There are moments early on in Interview with the Vampire, AMC’s lavish, lascivious new adaptation of Anne Rice’s revered novel, when you begin to forget what you are watching. So hedonistic is the depiction of New Orleans’ Storyville – or Red Light – district, so sumptuous the design and so intoxicating the atmosphere that you could be walking those streets, a heady smell of smoke and sweat in the air. And then the there is an explosion of rage, and you remember where you are.
This has always been a story of morality, of legacy and how immortality is both a curse and a blessing. And AMC have leaned into those themes, removing the homosexual subtext that existed in Neil Jordan’s 1994 film to add weight to emotions vampires remain plagued by over decades. Casting was always going to be crucial in realising this, and Sam Reid is suitably suave and sinister as Lestat de Lioncourt. However, it is Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac that is most compelling, his journey from a Black businessman railing against a racist society to primal killer an intriguing and interesting one.
Yet the issues that emerged in Jordan’s film do so again, and to potentially more detrimental effect. The nature of immortality is dull, and the excitement present in early episodes gives way to morose brooding; if you struggled at all with the story once Lestat was ‘sidelined’ you will do so again.
Beautifully produced and impressively performed, Interview is undoubtedly spectacular. But as the series progresses the rewards for persevering grow fewer and you may begin to appreciate the vampire’s immortal plight.
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE: SEASON 1 is available on Blu-ray from November 6th
