Day 19: Interview with the Vampire

Day 19 of Calloween Movie Month

Content warnings: blood and gore, child abuse, incest(?), pedophilia(?), slavery, racism, probably other stuff I'm forgetting

Recommended?: No

Spoilers and discussion of many of the mentioned topics below. You have been warned.

Truly one of the movies of all time.



Interview with the Vampire is about Louis, a vampire, telling the story of his life in the aftermath of another vampire, Lestat, to an overzealous reporter.

There was a lot in this movie I was predisposed to loving. Prettyboy vampires whose interactions are constantly dripping with more homoerotic tension than blood. Decadence and opulence in equal measures drowning beautiful aristocrats in stupidly romantic bouts of angst. Great performances from the entire cast, including the only 11 year old Kirsten Dunst as a very complicated and deep character. The idea that the one thing that still makes us human even if you took away the great equalizer of the great beyond is love and passion for being alive.

But there's far more I didn't. And in a much more complicated way than other movies I felt negatively about this month.

First of all, it's second half is far worse than it's second. Because Lestat breathes life (get it?) into this movie and also because in his absence it's allowed to delve far too deeply into this... fucking bizarre subplot. Where Kirsten Dunst's Claudia, a girl nearly killed and then turned by Louis and Lestat and is adopted as their daughter falls in love with and kisses Louis after calling him father, in a weird... psuedo incest pseudo pedophilia thing. By the way, Dunst was 11 and Brad Pitt was 31 when this movie was filmed. Just throwing that out there. This is the kinda shit people pretend only exists in media from Japan or other icky foreign countries they want to be xenophobic about. That whole subplot... Kind of made me dissociate briefly.

There's also a bunch of slave shit that is never properly addressed and is just taken for granted. Which makes it really fucking weird when Louis has problems killing people, but not owning them?

Basically, this movie made me feel very strange and uncomfortable. Which is fine, a lot of my personal favorite movies and pieces of art in general make me feel weird and uncomfortable. I'm a fan of horror, of transgressive art, of outsider art, of things that are made specifically to challenge my morality and ask me questions I'm not always comfortable thinking about my answers to. I'm not so puerile I can't handle some movie characters with dubious relationships. But something about the romanticism with which it's all presented, and the fact they still view each other as father and daughter, the fact that the actor playing this woman stuck forever in a child's body is only 11. I don't know. It's gross.

This movie is gross. And not in a fun over the top camp way or a transgressive punk way. Just regular old conservative Christian approved gross. I'm also not a fan of a gay adoptee father being basically turned into a child groomer, but ok. Alright. Whatever.

There's a lot to unpack here but I'm just gonna throw away the whole fuckin' suitcase. I hope nothing ever makes me feel this way again.