interview with the vampire book reviews

ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

From the the vampire chronicles series.

by Anne Rice ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 1976

The word is that readers will be "enrapt."

Pub Date: May 5, 1976

ISBN: 0345409647

Page Count: 392

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: April 9, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1976

GENERAL FICTION

Share your opinion of this book

A LITTLE LIFE

by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.

Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees , 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.

Pub Date: March 10, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8

Page Count: 720

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

More by Hanya Yanagihara

by Hanya Yanagihara

PERSPECTIVES

by Elin Hilderbrand ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2015

Once again, Hilderbrand displays her gift for making us care most about her least likable characters.

Hilderbrand’s latest cautionary tale exposes the toxic—and hilarious—impact of gossip on even the most sophisticated of islands.

Eddie and Grace Pancik are known for their beautiful Nantucket home and grounds, financed with the profits from Eddie’s thriving real estate company (thriving before the crash of 2008, that is). Grace raises pedigreed hens and, with the help of hunky landscape architect Benton Coe, has achieved a lush paradise of fowl-friendly foliage. The Panciks’ teenage girls, Allegra and Hope, suffer invidious comparisons of their looks and sex appeal, although they're identical twins. The Panciks’ friends the Llewellyns (Madeline, a blocked novelist, and her airline-pilot husband, Trevor) invested $50,000, the lion’s share of Madeline’s last advance, in Eddie’s latest development. But Madeline, hard-pressed to come up with catalog copy, much less a new novel, is living in increasingly straightened circumstances, at least by Nantucket standards: she can only afford $2,000 per month on the apartment she rents in desperate hope that “a room of her own” will prime the creative pump. Construction on Eddie’s spec houses has stalled, thanks to the aforementioned crash. Grace, who has been nursing a crush on Benton for some time, gives in and a torrid affair ensues, which she ill-advisedly confides to Madeline after too many glasses of Screaming Eagle. With her agent and publisher dropping dire hints about clawing back her advance and Eddie “temporarily” unable to return the 50K, what’s a writer to do but to appropriate Grace’s adultery as fictional fodder? When Eddie is seen entering her apartment (to ask why she rented from a rival realtor), rumors spread about him and Madeline, and after the rival realtor sneaks a look at Madeline’s rough draft (which New York is hotly anticipating as “the Playboy Channel meets HGTV”), the island threatens to implode with prurient snark. No one is spared, not even Hilderbrand herself, “that other Nantucket novelist,” nor this magazine, “the notoriously cranky Kirkus.”

Pub Date: June 16, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-316-33452-5

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

More by Elin Hilderbrand

by Elin Hilderbrand

Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

Book Review: Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles Book 1) by Anne Rice

There’s nothing I can say about this book that hasn’t been said already and said far more eloquently. But I’m going to talk about it anyway because it’s special to me. This book was the book—the one that started my love for vampire books.

I read this for the first time when I was 14, and then proceeded to read the rest of the 11 or so Vampire Chronicles books (plus the New Tales ones) available at the time. When I think of high school, these are the books that come to mind. I have a lot of memories of reading these books. They mean something to me. They shaped me as a reader and, maybe in some ways, as a person.

So, 8 or so years later, I decided I wanted to revisit this book that meant so much to me as a teen and to refresh my memory before finally reading Claudia’s Story. My first attempt didn’t go well—I DNFed around 20%—but a few years after that , I found myself thinking about this book more and more until one day I came upon some fan art and was suddenly filled with this excitement and desire to reread the book immediately, and I think being in the right mood made all the difference. I really enjoyed it, to the point that I actually want to continue rereading the series—I hadn’t been expecting that.

But anyway… I’ve decided my reviews for this series aren’t going to be reviews so much as just a way for me to track and discuss my thoughts. So the likes/dislikes might be helpful for people considering the book, but the rest will be better for anyone who’s already read it or is just curious. Also, I just want to note that I’m basing these thoughts on THIS BOOK ONLY, not any of the later books.

Things I Disliked/Things I Didn’t Mind but Others Might Dislike:

– The interview style of the book was weird since technically it was 3rd person omniscient set in the present, but, since most of the book was Louis talking, it felt more like 1st person set in the past. It sounds like something that be distracting, but I still kept getting lost in the story regardless.

– There was a lot of flowery language and description. Sometimes it drew me into the story, other times it was too much.

– Descriptions of characters and random humans was… strangely sensual in a way that I sometimes found kind of unsettling. Maybe it was because, instead of noticing typical things, Louis noticed things like the plumpness of someone’s cheeks. Seriously, the word ‘plump’ was used five times which doesn’t seem like a lot, but it sure seems that way while you’re reading. It was like everyone described came from a cherubic Renaissance painting (though I feel like this might just be Anne Rice’s writing style). Although, I suppose it makes sense that a vampire would describe people with a word more often used to describe food.

– There was no goal to work toward. It was literally just a vampire explaining everything that happened in his life.

– There weren’t regular chapters , just four parts.

– Louis and Armand kept tossing around the word ‘love’ like candy almost as soon as they met. But Armand himself said he only wanted Louis because Louis would be the one to revitalize him and keep him from falling into despair from the immortality. And Louis, well, he was clearly just enamored by the way someone was finally willing to give him answers and talk with him and listen while he brooded aloud.

Things I Liked:

– I will always love this portrayal of vampires. I mean, I do like reading about sex + biting, but, for these vampires, feeding and killing IS sex, and I can appreciate that. (I still remember the first time I read a book in which the vampires had sex though, I hated it and was like, “No! That’s not how it’s supposed to be!” Lol.) The biting still has this sensual/erotic aspect to it at times. And I just like these beautiful yet deadly vampires. They’re human, yet they’re not human.

– The characterization was fantastic. None of the characters were particularly likeable, but they were so well-written, and that made me kind of like them anyway. Sometimes I feel like a lot of the characters I read about are bland or super similar to other characters, but both Louis and Lestat were so different from each other and also unique in their own rights.

– There were some unconventional relationships. I found them thought-provoking (more on this below).

– The whole book had a dark, atmospheric feel.

My Thoughts on the Characters (there might be *SPOILERS* in this section):

– Armand. I feel like I still don’t know much about Armand. He seemed pretty inhuman and emotionless. But he also seemed like someone you could talk to for a long time, and he was a great listener.

– Claudia. Everyone knows about the tragic child vampire, trapped forever in the body of a child, never able to be independent, never able to live or be treated like an adult. But what was so interesting about her was the fact that, for all intents and purposes, she didn’t have a human life before becoming a vampire. She was only five years old, so, unlike others, Claudia didn’t have a humanity to remember and to influence her. She was turned before she even understood right from wrong, before she understood the value of life. And because of that, she was… different. Cold, cruel, and vicious in her own unique ways, but also suffering.

– Louis. Ah… I’m not sure how I feel about him. He was not without his flaws, like kind of only seeing what he wanted to see (especially when it came to Armand and Claudia), but he was far more likeable to me than the others as a person (well, vampire) because he wasn’t as cruel. I would much rather have Louis as my companion than Lestat, Claudia, or Armand. Louis is an introspective, a thinker, a seeker of knowledge, an appreciator of beauty, and I can relate to all those things to some degree. I also felt for him, stuck with Lestat of all people as his maker. Lestat was a horrible mentor, so I could understand Louis being upset about that. I could also understand why Louis stayed with him (more on this below). But Louis’s brooding did eventually get to be a bit much. All he did was dwell in negatives and pain. He said he wanted to appreciate things with his new vampire life, but it didn’t seem like he ever actually did that. And then, by the end, this vampire who had been the most in tune with his humanity became numb and more detached from life than even Lestat or Armand. But who knows, any one of us might turn out the same if we were turned into monsters, hated what we were, were emotionally abused and manipulated, lost the person we loved, and were alive for centuries. So I don’t dislike him. I do feel sad for him though.

– Lestat. Oh, Lestat. He was abusive, manipulative, greedy, controlling, and temperamental, and he wouldn’t let Louis leave because he was afraid of being alone. He was terrible toward Louis and Claudia, and he was cruel to the humans and would terrorize them before killing or would make them fall in love with him so that he could add betrayal to their pain when he killed them. The one word I’d use to describe him though is ‘pathetic.’ Lestat was terrible, abusive, and cruel, and then, when those he treated terribly finally wanted nothing more to do with him, he was weak, scared, lost, lonely, and wanted them back. He might not actually be that simple, I guess I will find out when I keep reading, but that’s how I feel about him based on how he was portrayed through Louis’s POV. Don’t get me wrong, he was interesting as a character, just not likeable as a person. Ironically though, he seemed to have more humanity than any of the others in one sense of the word—he still felt emotions and passions and life in a way that the others didn’t seem to.

My Thoughts on the Relationships (there might be *SPOILERS* in this section):

– Louis and Claudia’s was the strangest because he raised her as a father, then he became her lover (minus the sex), but he still kind of thought of her as a child and treated her like a child because she looked like one. Louis himself literally described them as: “Father and Daughter. Lover and Lover.”

– Then there was Louis and Lestat who most certainly did not love each other (or if they did, it was definitely not in a healthy way) but who stayed together regardless and raised a vampire child together. They even had discussions about Claudia’s “acting out” as though she were really their child, and Lestat would storm out, telling Louis to talk to her because he couldn’t deal with her. They made their own little dysfunctional family. But this wasn’t a cute, funny thing—their relationship was abusive, and I can understand Louis’s side to an extent. Lestat was the epitome of an abusive parent/partner/friend/whatever. Lestat constantly belittled Louis, he made Louis believe that he (Louis) needed him (Lestat), he even made a child with Louis in order to manipulate him into staying because he knew Louis wanted to leave him. Anyone who’s never dealt with a person like that might think the solution is really simple—Louis should’ve just stopped whining and left—but 1) he didn’t know if there were other vampires, and he didn’t want to be alone either, 2) Lestat was his maker, which probably gave them some sort of bond, and 3) Lestat was manipulative, controlling, and physically more powerful than Louis. In abusive relationships, it’s not always as simple as just leaving. So I do believe that Louis hated Lestat, but I believe his feelings were more complex than that, which is realistic. As for Lestat’s feelings for Louis… I honestly don’t know. That’s still an enigma to me. I wanted to talk about this though because I’ve seen people talk about romance/love/batting eyes at each other/etc. in this book between Louis and Lestat, but all I could really see was how abusive and manipulative Lestat’s actions and words were.

– I’m not sure I even understand what Louis’s relationship was with Armand. They traveled the world together, but Louis had become numb already by that point, and he said something about going off on his own for long periods of time before returning to Armand.

Overall Thoughts:

Even though this book had a lot of description and a few other things that would normally put me off a book, it’s a vampire classic, it means something to me because of how much it’s influenced my reading habits, and I found myself being drawn in by the great characterization!

*I’ve read this book multiple times. This review was written after my 2nd read.*

Reread Ratings: No Rating (1st Read – mid/late 2000s) 4 Stars (2nd Read – 2017)

Recommended For:

Anyone who likes beautiful yet deadly vampires, descriptive writing, and amazingly complex characters.

You Can Also Find My Review Here:

Goodreads | Amazon

More Books in the Series:

Graphic Novel Review: Interview with the Vampire: Claudia’s Story by Anne Rice & Ashley Marie Witter

Book Review: The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles Book 2) by Anne Rice

Book Review: The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles Book 3) by Anne Rice

Book Review: The Tale of the Body Thief (The Vampire Chronicles Book 4) by Anne Rice

Book Review: Memnoch the Devil (The Vampire Chronicles Book 5) by Anne Rice

Book Author: Anne Rice Publisher: Ballantine Books Series: The Vampire Chronicles Genre: Fantasy , Historical Fantasy , LGBTQIA , Low/Paranormal/Urban Fantasy My Rating: 4 Series/Standalone: Part of a Series

More Info (Possible Spoilers)

LGBT+ Rep: Bisexual (Main Character) Non-Human Type: Vampires Relationships/Sex: M-F , M-M

Talk to me!

Have you read interview with the vampire by anne rice what's one book that made you fall in love with a certain genre or that shaped your reading, related posts.

Book Review: The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu

Your Thoughts

45 thoughts on “ book review: interview with the vampire (the vampire chronicles book 1) by anne rice ”.

I'd love if you'd share your thoughts, too!

Reading your comments makes me a very happy blogger! Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I have read the privacy policy and consent to the storage and handling of my data by this website. *

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

I never read the book, but I remember watching the movie at the theater when I was in high school (the 90s). Don’t remember many details, though. Claudia was only 5 when turned in the book? Wasn’t she older in the movie? And that’s just weird, about her and Louis. Glad you were able to enjoy it on your reread.

Yeah, they made her older in the movie. It’s definitely a weird kind of relationship, but somehow it doesn’t feel out of place in the dark atmosphere of the story. Thanks!

It wasn’t that long! 🙂

I do think this book would frustrate me. There’s no goal? At all? It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the movie, so I can’t remember how it ends. Does the book or movie just end on a thought? I feel like I would need someone to achieve something eventually.

I suppose the goal was eventually to find other vampires in the world. But I mean, it kind of does end on a thought since it’s just Louis telling his life story up to that point. Normally that would bother me, but I think the fact that I knew generally what the plot was helped since I kind of had things to look forward to and knew that some things would happen eventually, if that makes sense.

It does! I might see if my library has a copy.

