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Interview with the Vampire

Interview with the Vampire

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Don't Forget: This is an Interview
Review: The vampire movie has a long history in films whose focus ranges from the sardonic to the comic to the thriller. But it took INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE to show the undead as having day to day problems not unlike those of their mortal victims. Director Neil Jordan has taken Anne Rice's novel and glitzed it up with a kaleidoscope of color to present a three century leisurely flashback related by a vampire Louis (Brad Pitt) to a reporter Daniel (Christian Slater), who becomes more involved in the tale than at first he thought. Though Louis does the telling, he shares center stage with his mentor vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise), who gives him the gift of eternal life. During the long years of a life that stretches from the French Revolution to modern day America, Louis never loses sight of what it meant to be human, even with all its failings. Louis kills and kills again, but he hates who he is and shares a strange hate-love relationship with Lestat, who keeps trying to remind Louis that he is what he is and ought to take joy in that. Much of the film revolves around a home-erotic relation between Lestat and Louis, and later between Louis and another French vampire Armand (Antonio Banderas). There is a further subtext of incest between Louis and a very young girl Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), whom Louis turns into a fellow vampire.

As in many vampire movies, the dramatic thrust is often equally divided between the frequent scenes of neck biting and the equally obvious eroticism enacted between vampire and victim. In INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, both Louis and Lestat combine the historical bloodiness of earlier vampire movies with the pulsing sexuality that was raging in all concerned. And while all of Louis' story is being recounted to David, the focus begins to shift ever so slightly from the one being interviewed to the one doing the interviewing. During the course of the tale, David learns that human beings often present themselves to known vampires in the hope of joining the ranks of the undead, thus assuming their mantle of power. David learns that it is not enough to wish to become a vampire. One must be deemed worthy to become one. This wish to stalk the living during the night is a potent one, yet the frequent films like this one portray the vampire as weaker than his victim. In the world of the vampire, might does not make right, and INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE emphasizes this painful lesson only too well.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Interpetation of a Great Novel
Review: The first time i saw this movie i had no idea that it was based on a book! the movie was incredible and when i found out that it was a book i went and got it. thanks to this awsome movie i found a wonderful author.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very good
Review: It's a nice adaptation from Anne Rice's book. Although she didn't want Tom Cruise to play Lestat, he did it magnificently. Antonio Banderas and Brad Pitt acting is great too.

I wish they more special features on this DVD though.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Too pretentious to be engrossing
Review: "Interview with a Vampire" commits two fundamental errors, irredeemable in the horror genre:

1) It demystifies vampires. Vampires are scary because they are enigmatic. They have proved such an enduring icon of horror movies because their lifestyle appears glamorous. They lurk around the fringes of the frame, never wholly revealed, because revelation is inherently anticlimatic.

2) It domesticates vampires. The first offence might have been forgiven, had the scriptwriter granted vampires an exciting, erotic existence. Instead, he humanizes vampires by placing them in a domestic context. This, he seems to believe, will elucide the moral dilemma of vampirism. On the contrary, it renders the whole subject so mundane as to be boring.

Oh yer, this review would not be complete without noting that this film is ridiculously verbose and pretentious. Not only are we subjected to boring, domesticated, demystified vampires, but we have to endure their irritating existence for over two whole hours - inexcusable, to say the least. And the whole costume drama side is just so incongruous, it's farcical. And why did we ever need to go to Paris - isn't New Orleans atmospheric enough!!! Cheap directorial stunts like this attempt to cover up serious gaps in plot. And what is the plot of this ridiculous enterprise, anyway - there is no message, other than vampirism is morally bankrupt, yet inexorably attractive! I could get that from Blade, which was a far more entertaining film!

