, a female traveler encounters Claudia sitting alone on a bench.  There's plenty of dialogue, but it's all one-sided.  The unnamed woman speaks, but Claudia only utters the single word 'mama'.  It's not a conversation.

Director Neil Jordan seemed determined for Interview with the Vampire to fail the Bechdel Test, even if the actual scenes were rendered unnatural by ensuring it.