I hope you’re able to find a copy 🙂

Oh wow, this sounds like a very special series for you. I can relate. I have some titles that remind me of my childhood/teenage life. Ahh you make me want to reread them. I miss them. Anyway, awesome review. I’ll check out this series. Thanks for sharing. ?❤️

Yeah, those reads that remind us of our childhood/teen years always have a special place in our hearts <3 You should totally reread some of your old favorites!

I’m pretty sure I read this around the same age you did. I have hopes of reading it again one day and then continuing on. However, I do love her other series. I devours The Mayfair Witches books and loved the first werewolf book she wrote, although I need to finish that series. I hate to say it but Tom Cruise sort of ruined this series for me. I thought he made an awful vampire.

I’ve never read her other series, just the vampires. I didn’t even know she had werewolf books, interesting! Idk, I saw the movie before reading the book and it was what made me want to read the book in the first place, so Tom Cruise was the version of Lestat I first saw. (The weirdest casting in that movie was definitely Antonio Banderas for Armand!)

I read this book years and years ago now, and barely remember it, but I *do* remember an overall feeling of liking it. When I tried to read The Vampire Lestat straight after though…let’s just say, there was a bookmark half way through that novel for 10 years before I gave up and got rid of the books I’d bought (I’m an all or nothing kind of girl, I didn’t buy the whole series but it was more than 2 lol)

Anne Rice’s writing is sort of…flowery to me? There’s just…something about it I cannot get into completely. Weirdly, I’ve actually been thinking about re-reading this lately. But I’m not sure…I love the movie though.

Yep, that was how I felt before rereading. I remembered liking it but barely remembered the actual book. But I guess I must’ve enjoyed all the rest in the series as well. I’m curious to see how many more I’ll end up reading this time.

Oh, there’s definitely a lot of description and floweriness. That was my biggest issue, I think. But I think you give the reread a go anyway 😉

I’ll give her a try at one point or another. I had this vampire phase at one point so I am surprised that I never read her. Glad you enjoyed it so much, despite the fact that the same thing that drew you to the book at certain points also did not work at others

Well if you ever find yourself in another vampire phase, maybe you’ll give this book a try 🙂 Thanks!

I’ve actually never read the book but the movie was so epic and as a kid it made me love vampires so freaking much. I guess its one of those books I’m terrified to read because I loved the movie which is crazy because how can the book be worst, great review!

It was actually the movie that made me want to read the book in the first place! I have had occasions when the movie ended up being better, but I think they’re both good in this case. Thanks!

Thank you for a wonderfully detailed and readable review, Kristen. I’ve never read this book and you gave me plenty of information as to whether this one is for me or not:)

Thanks, glad it was helpful!

I’ve literally had this book sitting on my shelves for YEARS (I got it as a hand me down from a relative) but I haven’t worked up the nerve to read it because I’m scared it will be too scary for me (I get nightmares easily). I hear the movie is really excellent too!

I can’t promise it won’t give you nightmares (I mean, I’ve had random nightmares from non-horror books lol), but I can promise it’s not at all a scary or creepy book. It’s just vampires 🙂 And yes the movie is also great!

It’s great (and sometimes not great) when you revisit an old favourite. I read this years ago, and i’d forgotten so much of what you described, but also you’ve given me a new way of looking at Louis and Claudia especially — thank you!

It’s risky rereading old favorites, so I was glad that this one went well! Thanks, glad you liked my review 🙂

I ADORED this movie! On emy all-time favorite! and not only in the horror/vampire gene but ALL TIME. The actors??? omg [clears her throat] LOL so I always wanted to read the book. Glad to hear is good!

It’s a great movie as well! Lol yeah it doesn’t hurt that it has both Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise 😉 Although now they’re the ones I picture when I read lol.

It’s so awesome that you got a chance to reread the book which began your love for vampires! I love books which influence you as a reader (for me, there are a whole bunch of different reasons). I’m not a massive vampire reader so I kind of know I’ll never read this series (the number of books is also offputting) but I get that it is a classic in its own way. The style of writing would totally not work for me but the characters are interesting and this is kind of the standard idea of how vampires act.

Yeah, prob not the series for you. The number of books would normally be daunting for me, but I already own like ten of them and my library has ebooks of the newer ones I don’t own, so I don’t have to worry about the money. And though I plan to continue, I’m not gonna force myself to keep going if I reach a point where I get tired of it. But yeah, this was a big influence on the modern portrayal of vampires!

I’m kind of afraid to re-read this now. I read it almost 10 years ago maybe and I was sooooo in love with Louie and intrigued by Claudia & Armand and I don’t want it to be ruined if I feel differently.

I re-read it dozens of times back then but stopped once I started blogging and had too many other books to read.

For What It’s Worth

I get it, it’s nerve-wracking rereading old favorites since you might end up liking them less. That’s why I’m glad this one turned out well for me!

I definitely felt the same way as you did when I first read the book back in high school. 1994! Oh man, that was eons ago, and the movie came out in the fall of that same year. Over the years I followed it up with the other books in the Vampire Chronicles, able to see more and more of Lestat’s backstory and motivations, though Louis stays the same and honestly, that got boring. I think Queen of the Damned is the best book out of that series.

Oh that’s cool that you read it before the movie! I read it after seeing the movie, so I just have Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt stuck in my head as the characters lol. I don’t remember much about the later books, but I do remember that Lestat changes a lot. I think I remember Queen of the Damned the best, or at least bits and pieces of it. I remember the climax being really intense!

Wow – this WAS a long review! 🙂 But I liked it!

I read this book a very, very long time ago and I think there was a lot that I missed out on because of that. I think I might have to do a reread.

What did you think of the movie??

Lol it really was, but I couldn’t bring myself to remove anything! Thanks, glad you liked it 🙂

Sometimes I kind of regret that I didn’t keep any notes about my thoughts on books when I was in middle and high school. I just wonder how much I actually noticed or paid attention to, what I took from books, how I felt about them. I might’ve missed out on a lot too when I first read this, or maybe I felt the exact same way. I guess I’ll never know. But you should totally do a reread 😉

I think the movie is great too! It was actually the movie that made me interested in the book in the first place.

I read this book after I read The Vampire Lestat and other books in the series. I think I read this when I ran out of series to read and so…I am a bit biased toward Louis. I read it and thought the whole time how Louis was a liar and such a whiny Vampire that he took his gift for granted. I read Interview with a Vampire through Lestat’s eyes because for me he was everything. My favorite bits of this book were the bits involving Claudia as she became the one subject Lestat was always reluctant to talk about. I think you summed this up very well. It is such an engrossing tale and it has so many subjects that were hard to relate to that it could really only get 4 stars from me either. Fantastic review!

*I have to admit I read your review the day it hit my email and then forgot to stop by and comment. That was stupid as the email got buried until just now for me. I did start reading The Vampire Lestat as soon as I read your review. Maybe only because I couldn’t wait to read it since the minute we talked about it. I can’t believe how much I forgot, including the fact that Armand loved Lestat first. Hopefully I will be finishing Lestat sometime next week.

Ok now your comment has me itching to get to the next book because I don’t remember any of these things and I want to what Louis lied about?! I wonder how much an impact it makes reading the series in a different order. Like, I sympathized with Louis while reading this, yet you sympathized with Lestat. I’m really curious to see if my opinion will change as I read more. But gah, I still have other books to read before getting back to this series!

ARGH YOU DID THE THING!!!! XD

I personally did sympathise with Louis, but also found him quite whiny sometimes. Like dude, you’re a freaking vampire – maybe appreciate that once in a while!

Lestat… he’s not a good person. But I adore him. The force of his emotions (plus his drama – he’s the f**king queen honey!) always made me love him. Plus, he’s so sad! Someone can’t be that sad without me wanting to hug them, ok? 😉 <3

I just love the whole gothic-ness of these books. And Anne Rice's writing is officially the sh**! Lol.

I agree, I sympathize, but he also could do with a little less whining and a little more doing.

I am curious to see if my opinion of Lestat changes when I read more of the series. Whether I like him as a person will depend on whether he changes or not. But I can dislike a char as a person and still love them as a char if they’re interesting/complex/realistic enough.

I have a confession to make. I haven’t fully read Interview with the Vampire. I gave up on it halfway through when I was thirteen because I thought it was SO boring, but I want to pick it back up and give it another shot. Great review!

It does have a lot of flowery description. But maybe you’ll enjoy it more if you give it another go!

I think I saw the movie from this one, and I did like it. Once day I will read the book, I think. I remember being soooo sorry for Claudia though. Sucks for her. Forever a child.

The movie it great too! I think it’s impossible not to feel terrible for Claudia :-/

My cousin gave me this book and it was my first vampire book. I didn’t read Dracula until last year.. Ha ha. I was used to reading SciFi and High Fantasy, so reading this book was very different for me and I loved it. I am so glad your re-read attempt was a success this time because it is wonderful being able to revisit old favorites, especially ones that have an extra special place in your heart. ☺

This was also my first vampire book, and I didn’t read Dracula until last year either, haha, so we have that in common! Thanks 🙂 It’s nerve-wracking visiting old favorites though since sometimes it doesn’t go so well!

And there you were saying this would be the review that no one would read but I see a lot of lovely comments! I can’t say too much as I haven’t read this book before… I do love vampires though – admittedly because of Stephanie Meyer (I gather you’re not a fan… because that breaks all the vampire rules) but I should read this one because it sounds like it really deals with a classic vampire and kind of does it in a unique way? The writing style and format of the book sounds different. I realise I don’t mind flowery language as long as I am invested in a book enough before it shows up, so I don’t think I’ll mind that.

Believe it or not, I read all the Twilight books, so I must’ve liked something about them. But I read them after Anne Rice’s books, and so I felt like Meyer’s vampires were all wrong, and I think it might’ve been those books that made me stop reading about vampires for years lol. But now I like seeing how diff authors portray them, and I respect every author’s right to make vampires however they want as long as they still drink blood 🙂 (and every reader’s right to enjoy whatever books they want!)

I think it was these books that kind of set the standard for the modern vampire portrayal. If you like vampires and don’t mind flowery language, then I def suggest giving this a try!

Pingback: 9 books and reviews that will make you consider Paranormal Romance - BOOKIVERSE

The Inventory

Interview With the Vampire Is a Bloody Good Nightmare

Amc's new anne rice series flays itself open, making raw nerves of the characters and creating an adaptation that is sexy, visceral, and self-aware..

The main Interview With the Vampire cast

Anne Rice, as an author, is obsessed with the ways that love is a singularly horrible experience. It tears you apart, it destroys you, it eats you alive. In the newest adaptation of her work, AMC’s Interview With the Vampire , love is placed at the center of a reconstructed version of her seminal twisted fantasy , resulting in a sweeping, Southern Gothic romance where two vampires make a fool of death with their inescapable, never-ending , horrific love.

Book Review: Anne Rice’s ‘Interview With The Vampire’

In Interview With The Vampire, a long relationship begins

As a kid (no kidding, I was only about eleven when I read Interview With The Vampire for the first time) these books made a big impression on me. I reread them over and over. The story of Louis, a southern land owner who lived outside of New Orleans back when New Orleans still belonged to France was captivating to me. The story begins in 1791 when Louis’ brother passes away and Louis has a very hard time dealing with it. He wishes to die but is too cowardly to do it himself. Enter Lestat, a beautiful man who makes extraordinary claims to Louis.

Lestat claims he is a vampire and that he can make Louis a vampire too. He then goes to work selling him hard on the vampire life. Lestat is physically dazzling with his vampire beauty and grace. Furthermore, he promises Louis that the world will be theirs and all his problems will disappear. All he asks in return is for Louis to simply provides a place for Lestat’s aging mortal father to live on his plantation. In Louis’s fragile mental state he is easy to manipulate so Lestat moves his father into the Pointe du Lac plantation and turned Louis into a vampire.

To say that Lestat failed as a mentor is an understatement and Louis quickly realizes that not only did he not like Lestat but he actively disliked, even despised him. He stays with Lestat for years because he believes that Lestat holds the knowledge about vampirism that he needs. Eventually, Louis concludes that Lestat knows nothing of value and decides to leave. In a desperate bid to keep Louis, Lestat turns a little girl, Claudia, and declares them a family. Louis feels compelled to stay and they pass nearly 70 years in the glory of New Orleans’ nightlife.

Eventually the relationship sours

But all good things come to an end, and devilish things too. You see Claudia’s body died the night she was turned into a vampire but her mind stayed alive and active. Eventually, she was a full-grown woman who had passed an entire lifetime as a five-year-old. This was obviously hard on her and she grew to hate the confines of her world. She also was able to clearly see the horrible way Lestat treated her and Louis and she wanted to leave. Convinced that he would never allow them to go willingly, she concluded that he had to die and devised a plan to accomplish just that.

Claudia put her plan in motion and after he seems dead she convinces Louis, whom she loves and doesn’t blame for anything, to help her dispose of Lestat’s body in the swamp. Claudia and Louis make plans to leave America (as New Orleans has become part of America by now) to search for vampires in Europe. But vampires are called immortal for a reason and Lestat comes back before they can depart. There is a second fight that culminates in their townhouse catching fire and they are pretty positive Lestat is dead this time. However, they leave America that night just to be sure.

Claudia and Louis travel Eastern Europe for years searching for vampires. Claudia is sure that they will find them there because most Vampire folklore is centered there. But all they find can best be described as zombie vampires. Nowhere do they find vampires like themselves and they begin to despair.