Sorry to subject you to this rant, but just writing this i am continually reminded about how much i objected to this film. Unless your tastes are more towards homoeroticism - which is replete is this movie - stay away from this poor excuse for horror/drama!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great movie.
Review: This is an excellent movie. The acting is great and so is the dialogue. The storyline is multilayered and the movie keeps you wanting more and keeps you interested. Overall: EXCELLENT.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Lestat Lives
Review: Compaired with Queen of the Damned (2001), Interview is certainly a far superior representation of Anne Rice's brilliant creation. This movie follows the novel fairly well. A few details have been changed as with any interputation of a book. For example the ending is more "Hollywoood". Casting was good with the exception of a slight age problem having Antonio Banderas play the eternal 17-year old, Armand. Tom Cruise did a decent job of bringing Lestat "to life". Overall I think most Rice fans will be pretty satisfied with this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Interview with a Masterpiece
Review: Of all movies, novels, and lore surrounding Vampires, Anne Rice explores sides of culture that one would think unimaginable in early times. Her unrestricted work examines homosexuality, the pain of immortality, and the elegance of vampires in a way that breaks any traditional boundaries a vampire story ever had.

Interview with a Vampire is a clever, elegant, and deeply engaging story of myth versus realism (though, it has not been proven that vampires exist, however if they did, Anne Rice portrays them on the human scale.) The movie wavers from the book, that is to be expected, but not in the ways that doomed "Queen of the Damned." I believe there was one review I read where the person was disappointed that there weren't stakes, garlic, and all the other things that associate us with Vampyric Legend. Well, for that, those came out of Dracula and if that's what your seeking, that is the movie you need to buy.

This movie is more of an erotic tale set in the most beautiful of areas with, of course, some of the vampire lore. It centers on Louis (Brad Pitt), a wealthy man who having lost his wife and child seeks death as an answer. Hence, he becomes the victim and love of the Vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise) who gives him the choice between death and eternal life. Louis rejects his fate afterward and doesn't share the passion of Lestat, the homosexual passion which is never really brought forward in the movie. Louis' love is Claudia, a young girl prey that he thought he killed, but Lestat turned to a vampire. The movie follows Louis over a few centuries and culminates in a spellbinding ending with the Vampire Armand (Antonio Banderos) and the return of a vampire that was thought to have been dead.

The interview is Louis' recollection of events to a reporter (Christian Slater,) which in turn creates the entire story. There is more involved in this movie than ever could be written in a review, but it is one of those movies that keeps you locked in and headed to the bookstore. Sadly, the movie wasn't followed by "The Vampire Lestat," instead the powers that be opted for "Queen of the Damned." Cruise, Pitt, Banderas, and Slater are nowhere to be seen in the newest movie. Perhaps that's why there are masterpieces and then there are capitalists on that masterpiece without a shred of literary decency beyond the profit game.

Robert Eldridge (...)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Drink and Join me in Enternal Life
Review: I would say this is a good vampire movie, except it did not please me. Number 1, No stakes. Number 2, in the movie Vampires have reflections. Number 3 Vampires do sleep in coffins with soil, but in this movie, They just sleep in ordinary coffins. And Number 4, The Vampires did not remind me of true vampires.
The film is better than Queen of the Damn, also by Anne Rice.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I Want Some More
Review: First of all, I am a big Anne Rice fan, and this has got to be my favorite movie of all time. It's the most beautiful, dramatic, and excellent film I ever seen. It is just right on course with the book. The soundtrack to the movie is awesome, and it suits the movie perfectly. So, read the book, watch the movie, then go buy the soundtrack. You will be glad you did.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: As good as it could have been done
Review: I caught this one again in anticipation of soon seeing "Queen of the Damned". While not knowing if the second film is any good or not, it would have to do a fantastic job to keep pace with the original. I honestly can't think of a way they could have made "Interview With the Vampire" better. I have read most of "The Vampire Chronicles", and this movie captures the essence of this world to a "T".

The biggest coup was probably getting Tom Cruise to play Lestat, and he delivers. Ann Rice had her initial objections to him, but they were later recanted. What Cruise does best is to play the arrogance of Lestat, while still making him somehow likeable.

And the supporting cast makes me think that "Queen..." is going to be a real stinker, as none of the originals appear in the next film. Brad Pitt doesn't shake up the screen, but his job is to be narrator, and in this he performs well. Kirsten Dunst shows how she was going to be a star in the future with remarkable poise. Stephen Rea plays the vampire you just want to strangle, and Antonio Bandaras shows enough Charisma as Armand that it could have spun off into it's own movie.

But alas, it doesn't look like any of these are going to be in any future Rice movies, and I get the feeling that the whole franchise may have been stopped in it's tracks. If that's the case, own this one and catch it over and over again, as this is a time that Hollywood actually got it right.


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