Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Average Rating: 5.9/10
Reviews Counted: 49
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 19
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.
Average Rating: 4.4/10
Critic Reviews: 11
Fresh: 4 | Rotten: 7
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.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 408,799
My Rating
Movie Info
Anne Rice's best-selling romantic horror tale about the origins of a centuries-old vampire inspired this popular, atmospheric chiller. One of director Neil Jordan's major Hollywood productions, the film stays close to its source material, retaining the frame of a young reporter (Christian Slater) interviewing a man who claims to be a 200-year-old vampire. The man, Louis (Brad Pitt), shares his story, beginning in 18th-century New Orleans with his first encounters with the charismatic and
Nov 11, 1994 Wide
Aug 28, 1997
Warner Home Video
Watch It Now
Cast
-
Tom Cruise
Lestat -
Brad Pitt
Louis -
Antonio Banderas
Armand -
Stephen Rea
Santiago -
Christian Slater
Malloy -
Kirsten Dunst
Claudia -
Domiziana Giordano
Madeleine -
Thandie Newton
Yvette -
Indra Ove
New Orleans Whore -
Laure Marsac
Mortal Woman on Stage -
Katia Caballero
Woman in Audience -
George Kelly
Dollmaker -
Jeanette Kontomitras
Woman in Square -
Bellina Logan
Tavern Girl -
Susan Lynch
Paris Vampire -
John "Spud" McConnell
Gambler -
Monte Montague
Plague Victim Bearer -
Roger Lloyd Pack
Piano Teacher -
-
Sarah Stockbridge
Estelle -
Andrew Tiernan
Paris Vampire -
Micha Bergese
Paris Vampire -
Lyla Kay Owen
Widow St. Clair -
-
-
Marcel Iures
Paris Vampire -
Helen McCrory
2nd New Orleans Whore -
-
ADVERTISEMENT
All Critics (49) | Top Critics (11) | Fresh (30) | Rotten (20) | DVD (21)
It's about seduction, and either you succumb to its inky entrapments or you resist. When its mojo was working, I was happy to be had.
Why would Tom Cruise be playing Lestat, a gaunt, suave European vampire with a taste for young men? Because a big movie star can do whatever he wants.
The leading performances, if acceptable, are not everything they needed to be to fully flesh out these elegant immortals.
The major problem lies with Rice's own script, which is dramatically repetitive and philosophically banal.
Interview with the Vampire promises a constantly surprising vampire story, and it keeps that promise.
For all its visionary brilliance, the movie version of Interview never lets us close enough to see ourselves in Louis. We're dazzled but unmoved.
...the movie's aggressively overlong running time often does threaten to negate its positive attributes...
Entertaining but gruesomely gory vampire tale.
Beautiful to look at and dripping with atmosphere
...the movie comes off as part pretentious, pseudo, pop psychology and part parody. (Blu-ray Edition)
...something for everyone: heterosexuality, homosexuality, eroticism, murder, mayhem, pedophilia, necrophilia, nudity, gore.
Holds plenty of interest, even for those who find Anne Rice's gothic cult novels unreadable.
Jordan tries hard to inject some sort of Gothic sensibility into the film's early sequences, but it isn't until the third act, when the film enters the marvellously atmospheric world of the Thibtre des Vampires, that he really draws blood.
Jordan is a master of poetic, deceptive atmosphere.
Anne Rice was right the first time around when she criticized Tom Cruise's casting in public, and Brad Pitt is not great either but like every Jordan's film, this problematic adaptation has some merits such as child actress Dunst and some arresting images
Given that this is basically a Reader's Digest condensed version, the movie does a pretty good sweep job.
Tragically overproduced, with a glaring central miscast.
Audience Reviews for Interview with the Vampire
Super Reviewer
-
- Claudia: Which of you did it? Which of you made me the way I am?
-
- Claudia: You dress me like a doll. You make my hair like a doll. Why? You want me to be a doll forever?!
- Louis: Claudia, don't.
- Claudia: Why not? Can't I change like everybody else?
-
- Lestat: I enjoy it. Take you aesthete's taste to purer things. Kill them swiftly if you will, but do it! For now doubt, you are a killer, Louis!
-
- Louis: Most of all I longed for death. I know that now. I invited it, a release from the pain of living. My invitation was open to anyone. Sailors, thieves, whores and slaves... but it was a vampire that accepted.
-
- Louis: My last sunrise. That morning I was not yet a vampire, and I saw my last sunrise. I remember it completely, yet I don't remember any sunrise before it. I watched the whole magnificence of the dawn for the last time, as if it were the first. And then I said goodbye to sunlight and went out to become what I became.
-
- Louis: Bear me no ill will my love we are now even
- Claudia: What do you mean?
- Louis: What died in that room was not that woman. What has died is the last breath in me that was human.
- Claudia: Yes, Father. At last we are even.
Discussion Forum
There are no discussion threads for Interview with the Vampire yet.
Latest News on Interview with the Vampire
August 22, 2008:
Further Reading: Hammer Horror's MySpace Revival StumblesDoes a new collection of webisodes hosted on MySpace and featuring tabloid teen favourites Jamie...
February 27, 2008:
Anne Rice Says Her Vampire Chronicles Aren't FinishedIn 2005, Anne Rice told the world she was finished writing about vampires -- but fans who lamented...
September 13, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: Jodie's Got A Gun!Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster returns to the big screen this weekend in the vigilante thriller...
What's Hot On RT
Trailer for James Franco adaptation
Star Trek opens softer than expected
Rachel McAdams' time travel romantic drama
Trailer for Tom Hanks thriller
Featured on RT
- Box Office Guru Wrapup: Star Trek Softer Than Expected at #1 57
- Weekly Ketchup: Will Smith to Star in Wild Bunch Remake? 36
- Critics Consensus: Star Trek Into Darkness is Certified Fresh 105
- Red Carpet Roundup: Star Trek Into Darkness Edition 0
- Video Interviews with Katie Aselton & Lake Bell of Black Rock 2
- VIP Access: Eli Roth talks Aftershock 1
- Total Recall: Star Trek Movies 95
Top Headlines
-
J.J. Abrams Talks Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Wars, and More
1
-
Vin Diesel Says Fast & Furious 7 Will Begin a New Trilogy
10
-
Mickey Rourke Confirmed for Expendables 3
5
-
Brad Bird Still Mulling Incredibles 2
0
-
Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, and Martin Short Join Inherent Vice
1
-
Bruce Willis Makes an Expiration Date
4
-
Drew Pearce Hired for Mission: Impossible 5
0
Foreign Titles
- Interview mit einem Vampir (DE)
- Entretien avec un vampire (FR)


Top Critic
Full review at themoviefreakblog.com