Just when you stop looking

Finally, they decide to give up the search and head to Paris. And just when they stop looking the vampires find them. Louis is followed by some of the vampires one night and they invite him and Claudia to a performance at the Théâtre des Vampires and some socializing after the show. At first, he and Claudia are overjoyed to have finally found vampires like them and are eager for any answers they may have. It quickly becomes apparent though that they do not have answers. What’s more, they are shallow and narcissistic. Louis and Claudia searched the world for vampires and when they finally find some they are disappointed, to say the least.

What’s worse, it quickly becomes apparent that they are in danger from these new vampires. Some of them suspect Louis and Claudia of killing their maker, the only crime a vampire can commit. And one, Armand, wants Louis to himself at any cost.

Another death in Interview With The Vampire

Things come to a head when Lestat reappears and accuses Claudia of attempted vampiricide. The Théâtre vampires haul her and Louis in to be punished. Louis is locked in a lead coffin and bricked in a wall Edgar Allen Poe style. Armand comes to “save” Louis the next night but he claims it was too late for him to help Claudia. She was burned alive by the sunlight that morning.

Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire Claudia

After Claudia’s death, something in Louis snaps. He takes his revenge on the Théâtre vampires, burning down the whole theater with them trapped inside just before sunrise the next morning. Armand is the only one to escape, having been warned by Louis the previous night. Louis and Armand leave Paris together and travel the world together but Louis is never himself again and both are unhappy.

Finally, Louis and Armand return to New Orleans. Louis finds Lestat there and finds him a decrepit old man in vampire form. Lestat has been unable to adapt to the modern world and stays cloistered in a run-down old house being reluctantly tended to by a newborn vampire. Louis pities Lestat and if he doesn’t exactly forgive him for what happens in Paris, he at least lets go of it. After that, he leaves Armand and then decides to tell Daniel, the reporter he has been relating all this to, his story.

An odd trio in Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire

I can’t say I ever understood people’s obsession with Lestat, I always saw him as a selfish jerk and didn’t like him. Louis was a more interesting character. I initially felt so bad for him but over time and multiple rereads I began to find him whiny. He refuses to take responsibility for his own role in his unhappiness and that began to grate on me.

Hands down, my favorite character has always been Claudia. Of all the vampires she may have been the most vicious, but that’s because she was turned when she was only 4 or 5. She had no real memories of being a human and no real connections to humans to nurture her compassion. All she ever knew humans as food. Lestat provided a dismal example of how to behave and while Louis loved art and culture, there is no evidence that charity was ever thought of by him.

A sad story for the vampire named Claudia

Still, that was not why I love Claudia so much. I love her the most because she is the most deserving of sympathy. She never asked to become a vampire and she had absolutely no say in it.

To make matters worse, she was trapped for the rest of her life by this one decision that someone else made for her. Her mind grew and expanded but because her body was incapable of change the rest of the world forever saw her as a child and treated her as such. But she never gives up. She fights to try and escape her plight and take back control of her life and that is what I really love about her. Because she could have rolled over and been this sad tragic doll but instead she becomes a powerful woman whom even the great Armand saw as a threat.

Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire Claudia Sad

Claudia is really the female existence boiled down to one tiny little story. A man liked her looks and used her how he wanted based on that and without her permission. Another man decided that because of the first man’s choice to make a second, permanent, choice about her body. And she had to spend the rest of her life trapped by the ramifications of those actions, which neither man had bothered to think through. Never able to change, move on, or better herself because everyone always judged her for something that was done to her and wasn’t her choice or fault.

Still, she fights on and does the best she can with the hand she was dealt. Claudia’s story hits especially hard in this post-Roe v. Wade world. I think a lot of people, especially women, can relate to Claudia and everything she suffers through in Interview With The Vampire .

A troubled relationship

As I said earlier, I first read Interview With The Vampire when I was eleven. Needless to say, I didn’t really have the emotional intelligence to understand everything that was going on. As I got older I began to see how messed up the relationship between Louis and Lestat was but I still didn’t really have words for it.

On this read-through, I realized that they have a rather abusive relationship and that’s probably why I grew to dislike the story over time. Lestat is a classic abuser. He met Louis when he was at a very low emotional point in his life and told Louis that only he could solve all his problems. He then used information to control Louis. Lestat constantly hinted that he knew things Louis could never learn without him. Further, he insisted that without this knowledge Louis would die.

When he sensed that Louis was pulling away he introduced a child into the relationship, another classic abuser move. And it worked and pulled Louis back in. Lestat is constantly belittling Louis. He makes fun of him for not being a good enough vampire but never tries to help him become more. He calls him names and tells him he cannot survive without him. Occasionally he even gets violent. After his outbursts, he comes back and is sweet and loving and the cycle begins again.

It takes Louis a hundred years to escape this abusive relationship, and another hundred to completely release Lestat’s hold on him. I am very glad that he does finally escape this horrible relationship. This read-through was the first time I really recognized the dynamics of Louis and Lestat’s relationship. Interestingly, once I realized this I felt more kindly towards Louis and I didn’t find him so whiny. I think there’s a lesson there, at least for me, if you find out what’s really going on with people you can be more understanding.

An enjoyable read again

So as the story goes, you can never read the same story twice because you are never the same person twice. Originally I loved Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire . As I aged I began to dislike the book. Now I have more sympathy for the characters and I enjoyed it again.

I would definitely not recommend anyone read this when they’re eleven. You just need more emotional maturity to really understand and connect to the characters. Adults reading Interview With The Vampire should be able to see what’s happening with clearer eyes and enjoy a richer story for it. In short, this tale has stood the test of time.

Those who have already read Interview With The Vampire will be pleased by a reread and those who haven’t read it in the past will find a nuanced story to digest. And please, if you have seen the Interview With The Vampire movie, please read the book for an infinitely deeper story. I promise it’s worth it.

My rating for this book: 7/10

Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice is currently available at most booksellers.

The newest adaption of Interview With The Vampire begins October 2 on AMC and AMC+ . Have you read Interview With The Vampire ? What did you think of the novel? Let us know in the comments or over on Twitter! If you haven’t already, check out my review of The Devourer Below: An Arkham Horror Novel edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells !

Book Review: The Devourer Below: An Arkham Horror Novel edited by Charlotte Llewelyn-Wells

The Devourer Below: An Arkham Horror Novel Banner

Luna Gauthier

I've always been a bookworm and fantasy is my favortie genre. I never imagined (okay, I imagined but I didn't think) that I could get those books sent to me for just my opinion. Now I am a very happy bookworm! @Lunagauthier19 on Twitter

Luna Gauthier has 218 posts and counting. See all posts by Luna Gauthier

‘Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire’: Old Monsters, New Blood

AMC has a lot riding on the series, which makes major changes to the original story. Will the millions of Rice fans sink their teeth into it?

Jacob Anderson, left, and Sam Reid play Louis and Lestat in “Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire” in which their characters share a more overtly sexual bond than in the book. Credit... Clement Pascal for The New York Times

Supported by

Share full article

By Erik Piepenburg

Sept. 30, 2022

CHALMETTE, La. — The actors Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid had just finished filming a scene last March inside a cavernous studio here in the seat of St. Bernard Parish, about a 20-minute drive from the French Quarter of New Orleans. The evening air was steamy, and they looked exhausted from a shooting schedule that required them to keep vampire hours under hot lights.

As they spoke, they gave off a sparkle, and it wasn’t just because of the hand-painted contact lenses that made them look like tigers — or ravers.

It was also because they were in their sweet spot, having grown up as self-described outsiders with an affinity for the darker side of art — Poe’s literary demons for Reid, Portishead’s spectral soundtracks for Anderson. And here they were, years later, costumed in ragtime-era suiting to play two of popular culture’s most beloved misfits: Lestat and Louis from the Anne Rice novel “Interview With the Vampire,” a new series-length adaptation of which debuts Sunday on AMC.

“I’m a very proud nerd,” said Anderson, 32, who plays the reluctant bloodsucker Louis. “I love fantasy. I’m an emo. I’m a bit of a goth, I guess. This is a dream.” ( “Game of Thrones” fans know the actor, who is British, as Grey Worm , leader of the Unsullied.)

Reid, 35, had grown up with a similar sensibility. As a boy in Australia, he liked dressing up as a vampire for Halloween, and later devoured Rice’s sweeping blood-magic sagas. He said he felt a responsibility in playing the debonair Lestat to do right by the author, who died almost a year ago at 80.

“When you love the source material and you’re a fan yourself, you put the same pressure on yourself that other lovers of the book would do,” he said. “My own pressure is to do justice to something that I love very much.”

And there is pressure. In an era dominated by endlessly expandable telecinematic universes like Marvel and “Star Wars,” AMC has a lot riding on the show’s success; the network, which acquired the rights to “Interview” and 17 other Rice novels from two of her literary series, plans to spin that catalog into at least five new series over the next decade.

Maybe more important, the series has to try not to alienate a huge existing fan base. “Interview” is the first time Rice’s book has been made into a television series, and it’s the first major Rice adaptation since she died, leaving behind more than 40 genre-defining books and a very devoted — and very protective — readership. Based on episodes provided in advance, the series doesn’t just adapt the novel; it fundamentally alters it, shifting the central timeline forward by over a century, exchanging the book’s suggestive homoeroticism for outright gay sex and changing the racial identity of main characters, among other changes.

Given the pedantic and often racist pushback recently to Amazon’s “Lord of the Rings” prequel, “The Rings of Power,” and HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” this new version of “Interview” is bound to bring out the trolls, as indeed it already has. The series also has to compete with Neil Jordan’s big-screen adaptation from 1994, which, whatever its faults, was wildly successful and helped cement the popular image of Lestat and Louis as Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

Rolin Jones ( “Perry Mason,” “Weeds”), the show’s creator and showrunner, said in a video interview last month that he knew there would be haters. But he also insisted that the series remains “wildly reverential” to the spirit and prose of the book, which he called an “essential piece of American literature.”

What made the novel great “is the interior life,” he argued, but “that makes for poor drama almost all the time.” The trick, then, was to try to find new ways to externalize that drama for a modern TV audience, as he imagined Rice might have wanted. As he and the other writers worked, Jones kept this question in mind: “What would this savage writer in 1976 do if she were in this room right now?”

“There’s something inherent in this story that wants to be revisited every generation,” he added. Doing so, he said, was “a celebration of Anne, not a desecration.”

PUBLISHED IN 1976 , “Interview With the Vampire” is one of the world’s most widely-read vampire stories, and arguably the most influential since Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” from 1897. The story of the French nobleman Lestat de Lioncourt, a debonair seducer-tormenter, and Louis de Pointe du Lac, the younger man he transforms into his undead companion, has sold millions and spurred some dozen sequels, known collectively as The Vampire Chronicles, which have combined to sell tens of millions more.

Rice’s book broke ground by making vampires feel more human, said Stanley Stepanic, an assistant professor of Slavic languages and literature who teaches a class called “Dracula” at the University of Virginia. That’s especially true of Louis, its narrator.

“She told the story from a first-person perspective, through his voice, for the majority of the book,” Stepanic said. “He seems regretful.”

When AMC announced in 2020 that it had acquired the rights to “Interview,” Rice called it “one of the most significant and thrilling deals of my long career.” She wasn’t creatively involved with the series, but what has emerged two years later — its full title is “Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire” — is loyal to her source material in many ways. (Season 1 is based on a portion of the first novel.) There’s still an interview with a vampire, a treacherous eternal romance, an uncontrollable daughter and monstrous bloodsucking. New Orleans, Rice’s hometown, is a pivotal location.

But it’s also more romantic: Where the original book traded more in homoerotic undertones, Louis and Lestat are, unmistakably, a gay couple. The series is darkly comic, bloody, at times brutal and, depending on your tolerance for horror, terrifying. There’s gay and bisexual sex, grisly threesomes, lots of flesh. It’s very sweaty.

Jones described it as “Cassavetes with a lot of feelings and not a lot of edit buttons,” like “some nasty Fiona Apple album of a vampire story” but with gay vampire dads in “ the toxic relationship of 2022.” AMC, he said, “spent a whole boatload of money on a real strange beauty.”

During a leisurely evening walk-through of the set in March, Jones showed off some of the changes. The crew had built a street to look like Storyville, an upscale red-light district in New Orleans — in 1910, not the 18th century, as in the novel. Tall ceilings of a chic penthouse soared in what is was created to look like present-day Dubai, where Louis meets again with the reporter (played by Eric Bogosian) who in the book interviewed him decades earlier, in 1970s San Francisco.

Jones watched from a director’s chair as the actress Bailey Bass, then 18, played Claudia. In the novel, Claudia is a headstrong 5-year-old, whom Lestat turns into his and Louis’s vampire daughter of sorts. In the series, she is 14, left to mature emotionally while stuck in a body at the onset of puberty.

Then there is the characters’ racial makeup. Louis is no longer white, as he is very strongly implied to be in the novel. (He is a Louisiana plantation and slave owner when he meets Lestat in 1791.) In the show, Louis is a Creole brothel owner who travels in white circles, lamenting in the pilot that he can’t be an “openly gay Negro man.”

Lestat remains white, which makes their coupledom interracial. Jones said his changes overall were about what “works for a season and a series,” especially for Louis.

“You think not about the first episode but Season 5,” he said. “I wanted a very complicated and ultimately selfish person, not this nice and sweet innocent.”

Pitt played Louis as a reluctant vampire, as he is in the novel, but that wasn’t the main reason some fans, especially queer ones, disliked the film. Curtis Herr, an English professor at Kutztown University and the co-editor of The Journal of Dracula Studies , which publishes articles on vampire literature and history, said the movie had chickened out on telling the gay story “that’s very evident in the book.”

(In a brief phone interview, Jordan said that he had done nothing to intentionally downplay the gayness or anything else in the book. As for the gay content, he said: “If you read the book, it is as gay as the film.”

From what he‌ had surmised of the new series so far, Herr said, “We are going to get the ‘Interview With the Vampire’ that we deserve.”

RICE FANS HAVE BEEN EAGER for two years to discern what AMC’s series has in store, and as multiple trailers and various drips and drops about the production have trickled out, reactions on fan sites have ranged from fervor to fury. Some in one private Facebook group devoted to the Vampire Chronicles became so riled up that the administrator had to warn members that comments had “become too toxic when discussing the upcoming show.” (Neither the administrator nor several of the people who posted negative comments returned requests for comment.)

Others, like Mary Hütter, a video editor from Grand Rapids, Mich., and a Rice reader for most of her 46 years, said she was looking forward to the series. When it comes to the show, fans in the online Anne Rice communities she reads “are for the most part all about it being super gay,” she said. The hope, she added, is that the series is more “ethereal, gothy, with a very seductive, almost love story between Lestat and Louis.”

Jones said he would be apprehensive, too, if someone took a favorite book and made it into a new thing. And if Rice fans watch it and still don’t like “the grand design of what we did?”

“They can beat the crap out of me at the next ComicCon,” he said with a droll smile.

Whatever its tenor, fan chatter is almost certainly an advantage as “Interview” wades into an uncommonly deep pool of new vampire shows this season that, like “Interview,” update and diversify the ancient myth, including Showtime’s “ Let the Right One In ,” Peacock’s “ Vampire Academy ” and the Syfy comedy “ Reginald the Vampire .” The FX comedy “ What We Do in the Shadows ” remains popular, having already been renewed for a fifth and sixth season.

With its timeless themes, the vampire myth has obviously proved to be an exceptionally flexible and durable framework, ripe for endless shape-shifting — there can be a vampire story for everyone who feels like an outsider, as Anderson grew up feeling.

“I hope that people see in these characters, who feel so deeply about shame and grief and guilt, that they are not monsters, even though they feel like monsters,” he said in a follow-up video call in August. “I hope people see this is a celebration of searching for acceptance of yourself, and that searching for meaning is not an indulgence.”

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help.a.

Andy Serkis, the star of the earlier “Planet of the Apes” movies, and Owen Teague, the new lead, discuss the latest film in the franchise , “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.”

The HBO series “The Sympathizer” is not just a good story, it’s a sharp piece of criticism on Vietnam war movies, our critic writes .

In “Dark Matter,” the new Apple TV+ techno-thriller, a portal to parallel realities allows people to visit new worlds and revisit their own past decisions .

The tennis movie “Challengers” comes to an abrupt stop midmatch, so we don’t know who won. Does that matter? Our critics have thoughts .

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

Jacob Anderson in Interview with the Vampire

Interview with the Vampire review – Anne Rice’s gothic horror gets queer TV update

A hit-and-miss adaptation of the 1976 novel has replaced the homoeroticism of the 1994 movie with explicit sex

O n Saturday Night Live, the late Weekend Update anchor and occasional short-form film critic Norm MacDonald delivered what would become the definitive review of 1994’s Interview with the Vampire: “Not gay enough!” At the time, he was being facetious, a ripe homoerotic energy radiating from every frame of the undead Louis de Pointe du Lac’s recounting of his dalliance with fellow bloodsucker Lestat de Lioncourt. Nevertheless, a new take on Anne Rice’s 1976 novel (rising from the grave in TV series form on AMC) presents itself in part as a corrective, directly servicing the interests of those displeased that the slim distance between the faces of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt never vanished with a kiss.

The remixed sequel created by Rolin Jones – a Pulitzer prize finalist playwright spending more time these days on lower-profile small-screen work such as Low Winter Sun, Perry Mason and, most germane to the matter at hand, The Exorcist – makes text of a subtext already so glaring that it eclipsed all other interpretations. Having relocated his upscale bachelor crypt from San Francisco to Dubai, Louis (Game of Thrones alumnus Jacob Anderson) summons journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian) for another tell-all chat, now with an added revisionist wrinkle. As he once again relates the story of his time in turn-of-the-century New Orleans with the debonair Lestat (Sam Reid), he diverges from the record he previously laid out, explaining that the world of 2022 allows him to be candid about certain things that were best left unsaid 30-ish years earlier. Namely, that this pair of adult male companions given to ostentatious Gothic attire and arch double entendres were in actuality lovers. Molloy, ever the model of writerly professionalism, refrains from responding with “no doy”.

Bringing these characters out of the narrative closet is meant as a triumph, the pilot episode’s calling-card sequence a threesome that climaxes with a levitating coital tableau. But even if we set aside the framing device’s patently false implication that queer art wasn’t allowed to exist in the 90s, there’s something lost in the mission to destroy the innuendo for the sake of fully overt representation. As audiences learned from last winter’s remake of the noir classic Nightmare Alley, a carnal charge can burn much hotter when left to the imagination than explicitly stated. The inability to follow through on longing only ups the intensity, a concept with which the show is itself intimately acquainted, teased out as the ethical Louis refuses the human blood that his body craves like an addiction.

The amour fou that flowers between Louis and and Lestat – alternating between hungry desire, fussy annoyance and the flirty bickering that bridges the gap from one to the other – rehashes many of the film’s insights about makeshift family units in the queer community, particularly in how a younger man can find both partner and father figure in an elder. (Lestat is, ultimately, a vampire daddy.) Once played as a 10-year-old by Kirsten Dunst, the wayward girl (Bailey Bass) they convert to vampirism and take in as a surrogate daughter has been bumped up to 14 this time around, her untethered id a clearer analog for the reckless excitement of each successive generation as they sexually come into their own. The decision to recast Louis with a Black actor proves the most fruitful break from the source material, the leads’ interracial dynamic layered on top of their intricate mix of lust and hostility. Due to the prejudiced mores of the setting, Louis must pose as Lestat’s butler for a night out at a society ball, an exercise in humiliation they redeem by treating as a taboo-pushing game of role play.

That scene elegantly weaves together the various schools of commentary pursued by a show that aspires to timeliness more clumsily in its references to Covid and 8chan. And yet it feels like the deepest motivation for all the smoldering – the raison d’etre, as Lestat would purr – is to provide grist for the fandom mill, catering to a viewership that’s been made to wait too long to see the objects of their affections get it on. Neither True Blood, another Louisiana-set vamp soap fluent in high smut, nor Hannibal, another arty kill-of-the-week psychodrama coupling an urbane sociopath with the moral flip-flopper in his thrall, acted on the charge of desire crackling in the scenes between their handsome protagonists. In treating that withholding insinuation as an injustice to be righted, Jones has created a paradoxical work that’s more sexual yet less sexy than its forebears. Since its earliest inception, the vampire genre has conflated violence with eroticism in the bite of the incisor, a form of penetration by any other name. Erasing the element of suggestion proves a blessing and curse on par with the vampiric germ, making way for the bracingly graphic and just plain obvious alike.

Interview with the Vampire begins on 2 October on AMC in the US and AMC+ in Australia with a UK date to be announced

US television
Horror (TV)

Most viewed

Den of Geek

Interview with the Vampire Review: The Best Anne Rice Adaptation Ever Made

AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire differs from the book, but makes for quality horror TV.

Share on Facebook (opens in a new tab)
Share on Twitter (opens in a new tab)
Share on Linkedin (opens in a new tab)
Share on email (opens in a new tab)

Jacob Anderson as Louis De Pointe Du Lac - Interview with the Vampire _ Season 1

This Interview with the Vampire review contains no spoilers.

Late Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice was never completely onboard with the 1994 film adaptation of her book: Interview with the Vampire , which starred Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Taking issue with casting and other certain liberties, Rice ultimately endorsed it, but denounced its 2002 sequel, Queen of the Damned , with Aaliyah in the title role. Rice and her son Christopher have been involved with AMC’s Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire through its own tortured journey to series adaptation, so it seems any changes to the source material come with tacit pre-approval.

The stakes are high for AMC, about to come off its Walking Dead era (though in true zombie fashion, spinoffs will continue on), and concluding the sagas of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul . The network is entering its Anne Rice Era, turning her pages into its own next chapter, and already at work on adapting her The Lives of the Mayfair Witches book series. Most Vampire Chronicles fans want to see the novels presented accurately and epically, which is a mixed bag in Interview with the Vampire . Many others want it to fail outright. Not this reviewer, especially after seeing the first four episodes.

There are differences. Timelines shift, ages change, and ethnicities reflect a diverse world -and a new political undercurrent than the original 1976 novel. Starring Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac, Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt, and Bailey Bass as Claudia, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire is not the same story as Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire . Writer/creator Rolin Jones updated it to a modern vampire tale, and possibly should have rethought which of Rice’s characters to bring to the small screen. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an extremely well-crafted, nuanced, and rehearsed vampire story. It is one of the best vampire series TV has had to offer, even if it is not quite what it promised.

Ad – content continues below

This schism is itself addressed in the third episode. Contradictions abound, and when Eric Bogosian’s now-aged interviewer Daniel Molloy clobbers the vampiric interviewee about revisionist history, the fangs come out and the tapes get burned. In the first part of the novel, Louis hates Lestat. In the series, Daniel plays a portion of the original 1973 tapes where Louis calls himself Lestat’s “complete superior,” and concludes he had been “sadly cheated in having him for a teacher.”

By taking the issue on, the show redeems its mixed message. It also does it with a sense of humor sadly missing from the films, and underplayed in the books. Louis and Lestat may be deadly serious and seriously deadly, but their true talents lie in lethal assessments, snide asides, and wry takedowns.

Who would have thought Anderson, who frowned on trivial things like jokes when he played Grey Worm on Game of Thrones , could hurl straight lines with such comic accuracy? The repartee between Louis and all characters is a highlight, from the bitter banter with the jaded Daniel to the indulgent insolence reserved for the troubled teen Claudia. Lestat may get the better lines, and Reid excels in underplaying his caustic wit, but he thinks of himself as the more dangerous creature. He’s not, it’s Louis.

Anderson’s Louis is in a state of flux in many ways. Not only is there new blood pumping in his veins, but revolutionary thoughts in his psyche. In life, Louis has a good reputation as a man who runs a house of ill-repute. His undead street cred is a bit more complicated. Louis is a virtual vampire vegetarian, feeding on animals, as if stray cats don’t have families to grieve for them.

As a badass living brothel owner in New Orleans’ red-light district of Storyville, Louis maintained as brutal a hold as was necessary to ensure his business thrived. As a Black man in the south, regardless of his success, he’d been eating Jim Crow laws so long he barely noticed the bitter taste of the strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. But once he tastes blood, he bites the hand that feeds him. Anderson’s Grey Worm urged slaves to “kill the masters” on Game of Thrones . His newly turned vampire gets to savor that kill.

In the book, Louis is a white slave-owner with a sugar plantation, something his father ran to the ground before the events of the series. Slavery mildly flavors Rice’s Interview with the Vampire , where Lestat also feeds off slaves, but the aftertaste lingers. Race plays a far larger role in the series, at least in the beginning, while Louis still has ties to the human community he leaves behind in the book.

The series remains faithful to the atmosphere and the devil-may-care blasphemy of Rice’s books. Louis is making confession when taken by Lestat in the opening episode. Dead priests lay scattered in the pews. In the series, the de Point du Lacs are a holy family, very spiritual, loving of God, hateful of sin, bloody with Christ. Louis’ own mother, played by Rae Dawn Chong, calls her evolving son “the devil.” His sister Grace (Kalyne Coleman), runs out of patience, but is forced to leave her door open.

Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!

While the viewers know Louis will ultimately out-“live” his family, there are some surprisingly premature burials, or burnings. Louis and Lestat keep an incinerator for body disposal because wakes were designed by people who live in colder climates than New Orleans.

One of the fires can’t be contained, which leads to the introduction of Claudia. In his conversation with Den of Geek , Jones called this character Rice’s “greatest creation.” The author wrote the character after the death of her six-year-old daughter, who succumbed to acute granulocytic leukemia in 1970. In the book, Claudia has fair skin, long curly hair and blue eyes. She is mourning over her mother when Louis finds her in the year 1794. Rice’s literary version of Claudia is a child-vampire, eternally five years old in body, but with a quickly developing mind and desires.

Kirsten Dunst was eleven years old when she played Claudia in the film. Bailey Bass plays her as a 14-year-old. “It was very important for us to shoot in New Orleans, where child labor laws say your actor can only work so many hours,” Jones told Den of Geek . “We decided to make her trapped in all the chemical excitements of puberty.” Claudia is not quite of the Twilight teen scene, angsty for self-discovery, but she does keep a diary.

“Rolin Jones has made some changes that I think deepen and do some very intriguing things with the basic story,” Alan Taylor, who sets the tone directing the first episode, told Den of Geek . Other episodic directors include Levan Akin and Keith Powell.

Surrounding the proceedings, the settings are beautifully rendered, whether we see the opulence of the vampire lifestyle, the ecclesiastical hue of a church, or the grit and mud of the backstreets. All of which come to life when splattered with the red vino on tap. The framings are exquisite, and the tapestry of shooting styles merge into a unified landscape, from the bayous to Dubai. The score is so exciting, Louis is moved to do a soft-shoe. Another highlight is seeing the classically-trained musician Lestat boogie-woogie his way through a jazz set.

One of the ways the series best succeeds is in telling a love story. Lestat is not the same neglectful narcissist with the cruel streak presented in the 1976 book, and the series’ 1973 tape collection which tries to keep the series honest. Reid’s Lestat is a different cruel narcissist, but Louis gives back as good as he gets, growing defiant, angry, and romantically jealous. This is a trait shared by both lead characters, and as they sneak into one coffin while Claudia pretends to rest, it is not the dysfunctional couple of the first novel. For reanimated corpses, they get pretty hot.

Anne Rice purists will have their gripes, all of which are justified, but Interview with the Vampire does the spirit of the source material justice. This is the more nuanced or rehearsed version of the story, as Louis and Daniel debate. The series takes on social, economic, and political issues which may or may not have bearing on vampires, but add layers to the characters, who will grow into themselves. Or die, again, trying. The adaptation is changed, but still sucks you in.

Interview with the Vampire premieres Oct. 2 on AMC and AMC+.

Tony Sokol | @tsokol

Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. He contributed to Altvariety, Chiseler, Smashpipe, and other magazines. He is the TV Editor at Entertainment…

Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire review: a feast for the senses

Interview with the vampire kicks off the anne rice immortal universe at amc..

Sam Reid and Jacob Anderson in Interview with the Vampire

What to Watch Verdict

There's no doubt these vampires will be around for a very long time.

The cast is chef's kiss perfection

It's a loving and faithful adaptation

As a series, the characters have space to develop and we get to watch

We need more than seven episodes in the first season.

Anne Rice's world of vampires comes to life with an inspired new vision — a vision that sinks its teeth in and never let's go. An absolute feast for the senses, Interview with the Vampire pulls you into a visually stunning and evocative world that you won’t want to leave. Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, Bailey Bass and Eric Bogosian deliver rousing performances that usher in what is sure to be the hottest new franchise for the network.

Interview with the Vampire is the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson), a vampire who recounted his tale to reporter Daniel Molloy (Bogosian) in 1973. Now, 50 years later, Louis wants to meet with the now seasoned journalist Daniel once again to set the record straight.

Louis is a Black Creole businessman in New Orleans’ Storyville in 1910. He catches the eye of the enigmatic Lestat de Lioncourt (Reid), who eventually reveals his vampire nature and makes Louis into his vampire companion. Eventually, they bring the vampire child Claudia (Bass) into the fold so that they become one happy vampire family. At least, for a little while.

Interview with the Vampire (1976) is one of the most beloved books in Rice’s pantheon, but it’s also the most narratively challenging story because it’s told from Louis’ perspective while the majority of the Vampire Chronicles are told from Lestat’s point of view.

Over the years fans have been presented with very different perspectives on the characters thanks to the books that came later in the Vampire Chronicles. It’s no wonder that showrunner and writer Rolin Jones advises fans to read Prince Lestat (2014), The Vampire Lestat (1985) and The Vampire Armand (1998) to help them along the way.

Sam Reid as Lestat in Interview with the Vampire

One thing is painstakingly clear about Interview with the Vampire : the cast and the crew are absolutely dedicated to Anne Rice and to being faithful stewards of her work. Reid spoke of this dedication in a Q&A on AMC’s press site. “I hope [fans] see that we are honoring what Anne Rice wrote. There's a huge amount of respect for what she created. We are always referring to her words and bringing in all of the elements as honestly and truthfully and as blatantly as she wanted. That world that she created is right at the front of our hearts.”

With Rice’s words guiding the story, there are two elements that make the series as evocative and alluring as it is: the cast and the production design. To prepare for their roles, Anderson, Reid and Bass had to learn French, use a new accent and take dance, singing and music lessons in order to bring an even deeper authenticity to their roles.

Anderson ( Game of Thrones ) embraces the full gamut of emotions to depict Louis’ human side while portraying a newly born vampire trying to understand his new nature, on top of dealing with the racism that pervades society at that moment in time. It takes a lot to stand up to a character as bold and brazen as Lestat, and Anderson’s Louis holds his own beautifully. What’s more is that this version of Louis has a lot more confidence than Brad Pitt’s version, largely because he comes from a very different background. The juxtaposition of 1910 Louis and modern-day Louis gives Anderson lots of space to really show the depth of his character.

Reid’s ( The Newsreader ) Lestat is a man of the ages, having been made a vampire in the 1700s and moving to the New World to start a new life. Unlike Louis, Lestat is gregarious and ebullient, possessing a joie de vivre that most people — vampires and humans alike — can only dream of. His charisma and charm shine through and make him so much fun to watch. This Lestat is different from Tom Cruise’s portrayal because we get to see the Brat Prince in action as he not only interacts with Claudia and Louis, but with the people around them as well. He’s charming and cruel in the same breath; Reid plays him so very well that it’s hard to hate him and easy to forgive him, even when he’s at his very worst.

Bailey Bass as Claudia in Interview with the Vampire

Bailey Bass ( Avatar: The Way of Water ) has the challenging task of portraying Louis and Lestat’s vampire daughter, Claudia. Trapped forever in the body of a 14 year old girl, Claudia has to figure out how she fits in a world where she’ll never grow up to experience life as an adult. Bass relies on her facial expressions and tone to capture Claudia’s angst in a powerfully poignant way. She literally transforms before our eyes without changing her physical appearance. It’s an inspired performance that will leave fans in awe of her immense talent.

We think Eric Bogosian channeled his character from Succession to bring Daniel Molloy to life. Daniel was an immature young man the first time he met Louis; now, the tables have turned somewhat and as a veteran journalist he knows that this story is far too important to not do it properly. He challenges Louis at every turn. Though Louis could easily kill him, older Daniel never backs down. Bogosian’s steely voice, calm but witty demeanor and dry humor give Daniel the depth he never had before.

Louis, Lestat and Claudia couldn’t come to life without Carol Cutshall’s costuming and production designer Mara LePere Schloop’s vision for 1910s New Orleans. It’s easy to get lost in the detail of the wallpaper, the texture of a coat or the decor that accentuates the Rue Royale flat fans know so well.

Showrunner and writer Rolin Jones and executive producer Mark Johnson understand how much these stories mean to legions of Anne Rice fans all over the globe. Bringing the story to life as faithfully as possible was incredibly important, and that includes ensuring that Louis and Lestat’s relationship is at the heart of the story in ways that weren’t possible in the 1994 film. They don’t have to hide their sexuality; Lestat joyfully embraces his bisexuality and Louis slowly comes to terms with being a gay man, even though being openly gay was frowned upon at the time.

Interview with the Vampire might look a little different, but trust us when we say that all of the major themes of Anne Rice’s work — loneliness, love, the nature of goodness and evil, sexuality, being an outsider, among others — they’re all there.

There is so much emotion and heart in this series that longtime fans will be overjoyed and newcomers to the series will be left in awe. It’s prestige television at its finest and sure to become the next big thing for AMC as part of the Anne Rice Immortal Universe .

Interview with the Vampire debuts October 2 on AMC. There's currently no UK release date.

Sarabeth joined the What to Watch team in May 2022. An avid TV and movie fan, her perennial favorites are The Walking Dead, American Horror Story , true crime documentaries on Netflix and anything from Passionflix. You’ve Got Mail , Ocean's Eleven and Signs are movies that she can watch all day long. She's also a huge baseball fan, and hockey is a new favorite.

When she's not working, Sarabeth hosts the My Nights Are Booked Podcast and a blog dedicated to books and interviews with authors and actors. She also published her first novel, Once Upon an Interview , in 2022.

The Bold and the Beautiful recap for May 10, 2024: Steffy reels at Finn's news

Granite Harbour season 2 episode 2 recap: The team make a breakthrough

The Young and the Restless spoilers: week of May 13-17

Most Popular

'Interview With The Vampire' Review: A Masterful Outlook on Immortality

As Collider revisits the cult classic catalogue, a 'Twilight' fan uncovers the roots of the vampire obsession.

Immortality has never looked so appealing and haunting at the same time. As someone who grew up with the notion that the Twilight saga and The Vampire Diaries were the ultimate blood thirsting examples to avouch for, watching the 1994 adaptation of Interview With the Vampire was an enlightening experience. Going into this gothic tale without much background knowledge about its story other than the fact that some of Hollywood's top-notch actors starred in it, I was captivated by Louis' ( Brad Pitt ) tragic recounting of his life post death. More specifically, I was drawn to how this film presents a non-idealistic portrayal of what it means to be young, beautiful, and ageless forever.

"So you want me to tell you the story of my life?" It is with this simple question that viewers are introduced to one of the films' protagonists, a so-called vampire who struggles to balance the remainder of his humanity with his urge to suck some fresh blood. Challenged by his prey to casually unveil the lengthy chapters of his 200-year journey on tape, the character takes a trip down memory lane. Before his transformation, Louis was a plantation owner living a dubious reality in which he awaited death to knock on his door. Little did he know that Lestat ( Tom Cruise ), a non-remorseful vampire that happens to read minds, would hear his prayer and reward (or punish) him with the choice to opt for a slow death or eternal youth and beauty. With only a few seconds on the clock to come up with a decision before it's too late, Louis says "yes" to Lestat's compelling proposition to remain alive.

Although the set of rules may diverge from the vampires present in this narrative to those in pop culture nowadays, the dread for dining on human blood and having to withstand the burden of time is a characteristic that continues to be universal. While Lestat has shed any glimpse of compassion for the living, Louis is plagued with the desire to kill an entire village when he tries as much as possible to resist the temptation. In one of his moments of weakness, he bites a young girl's neck and feels an instantaneous sorrow. Yet, Lestat gives the girl (Claudia, played by Kirsten Dunst ) the opportunity to become one of them and be the child that neither vampire had. At first, she quickly conforms to the "killing for living" reality, but later on she is much more drawn to the parental figure that has more redemptive qualities.

RELATED: ‘Interview With the Vampire’ Shows the Horror of Being a Child Vampire

The attention-grabbing script by Anne Rice , who is the author of the novel that inspired the film, keeps you engaged with the unsettling view of immortality that each character possesses. For Louis, it is hard to conform to the devil that he is now by nature. For Claudia, it is the dreadful notion that she will never grow past the 'playing with dolls' phase. For Lestat, it is the inability to comprehend both Louis and Claudia's view of eternal life as a life sentence. In a way, the reporter listening and recording the story represents the viewer and their thought process trying to come to their own conclusion about whether immortality would be worth considering. The power that the screenplay has to make you want to empathize with the monstrous figures at its core, is one of the reasons why this Neil Jordan -led project remains a cult classic.

In addition to the riveting telling of events, the acting is across the board electrifying. It is hard to believe that this was one of Dunst's earlier roles, given her easiness to tap into Claudia's angelical and devious sides. A standout scene from her is the one in which she finds out the real reason why she doesn't age. Cruise and Pitt are both remarkable at foiling each other's characters, making viewers despise one and fall for the other. Every time Lestat tries to lead his companion astray with the constant reminders that he is no longer human, the audience feels even more bitter about him. On the other hand, every time that Louis reflects on compassion, care, and humility (commendable human traits), viewers just sympathize with him that much more. Despite his limited appearance onscreen, it would be unfair to not cite Antonio Banderas wih an honorable mention when evaluating the ensemble's performance. He is both charming and mysterious as Armand, one of the few vampires to coexist with the main trio. The character plays a pivotal part in connecting the dots about the vampire history that Louis and Claudia long to know more about.

At the end, the audience never really uncovers the origin of these blood-craving creatures in the narrative, but they quickly grasp the meaning behind the common phrase "be careful with what you wish for." Although from the outside, vampires are attractive and almost never ponder the idea of death (other than their life as deadly beings), their qualities are a burden. Young and beautiful forever may sound like a nice saying on a t-shirt, but once you have the opportunity to really experience what that means, you will want what you will never have again. A family, the wrinkles forming from aging, and enjoying life as if there were no tomorrow. Quoting one of my favorite non-vampire films, "life moves on pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around you might miss it." Who would ever think that having this motto would be such a perk.

Overall, Interview With the Vampire is an exquisite analysis on what it means to wish for what you can't take back. Through a well-rounded storyline that challenges the viewer to consider every single perception portrayed onscreen, this film excels in never losing its train of thought. On the contrary, it utilizes its plot to reinforce the themes of youth, immortality, and values. Even if it doesn't come as a surprise that every cast member delivers a worthwhile performance, this is a major factor that contributes to viewers being invested in this tale from start to finish. As a first-time viewer, it served me well in looking at vampirism with loathing, instead of craving.

Literature & Fiction
Genre Fiction

Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime Try Prime and start saving today with fast, free delivery

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: .savingPriceOverride { color:#CC0C39!important; font-weight: 300!important; } .reinventMobileHeaderPrice { font-weight: 400; } #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPriceSavingsPercentageMargin, #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPricePriceToPayMargin { margin-right: 4px; } -39% $22.73 $ 22 . 73 FREE delivery Saturday, May 18 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

Return this item for free.

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

Go to your orders and start the return
Select the return method

Save with Used - Acceptable .savingPriceOverride { color:#CC0C39!important; font-weight: 300!important; } .reinventMobileHeaderPrice { font-weight: 400; } #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPriceSavingsPercentageMargin, #apex_offerDisplay_mobile_feature_div .reinventPricePriceToPayMargin { margin-right: 4px; } $11.57 $ 11 . 57 FREE delivery Saturday, May 18 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35 Ships from: Amazon Sold by: Jenson Books Inc

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

To view this video download Flash Player

Interview with the Vampire Hardcover – April 12, 1976

Purchase options and add-ons.

Book 1 of 13 Vampire Chronicles
Print length 352 pages
Language English
Publisher Knopf
Publication date April 12, 1976
Dimensions 5.9 x 1.3 x 8.65 inches
ISBN-10 0394498216
ISBN-13 978-0394498218
Lexile measure 970L
See all details

Amazon First Reads | Editors' picks at exclusive prices

Frequently bought together

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly

The Vampire Lestat (Vampire Chronicles, Book II)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com review.

While Rice has continued to investigate history, faith, and philosophy in subsequent Vampire novels (including The Vampire Lestat , The Queen of the Damned , The Tale of the Body Thief , Memnoch the Devil , and The Vampire Armand ), Interview remains a treasured masterpiece. It is that rare work that blends a childlike fascination for the supernatural with a profound vision of the human condition. --Patrick O'Kelley

From the Inside Flap

In its unceasing flow of spellbinding storytelling, of danger and flight, of loyalty and treachery, Interview with the Vampire bears witness of a literary imagination of the first order.

From the Back Cover

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf (April 12, 1976)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0394498216
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0394498218
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 970L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.9 x 1.3 x 8.65 inches
#73 in Vampire Horror
#197 in Ghost Fiction
#5,125 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Videos for this product

Click to play video

Customer Review: Cover is Printed Upside Down

Susan Rachal-Atkinson

About the author

Anne Rice was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, which provided the backdrop for many of her famous novels. She was the author of more than 30 books, including her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, which was published in 1976. It has since gone on to become one of the best-selling novels of all time, and was adapted into a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Dunst, and Antonio Banderas. In addition to The Vampire Chronicles, Anne was the author of several other best-selling supernatural series including Mayfair Witches, Queen of the Damned, the Wolf Gift, and Ramses the Damned. Under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure, Anne was the author of the erotic (BDSM) fantasy series, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy. Under the pen name Anne Rampling she was the author of two erotic novels, Exit to Eden and Belinda. A groundbreaking artist whose work was widely beloved in popular culture, Anne had this to say of her work: "I have always written about outsiders, about outcasts, about those whom others tend to shun or persecute. And it does seem that I write a lot about their interaction with others like them and their struggle to find some community of their own. The supernatural novel is my favorite way of talking about my reality. I see vampires and witches and ghosts as metaphors for the outsider in each of us, the predator in each of us...the lonely one who must grapple day in and day out with cosmic uncertainty."

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Reviews with images

Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Newsletter
About Amazon
Accessibility
Sustainability
Press Center
Investor Relations
Amazon Devices
Amazon Science
Sell on Amazon
Sell apps on Amazon
Supply to Amazon
Protect & Build Your Brand
Become an Affiliate
Become a Delivery Driver
Start a Package Delivery Business
Advertise Your Products
Self-Publish with Us
Become an Amazon Hub Partner
› See More Ways to Make Money
Amazon Visa
Amazon Store Card
Amazon Secured Card
Amazon Business Card
Shop with Points
Credit Card Marketplace
Reload Your Balance
Amazon Currency Converter
Your Account
Your Orders
Shipping Rates & Policies
Amazon Prime
Returns & Replacements
Manage Your Content and Devices
Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
Your Ads Privacy Choices

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Link to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
The Fall Guy Link to The Fall Guy
The Last Stop in Yuma County Link to The Last Stop in Yuma County

New TV Tonight

Interview With the Vampire: Season 2
After the Flood: Season 1
Bridgerton: Season 3
Outer Range: Season 2
The Big Cigar: Season 1
Harry Wild: Season 3
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Season 11.1
RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars: Season 9
Spacey Unmasked: Season 1
The Killing Kind: Season 1

Interview With the Vampire

Where to watch.

Rent Interview With the Vampire on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

Despite lacking some of the book's subtler shadings, and suffering from some clumsy casting, Interview with a Vampire benefits from Neil Jordan's atmospheric direction and a surfeit of gothic thrills.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Neil Jordan

Lestat de Lioncourt

Louis de Pointe du Lac

Antonio Banderas

Stephen Rea

Christian Slater

Daniel Malloy

Interview With the Vampire finale review: A great twist saves a lame twist

AMC's undead romance throws a party and sets an intriguing course for its future.

Interview With the Vampire closes its first season with a masquerade, a massacre, a couple twists, and the promise of a complete setting shift. And the finale still feels unfinished. "You've only heard half the story," someone tells Daniel Molloy ( Eric Bogosian ), and I think that's an overcount. In the glorious past and the chilly present, Interview lands on a pair of cliffhangers — one meh, one ooooo — that reveal everything so far has been setting up the real story. This is the depressing new norm in genre television. "At long last, the beginning has ended!" is not something I've heard on a TV show this year, but it sums up every recent big-budget prequel. (I guarantee it will be actual dialogue on Andor .)

Interview achieves something grander than 2022's other canon dives, because creator Rolin Jones' adaptation of Anne Rice 's novel redefines the relationship between Louis (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat ( Sam Reid ). On page and screen, the gloomy aristocrat and his fun-loving murder daddy previously modeled teasing erotic possibility, their bitchy-sincere "friendship" suggesting much more. The series rips open the artery of metaphor, and what splatters out is a raucous, paranoid, sensitive queer romance. Louis and Lestat share a coffin and they share hobbies. They have an open relationship, which Lestat likes. They have a kid, which Louis likes. They're living two secrets, this interracial gay couple who kill people for food. (Permissive New Orleans society frowns on their smooching but doesn't mind if they walk with Satan.)

Lestat is initially a savior, rescuing Louis from the cruel expectations of the straight world and empowering him against his era's pervasive racism. But, well, he also makes Louis a nightly serial killer. And what an age gap! Allegory keeps clashing with plot: Vampirism as romantic self-realization that destroys boring old binaries, and vampirism as a serious problem that skyrockets the murder rate. Interview works because the Louis-Lestat relationship is so protean. Reid's a gorgeous Australian with a 7-foot chin, so his Lestat is doubly dominant: a French-poetic sensualist built like a Christian-rock Hemsworth. Meanwhile, Anderson cycles through torment and fascination. Louis feels free in his new life — and then imprisoned by a lover-tormentor. Claudia (Bailey Bass) becomes the resident wild card, an unhinged teen who's also the savvy female voice in a frat house of self-delusive ego.

In the finale, which I will now start to spoil , Claudia and Louis plan an elaborate assassination against Lestat. The party is delightful, and all the killing is gory fun. (The glass is empty? "Not for long, Tom!") But it's clear the Interview writers have a problem. This whole saga has built to the Louis-Lestat showdown, and Claudia's arc depends on her throwing off the shackles of her maker. Months of plotting lead to a brutal battle that even involves the last-second arrival of newly-vamped Antoinette (Mara Grace Athari). And after all that, Louis and Claudia only almost kill Lestat, leaving his gash-necked corpse out for the morning garbage pick-up.

"Where does the trash go, Louis?" Molloy asks in the present. He's not buying this dewy gothic climax, and I think you can sense some adaptioneer frustration in Bogosian's cut-the-bull tartness. How could you NOT kill that guy? is the logical question. ( Because we got spin-offs, baby! ) Since this first season only adapts half of Rice's book, it has to turn Lestat into, like, a level boss, a minor evil before the greater danger ahead. But it also has to tease his return. So barely any time passes between his overextended "death" and a brief sight of him at the dump, resurrecting himself with help from vermin blood.

I think that's why the finale shifts to a much more interesting twist. Doe-eyed assistant Rashid (Assad Zaman) is a vampire, as Molloy suspected, but he possesses powers unlike any we've seen. The sun doesn't bother him: "What's a mediocre star to a 514-year-old vampire?" Louis smiles as he introduces his mystery man. "I'd like you to meet the Vampire Armand," he declares, "The love of my life." Armand is a major Anne Rice player. Die-hards will appreciate his playbills for the Théâtre de Vampires. (Newcomers will probably look as bug-eyed confused as Bogosian: Excuse me, surprise vampire, why did you hand me these ancient French advertisements? )

I only know a bit of Rice's mythology, so what I appreciate is how this twist zigzags our understanding of the main character's journey. In present day, Louis has seemed rigidly restrained, with Anderson playing him somewhere between ethereal serenity and constant self-checking: a god who needs nightly AA meetings. That marked a contrast with Louis' past self, a "rougher thing" and the submissive half of a troubled relationship. Because Anderson modulated his performance so effectively, code-switching between dreamy-tough Creole locality and Davos Man billionaire placelessness, it seemed like this Interview was the story about one man's complicated transformation. The modern Louis is a man living his truth in a skyscraper that is his coffin. He used to have family, and now he has employees.

Except one of those "employees" is an ultra vampire, the shark to Lestat's minnow. "The love of my life," Louis calls Armand, but Zaman's performance suggests unusual power dynamics ahead. "Louis can sometimes act out," he tells Molloy. "I protect him from himself. Always have." I'm not sure that line reduces Louis — some relationships depend on emotional caretaking — but it does undercut the tycoon-cult authority he's been perpetuating. Is Armand a devoted lover keeping his addict boyfriend on a healthy path? Or is this another more experienced vampire shrouding young Louis in a morally spiraling lifestyle? Does Armand drink human blood? And what an age gap!

On the other hand, Armand certainly seems more emotionally supportive than Lestat. And this revelation thrillingly sets both timelines on a clear course for season 2. Louis and Claudia are heading off on new global adventures — straight, apparently, toward Armand. And the twist could defibrillate the present-day scenes, which turned repetitive despite Bogosian's salty charm. Beyond the central Louis-Lestat relationship, Interview sometimes felt undercooked. (See: Antoinette, a theoretically important person with nothing to do). This finale suggests a complex new romance lies ahead, with tensions both epic and awkward. Will season 2 tell a new immortal love story for the ages? Or will Claudia just have to meet dad's new boyfriend?

Finale grade: B+

TV and Streaming | ‘Interview with the Vampire’ review: One of the…

TV and Streaming

Things to do, tv and streaming | ‘interview with the vampire’ review: one of the best shows on tv is back for season 2.

From left: Jacob Anderson as Louis De Point Du Lac and Delainey Hayles as Claudia in Season 2 of "Interview with the Vampire." (Larry Horricks/AMC)

It’s also probably one of the most under-watched by Emmy voters; the first season received zero nominations. That’s one of the more head-shaking omissions I’ve seen in recent memory, because AMC’s adaptation of the Anne Rice novels is just so richly written, so thrillingly inhabited by its cast, so effortlessly funny . The first season premiered two years ago and if you missed it and want to catch up, it’s worth subscribing to AMC+ for this show alone. I don’t even like vampire stories and I’m in the bag for this one.

A key choice at the outset by show creator Rolin Jones was to shift Rice’s timeline forward, beginning the story in 1910 rather than 1791, when Louis de Pointe du Lac (a wonderfully miserable Jacob Anderson) is turned into a vampire by Lestat de Lioncourt (the equally wonderful and louche Sam Reid).

Their toxic affair falls apart viciously 30 years later — the homoerotic subtext of the book is no longer merely hinted at — which is where Season 2 picks up, with Louis and his quasi-spawn Claudia (Delainey Hayles, ably replacing Season 1’s Bailey Bass) traveling through Europe during World War II in search of other vampires. They haven’t been human for decades, but their human needs and compulsions remain. They’re looking for community, driven by the desire to be known and to be understood.

Eventually, the pair settle in Paris after the war and find their way to Théâtre des Vampires, where the grand guignol on stage is all too real. Everyone in the troupe is a vampire, but the audience is blissfully unaware, which is why these nightly performances are such a handy way to hide in plain sight. Claudia is instantly drawn to this world. Louis is mildly disgusted (he really has not come around to the whole vampire thing!) so he keeps a respectful distance while she immerses herself in this twisted little community where “Who’s your maker?” passes for small talk the same way someone might ask, “Where are you from?”

Beneath the cheery, circus-like surface of the theater troupe, power plays and schisms abound, some of them fueled by the sly, dangerous and excitingly diva-esque Santiago (Ben Daniels), whose over-the-top ego is only matched by his opportunism. He’s a riveting, hilarious menace! Louis finds him lacking: “I nodded off one night while Santiago was hamming it up. Apparently that made me persona non grata with the leading man.”

Overseeing the theater company’s operations is the elegantly serene Armand (Assad Zaman), whose romance with Louis creates yet more tension within the troupe — tension that will ultimately come to a head. But before all that can happen, there’s a quiet moment of flirtation between the two as they stand outside a sprawling country villa. Inside, havoc is on the menu as the theater troupe feasts on humans who likely deserved it, not that these vampires seem concerned about such distinctions. But the contrast — romance in the foreground, chaos in the background — is emblematic of the show’s sense of humor.

Where is Lestat during all of this? Vanquished — or so we’re meant to believe. But he haunts Louis’ psyche like an invasive thought, always showing up at inopportune moments, because Louis can be tedious and self-pitying if left to his own devices, leading you to wonder: Can a vampire be a nihilist?

The story’s framing device — the interview of the title — is just as thick with that blend of intrigue and comedy, as journalist Daniel Molloy (an amusingly sour Eric Bogosian) tries to wrangle something approximating the truth from both present-day Louis and Armand, who live together in expensive domestic bliss. Their penthouse in Dubai is where the interview takes place. Cranky as always, Daniel is impatient and unimpressed with Louis’ ramblings and Armand’s polite reticence. But eventually he gets at something messier than expected: The real story about his first attempt to interview Louis in San Francisco back in 1973, when both were fried on coke and quaaludes.

Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy in Season 2 of

The show understands how to build emotional stakes that make all this timeline jumping so gripping. Other small nuances stand out, like the way a couple can fight and then somehow also bicker within said fight, like a nesting doll of anger and frustration. “Interview with the Vampire” is always atmospheric, whether it’s the calming concrete and right angles of the modernist Dubai abode, or the ancient catacombs of the theater’s bowels. The show’s minimalist title sequence is such a stroke of genius, mimicking the sound of an orchestra tuning its instruments. The performance is about to begin. And what a performance it is.

“Interview with the Vampire” Season 2 — 4 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: 8 p.m. Sundays on AMC (and streaming on AMC+)

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

More in TV and Streaming

Mysteries can be complicated but not as hard to follow as this one, which starts out promisingly enough.

TV and Streaming | ‘Bodkin’ review: A true crime podcast descends upon rural Ireland, with mediocre results

There are a lot of fictional spies, but none of them can prepare you for Dave Rupert, the compelling real-life centerpiece of a 12-part podcast series called “Underbelly: The Rebel Kind."

Entertainment | Column: ‘Underbelly’ podcast offers a most compelling tale of a most unlikely spy and his Chicago connections

Chicago comedy expert Anne Libera says that satire "is not a useful tool today." That's why last weekend's "SNL" opener came up empty.

TV and Streaming | Column: About that ‘SNL’ student protest sketch — and a lousy time for political satire

The Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox have partnered with Standard Media Group to form a new regional sports network with plans to begin broadcasting games in October.

Sports | Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox to partner with new network — Standard Media Group — but there are hurdles ahead

Trending nationally.

NASA watchdog report: 100+ cracks on heat shield biggest threat to human moon mission
Babies “R” Us is returning with 200 locations nationwide. Here are the details.
Catholics last year reported a possible miracle to the Vatican. Why it’s in a ‘holding pattern.’
Python hunters must humanely kill snakes: How Florida has cracked down in contests through the years
New COVID ‘FLiRT’ variants are spreading nationwide. Chicago health experts urge up to date vaccination.

‘Interview With the Vampire’ Photos Reveal Blake Ritson as Book Character, Madeleine & More

Interview with the Vampire

‘Game of Thrones’ Actor Ian Gelder Dies at 74
Here’s When ‘IWTV’ Season 2 Episodes Come Out on AMC+

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Interview With the Vampire Season 2 Episode 1.]

AMC has released a swath of new photos from Interview With the Vampire Season 2 that reveal previously unseen — and unknown, until now! — guest stars.

Season 2 premieres this Sunday, May 12 at 9/8c on AMC (the episode will also be streaming on AMC+ , but a debut time has not been revealed). Photos from the Season 2 premiere reveal The Gilded Age ‘s Blake Ritson as a character from Anne Rice ‘s novel of the same name, as well as the first look at Roxane Duran as Madeleine.

Ritson plays Morgan Ward, per AMC. In the second half of the book, Louis meets Morgan while traveling with Claudia in Europe. Morgan tells Louis that his new wife, Emily, was bitten by a vampire on their honeymoon and he fears what the local community will do to her, revealing to Louis that the humans nearby are deeply superstitious about bloodsuckers. All we know about Ritson’s Morgan is that he appears in Season 2 Episode 1. The series could have Morgan’s story be a direct adaptation with no changes, but this show is celebrated for its captivating new takes on the source material, so we suspect some tweaks.

Ritson is seen in a photo with Jacob Anderson ‘s Louis below, so we know that Louis and Morgan will meet, and he’ll presumably meet Claudia ( Delainey Hayles ) as well. Time will tell how Morgan will be incorporated, but given that his scene in the book is rather long, it’s exciting to know that this character is making an appearance.

You Interviewed the Vampires: Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid & More Answer 'IWTV' Fan Questions

Louis and Claudia conspired to kill Lestat ( Sam Reid ) in the Season 1 finale. That haunts Louis in Season 2, so much so that he hallucinates what the cast calls “Dream-stat.” This figment of Louis’ imagination haunts him and his decisions throughout the second season, acting as the devilish ex on his shoulder.

This is a creative adaptation of the source material that allows us to still have Reid on-screen in the second season. In the book, Louis says, “It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him.” That line provided the key to “Dream-stat.” Lestat is basically absent for the entire second half of Rice’s novel, bar some mentions from Louis and Claudia.

Below, meet Ritson’s Morgan, Duran’s Madeleine, and members of the Théâtres des Vampires coven that Louis and Claudia will meet in Paris. Plus, see new photos of Reid, Assad Zaman as Armand, Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy, and Ben Daniels as Santiago.

Interview With the Vampire , Season 2 Premieres Sunday, May 12, 9/8c, AMC, Streaming on AMC+

Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt and Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

Louis and Lestat in Episode 1. Lestat will appear as a ghost-like figment of Louis’ imagination as he tries to cope with the guilt of what he and Claudia did in the Season 1 finale.

Delainey Hayles as Claudia in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

Hayles previously told TV Insider that “Claudia would have world domination” if it weren’t for being trapped in a young teen’s body. Looking at this photo… yeah. We agree. The cigarette in her mouth. The gun in her hand. The complete lack of f***s in her eyes. Don’t mess with Claudia!

Jacob Anderson as Louis and Delainey Hayles as Claudia in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

Louis and Claudia search for Old World Vampires in Europe in Episode 1

Black Ritson as Morgan Ward in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

The Gilded Age ‘s Ritson as Morgan Ward

Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac and Black Ritson as Morgan Ward in 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 2 Episode 1

Louis and Morgan bond over cigarettes and drinks

Claudia is desperate to find a larger vampire community

Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac and Delainey Hayles as Claudia in 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 2

Louis and Claudia trek Europe together, a glimmer of hope in their eyes

Assad Zaman as Armand, Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

Armand may take part in Daniel’s interview

Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy, Jacob Anderson as Louis in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

The interview continues with Daniel and Louis in Dubai in 2022, but why does he look concerned?

Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac and Assad Zaman as Armand in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

The origins of Louis and Armand’s love story plays out in Paris

Ben Daniels as Santiago in 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 2

Ben Daniels as the vampire Santiago, the star of the Théâtres des Vampires with unique vampiric powers

Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt in 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 2

As revealed in TV Insider’s Interview With the Vampire Season 2 preview , Easter eggs from the Lestat-heavy book sequels The Vampire Lestat , The Queen of the Damned and The Tale of the Body Thief appear early on in the season. These photos of Lestat appear to be from a flashback to his life before Louis.

Reid in another Lestat flashback

The question is, who’s telling the Lestat flashback story? Can that narrator be trusted?

Roxane Duran as Madeleine in 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 2

Roxane Duran as Madeleine. Readers of the book know of this character’s important connection to Claudia.

Assad Zaman as Armand, Yung as Tuan Pham and Ben Bradshaw as Hans Luchenbaum in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

Armand is the devilishly alluring ancient vampire who runs the Théâtres des Vampires in the Paris flashbacks. In Dubai, he’s trying to protect Louis, the love of his life.

Ben Daniels as Santiago and Suzanne Andrade as Celeste in 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 2

Santiago with Celeste, a vampire from the Paris coven played by Suzanne Andrade

Assad Zaman as Armand in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

Armand is angered by something involving the coven

Delainey Hayles as Claudia and Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac in 'Interview with the Vampire' Season 2

Claudia and Louis attend a show at the Théâtres des Vampires

The Théâtres des Vampires itself

Jacob Anderson as Louis De Point Du Lac, Assad Zaman as Armand, Delainey Hayles as Claudia, Ben Daniels as Santiago, Ben Bradshaw as Hans Luchenbaum, Ed Birch as Pierre Roget, Genevieve Dunne as Eglee, Jake Cecil as Gustave, Yung as Tuan Pham, Khetphet

The Théâtres des Vampires coven in Paris

Claudia performs at the theater

Claudia advertises a show called “Mon Bébé Aime Les Fenetres,” which means “My Baby Loves Windows” in French.

Claudia is still committed to journaling in Season 2

Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy in 'Interview With the Vampire' Season 2

Daniel has less patience for Louis and Armand in Season 2 after their lies were revealed in the Season 1 finale

Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Assad zaman, ben daniels, blake ritson, delainey hayles, eric bogosian, jacob anderson, roxane duran.

Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire News
Interview with the Vampire Reviews
Interview with the Vampire Watch Online
Interview with the Vampire Episode Guide

Interview with the Vampire Quotes

Interview with the Vampire Cast
Interview with the Vampire Pictures

Follow Interview with the Vampire

Interview With the Vampire Stands Out as a "Feelings" Show in the Era of Procedurals

To choose emotion over action is how madness lies, or at least that's how it seems when it comes to television ratings in this Golden Age of procedurals.

It is rare to see a drama series deviate from by-the-numbers plots featuring by-the-book law enforcement characters because networks opt to make spinoffs within that formula rather than create new shows outside of it.

Someone apparently forgot to tell AMC because their deliciously non-formulaic series Interview With the Vampire is set to return for a highly-anticipated second season on May 12.

One could argue that this television series is a twice-over spinoff of Anne Rice's 1976 novel, the source material of the 1994 theatrical film starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst.

A better take might be to acknowledge how well this adaptation updates the original story to satisfy fans from both back in the day and now.

Rather than replicate the (perhaps overly) faithful-to-the-book film version, the series moves the novel's timeline up roughly a hundred years to drop us into the bustling New Orleans cityscape of 1910. This allows the show to explore a different era's societal problems while staying true to the characters.

After all, those very characters have kept this story alive for almost half a century.

Interview With the Vampire's popularity as a book came from Louis' tortured conscience over his vampirism, which was notable since the emotional side of that existence hadn't been examined before.

Vampires were usually depicted as unfeeling, mindless monsters or gleeful sadists who relished hunting and killing their human prey.

Lestat is a perfect representation of this bacchanalian version of vampiric life. He is alternately intrigued and baffled by Louis' refusal to embrace his new mode of existence fully.

Their "daughter" Claudia (wisely aged up for the series from the child of the book) is a blend of those two viewpoints: agonized at the emotional limits of being forever trapped in a too-young body yet enthusiastic about killing for food and fun.

Fans of the book and film know the beats of the main story, but Interview With the Vampire is not a plot-driven series. It features enough gore and action to rival the average procedural, but its focus is always on interior conflict.

Procedurals are plot-driven by definition; they use familiar steps to solve different problems and show their work by having characters voice every pertinent thought. Conflict is external: ransom demands, ticking time bombs, and gunfights.

Emotion-driven series are just that: focused on their characters' feelings and internal conflict.

Interview With the Vampire contains its share of external conflict, even just in the pressing need to avoid human detection and sunlight, but this functions merely as a backdrop for the battle of wills between Louis and Lestat and the constant internal war that Louis wages with the remnants of his human conscience.

Shows that focus on feelings need not be dull, any more than procedurals require a lack of emotion.

All genres have some component of predictability baked into them: romances end with a Happily Ever After , mysteries end with the murder solved, and thrillers end with the world saved.

The formulaic nature of procedurals isn't what makes them dangerous when they're the only thing on the menu; it's their static characters and focus on external conflict.

If there's a line in the sand between "feelings" shows and procedurals, it's the notion of character evolution.

Procedurals rely on a degree of character stasis where the audience can reasonably predict a character's response to any given situation within the world of the show.

That's because the goal of a procedural is not character development; it's story closure.

Somewhere in the middle are procedurals that incorporate a modicum of character development into their episodes or season-long arcs.

A good example is the beloved classic police procedural Castle , about a wildly successful playboy mystery author with writer's block who shadows a beautiful NYC detective on her murder investigations as research for his books.

The first season is a quiet miracle of a show where Nathan Fillion 's swaggering Rick Castle transforms from a petulant celeb lothario into a sensitive adult male with renewed purpose in art and life.

(Unfortunately, in later seasons, the show completely desexualized Rick Castle, making him a wisecracking teddy bear instead of a slightly reformed rake who could still smolder.)

Procedurals often feature incremental character development but are still defined by a focus on plot.

They can also be a secret third thing, as immortalized in the Seinfeld credo of " No hugging, no learning. " Like The Simpsons, that show featured wildly unpredictable plots offset by characters who remained the same throughout their runs.

There is nothing inherently wrong with procedurals, Seinfeld, or The Simpsons. The concern these days is that ALL we're getting are procedurals, so we're missing out on the emotional examinations provided by "feelings" shows, which were once part of our balanced television diet but are now increasingly rare.

Interview With the Vampire may be viewed as a bridge series between "feelings" shows and procedurals. It features gore GALORE and can be enjoyed solely on the level of spectacle.

It joins recent outlier shows like Shogun that seem purely plot-driven on the surface but feature deep psychological explorations of their characters.

The overwhelming number of recent procedurals has contributed to the rise of "laundry-folding television," otherwise known as shows that can be watched and enjoyed without one's full attention: we know the story beats, there won't be an unforgettably original line of dialogue to miss, and none of our friends will remember the show to discuss in any event.

Interview With the Vampire blends emotion and style to embody "feelings" television fully. We watch its characters evolve and sink into the visual sumptuousness offered by its high production value.

Procedurals are overly plentiful right now, and not just on CBS . They are addictive and fun, but there still needs to be room left for shows that don't focus on plot.

Interview With the Vampire has brought feelings and art back to our television screens, hopefully with an audience appetite for more shows like it.

Its popularity isn't just based on being part of an existing franchise; that franchise exists because of the emotional complexity behind Anne Rice's creations.

It could be argued that Lestat doesn't necessarily change as a character throughout the series. Or, his vampirism could be compared to winning the lottery in the common belief that money doesn't change who you are; it just makes you more of who you already are.

It is almost guaranteed that Lestat, as a human, was already close in personality to who he is now as an immortal.

Lestat's arc can be viewed as a study in sociopathy, but his feelings for Louis challenge that theory. Louis was a novelty and a welcome distraction for the bored vampire Lestat, but their relationship also contained real emotion.

Season 2 of Interview With the Vampire moves the show's action from New Orleans to Paris with a decidedly more gothic feel.

New adventures, acquaintances, and moral quandaries undoubtedly await the core characters.

However, Louis and company would be wise to remember that no matter where you go... there you are.

Interview With the Vampire's second season starts May 12 on AMC.

Are you excited for the show's return? Let us know in the comments!

Paullette Gaudet is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. You can follow her on X .

Lestat: I had plans to make a new life for myself in St. Louis. That was to be my destiny. And now I know I was right, only it turns out the saint is not a city but a handsome man with the most agreeable disposition. Lily: You're his destiny, Louis. Lestat: Destined to be very good friends. Permalink: Destined to be very good friends. Added: October 01, 2022

Louis: You've grown old, Daniel. Daniel: Yeah, well, mortality beats a heavy drum. Permalink: Yeah, well, mortality beats a heavy drum. Added: October 01, 2022

Interview with the Vampire Photos

February 2024
January 2024
2023 Archives
2022 Archives
2021 Archives
2020 Archives
2019 Archives
2018 Archives
2017 Archives
2016 Archives
2015 Archives
2014 Archives

‘Interview with the Vampire’ sinks its teeth into the ‘Old World’ in its new season

A fter a dazzling first season, “Interview with the Vampire” moves in a lower-key mode through its second, a perhaps inevitable byproduct of Lestat’s diminished role. Yet this AMC adaptation of Anne Rice’s books remains a tasty trip through history and geography, having changed venues from New Orleans to Europe and the “Old World Vampires” on the prowl there.

Although the logistics of an ageless vampire child weren’t cited as the cause, the new season brings one major change, with Delainey Hayles sliding seamlessly into the role of Claudia (replacing Bailey Bass). Trapped forever in her youthful form, she accompanies Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) on his travels, and often drives the narrative with her desire for community.

As for Lestat (Sam Reid), the conclusion of Season 1 largely confines his appearances to what’s going on in Louis’ head and flashbacks, though the nature of the show makes that a more effortless process than most.

Indeed, despite the challenging task of turning Rice’s books into an open-ended series, the framing device – as Louis and Armand (Assad Zaman) walk their human interviewer, Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), through their bloody past – provides an opportunity to take off in all sorts of interesting directions and digressions.

There’s also some new blood (heh heh), as Claudia falls in with the Theatre des Vampires, whose leading man Santiago (Ben Daniels) brings an additional sense of menace as well as theatricality to the proceedings.

A separate strand also beefs up Molloy’s thread and backstory, including details about his earlier life that inform the perilous line he’s walking in becoming Louis’ skeptical biographer, with good reason to question what details his immortal subjects might be conspicuously omitting.

Through the six episodes previewed, the story proceeds at a languid, almost dream-like pace, and while there’s perhaps a little too much vampire theater, its contours remain engrossing in ways the 1994 movie wasn’t, despite the starry pairing of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.

Thirty years have passed since then, but the series has still managed the difficult feat of putting its own distinctive stamp on the source material and justifying the vote of confidence AMC gave it by ordering a second season ahead of the first’s debut.

While vampires might have seemed like a no-brainer next step after AMC’s long reliance on zombies , this version of “Interview with the Vampire” has found the right resting place, and the creative team has sunk its teeth into a concept that, against the odds, appears to be aging remarkably well.

“Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire” begins its second season May 12 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC and AMC+.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com

Jacob Anderson as Louis and Delainey Hayles as Claudia in the second season of "Interview with the Vampire."

IMAGES

Anne Rice
Interview With The Vampire
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
Interview with the Vampire : Anne Rice, Simon Vance, Random House Audio
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE by Anne Rice Hardcover *NEW*
The Vampire Chronicles Collection: Interview with the Vampire, The

VIDEO

Interview with the Vampire Review
Interview with the Vampire Season 2
Interview with the Vampire
Interview With The Vampire Season 2 FINALLY Has A Release Date
INTERVIEW with the VAMPIRE
The Dracula Illusion by Scott Alexander Book Review

COMMENTS

Interview with the Vampire
November 29, 2021. Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1), Anne Rice. This is the story of Louis, as told in his own words, of his journey through mortal and immortal life. Louis recounts how he became a vampire at the hands of the radiant and sinister Lestat and how he became indoctrinated, unwillingly, into the vampire way of ...
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
The Panciks' teenage girls, Allegra and Hope, suffer invidious comparisons of their looks and sex appeal, although they're identical twins. The Panciks' friends the Llewellyns (Madeline, a blocked novelist, and her airline-pilot husband, Trevor) invested $50,000, the lion's share of Madeline's last advance, in Eddie's latest development.
Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire is a gothic horror and vampire novel by American author Anne Rice, published in 1976.It was her debut novel.Based on a short story Rice wrote around 1968, the novel centers on vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, who tells the story of his life to a reporter.Rice composed the novel shortly after the death of her young daughter Michelle, who served as an inspiration for ...
'Interview with the Vampire' by Anna Rice
Interview with the Vampire is an important and significant book when it comes to vampire mythology. A far cry from the evil and viciously seductive Dracula, Anna Rice's novel instead introduces the idea of a "vampire with a soul", coming in the form of its titular character, Louis de Pointe du Lac. After the AMC series changed a lot of ...
[Review & Discussion] Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
A lot of people have said Anne Rice started the Vampire Romance trend but Anne Rice was actually doing something very different from anyone else. If this book came out today I'd think it was a vampire romance deconstruction. The "Standard Model Vampire Romance" in Urban Fantasy is between a badass broke human (ish) women with a Power She doesn ...
Book Review: 'Interview with the Vampire' by Anne Rice (Gothic vampire
It's that time of the season again: it's the dark academia adjacent episode! We headed to a cult classic from the 70s - a book that I've wanted to read for years, and one that Sarah has loved for forever - it was time to bring Louis and Lestat to The Dark Academicals with an episode dedicated to 'Interview with the Vampire'.. There were so many things that made us think it would be ...
Interview with the Vampire: Rice, Anne: 9780345337665: Amazon.com: Books
Interview with the Vampire. Mass Market Paperback - September 13, 1991. by Anne Rice (Author) 4.5 8,187 ratings. Book 1 of 13: Vampire Chronicles. See all formats and editions. The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—the inspiration for the hit television series.
Book Review: Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles Book 1
Graphic Novel Review: Interview with the Vampire: Claudia's Story by Anne Rice & Ashley Marie Witter Book Review: The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles Book 2) by Anne Rice Book Review: The Queen of the Damned (The Vampire Chronicles Book 3) by Anne Rice
Interview with the Vampire
About Interview with the Vampire. The spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author—the inspiration for the hit television series "A magnificent, compulsively readable thriller . . . Rice begins where Bram Stoker and the Hollywood versions leave off and penetrates directly to the true fascination of the myth—the education of the vampire."—
Remembering Anne Rice: Interview With The Vampire
Interview With The Vampire (1976) This book is an incredible work. It was written in the aftermath of the death of Rice's young daughter, and that sense of depression is there throughout the book. Later books have a different tone, and she ret-conned some of the events of the first book by basically claiming Louis was an unreliable narrator.
AMC's Interview With the Vampire Review: Bloody Good Nightmare
AMC's Interview With the Vampire knows that it has to contend with the past iterations of its story, but instead of distancing itself from the books or the film, it is gleefully reveling in the ...
Book Review: Anne Rice's 'Interview With The Vampire'
This is the book that started it all. Nearly 50 years ago Anne Rice penned the tragic tale of Louis, Lestat, and Claudia and rekindled our love for vampires which is still going strong today. Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire was so loved by fans that it kicked off a 15-book series chronicling Louis, Lestat, and their fellow vampires.
'Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire': Old Monsters, New Blood
There's still an interview with a vampire, a treacherous eternal romance, an uncontrollable daughter and monstrous bloodsucking. New Orleans, Rice's hometown, is a pivotal location. But it's ...
Interview with the Vampire review
Interview with the Vampire review - Anne Rice's gothic horror gets queer TV update This article is more than 1 year old A hit-and-miss adaptation of the 1976 novel has replaced the ...
Interview with the Vampire Review: The Best Anne Rice Adaptation Ever
Late Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice was never completely onboard with the 1994 film adaptation of her book: Interview with the Vampire, which starred Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Taking issue ...
Interview with the Vampire: Rice, Anne: 9780345256089: Amazon.com: Books
Mass Market Paperback - April 12, 1977. Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly erotic, this is a novel of mesmerizing beauty and astonishing force—a story of danger and flight, of love and loss, of suspense and resolution, and of the extraordinary power of the senses. It is a novel only Anne Rice could write.
Interview With the Vampire Review: A Sexy, Layered Anne Rice ...
Sam Reid, Jacob Anderson, and Bailey Bass star in AMC's Interview With the Vampire, a sexy and multifaceted adaptation of Anne Rice's classic novel.
Interview with the Vampire review: a feast for the senses
Interview with the Vampire is the story of Louis de Pointe du Lac (Anderson), a vampire who recounted his tale to reporter Daniel Molloy (Bogosian) in 1973. Now, 50 years later, Louis wants to meet with the now seasoned journalist Daniel once again to set the record straight. Louis is a Black Creole businessman in New Orleans' Storyville in 1910.
Interview With The Vampire Review: A Masterful Outlook on ...
RELATED: 'Interview With the Vampire' Shows the Horror of Being a Child Vampire. The attention-grabbing script by Anne Rice, who is the author of the novel that inspired the film, keeps you ...
Interview with the Vampire: Rice, Anne: 8601415931457: Amazon.com: Books
In the now-classic novel Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice refreshed the archetypal vampire myth for a late-20th-century audience. The story is ostensibly a simple one: having suffered a tremendous personal loss, an 18th-century Louisiana plantation owner named Louis Pointe du Lac descends into an alcoholic stupor.
Interview With the Vampire
The 1994 adaptation of Interview with the Vampire is a camp classic. Oct 27, 2022 Full Review Quentin Crisp Christopher Street I simply do not want any more movies about vampires or about Mr ...
Interview With the Vampire finale review: A good twist and a bad twist
Claudia (Bailey Bass) becomes the resident wild card, an unhinged teen who's also the savvy female voice in a frat house of self-delusive ego. In the finale, which I will now start to spoil ...
'Interview with the Vampire' review: The AMC series sinks its teeth
After a dazzling first season, "Interview with the Vampire" moves in a lower-key mode through its second, a perhaps inevitable byproduct of Lestat's diminished role. Yet this AMC adaptation ...
"Interview with the Vampire" review: One of the best shows on TV is
Assad Zaman as Armand in Season 2 of " Interview with the Vampire." (Larry Horricks/AMC) Beneath the cheery, circus-like surface of the theater troupe, power plays and schisms abound, some of ...
'Interview with the Vampire' Season 2 review: Theater, romance, and
Interview with the Vampire continues to remix the story of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, picking up in the wake of its shattering Season 1 finale.Vampires Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson ...
'Interview With the Vampire' Photos Reveal Blake Ritson as Book
As revealed in TV Insider's Interview With the Vampire Season 2 preview, Easter eggs from the Lestat-heavy book sequels The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned and The Tale of the Body Thief ...
Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire Season 2 Episodes 1-6 Review
In Season 2 of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, all the world's a stage.The second round of the series is elevated by its theatrical trappings, be it the playful, playbill-esque ...
Interview With the Vampire Stands Out as a "Feelings" Show in the Era
Fans of the book and film know the beats of the main story, but Interview With the Vampire is not a plot-driven series. It features enough gore and action to rival the average procedural, but its ...
'Interview with the Vampire' sinks its teeth into the 'Old ...
A fter a dazzling first season, "Interview with the Vampire" moves in a lower-key mode through its second, a perhaps inevitable byproduct of Lestat's diminished role. Yet this AMC adaptation ...