by Kate Beach, Staff Writer

Since 1976, Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles has captivated goths, horror nerds, and normies alike with its florid prose, complicated vampiric family trees, and sprawling lore that covers everything from Jesus Christ to the lost city of Atlantis. Adapting the whole thing has never been attempted and, even if it was, it would probably never be completed. Rice wrote 18 novels over nearly fifty years, and while the series has plenty of devotees, none of the books are as recognizable or popular as the first entry: Interview with the Vampire.

It was adapted for film in 1994 by Neil Jordan, who cast two of the most popular movie stars of all time as Louis and Lestat, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, respectively. Filling out the cast was a very young Kirsten Dunst as the tragic child vampire, Claudia, and Antonio Banderas as the mysterious and cunning vampire Armand. Louis and Lestat are two of Rice’s most important creations. Lestat may be the greatest idea she ever put to the page, and he was clearly Rice’s favorite. In the film, Tom Cruise went against type, and did better than nearly everyone thought he would, including Rice herself, who had initially been vocally against the casting. Brad Pitt feels flat, like he wasn’t quite ready to fully commit to a character like Louis. In the series, Jacob Anderson finally makes Louis feel wholly human, even as he begins his eternity as a vampire. He beautifully embodies all of Louis’s anger and grief at the loss of his mortality and his family. Sam Reid’s Lestat is a full body experience, all sex and violence and rage and adoration.

Adapting any of Anne Rice’s work must feel impossible. Every novel is dense and complicated, and by the time the film premiered, readers had been waiting decades for a faithful adaptation. They mostly got it. Rice wrote the screenplay for Interview with the Vampire; it makes changes but mostly hews closely to her novel. Control over the characters and worlds she created was crucial to Rice, and she famously hated fanfiction. She was an executive producer on the television adaptation along with her son, novelist Christopher Rice, who was initially attached to write the pilot. After changing showrunners (Bryan Fuller was briefly going to helm the series) and networks multiple times, AMC ultimately secured the rights to all eighteen books in Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. Rice died before the series went into production, so we’ll never know what she would have thought of Jones’s interpretation of her work.

Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, as it’s officially titled, takes on the difficult task of interpreting Rice for both the longtime devotees and brand-new viewers, and making changes that update the story for the twenty-first century but still maintain its spirit and vibe. It does this incredibly effectively. Showrunner Rolin Jones made several changes to both the novel and film that feel fresh and intelligent. The biggest change is made to Louis de Pointe du Lac, the titular vampire being interviewed.

While the novel and film envisioned him as a white plantation owner and enslaver, the Louis of this new venture is Black, a prosperous Creole businessman who runs gambling houses and brothels. He deals with being the head of his family, providing for his mother and siblings even as they turn their noses up at the work he does. His success is limited by the white businessmen and city officials around him, who condescend to him and openly conspire to keep him beneath them. It’s a brilliant change that allows the series to grapple with race in a way that neither the novel nor the film were equipped to do. The show also shortens its timeline, placing Louis in turn of the 20th century New Orleans during the period of Storyville, the city’s famed and short-lived red-light district.

The series makes changes to its interviewer, too. A young, brash reporter played by Christian Slater in the film, the Daniel Molloy of the series is, well, old. Eric Bogosian takes over the role, and he’s interviewing Louis for the second time. Their first meeting, fifty years prior in San Francisco, went disastrously wrong. Louis is now living abroad and feeling reflective, so he summons Molloy for a second round. It’s a fascinating narrative device that gives the series the opportunity to jump between the decades, allowing both Louis and Molloy to reckon with time, memory, age, and history in their new conversation. It lets Molloy question and doubt Louis at every turn, trying to set the record straight on things as innocuous as the weather or as consequential as a staggeringly cruel act of domestic violence. An older Molloy changes the character’s dynamic with Louis entirely. He’s sick and tired, less willing to accept vampiric bullshit or a woe-is-me monologue. He’s also a much better journalist than he was in his twenties, and he’s now an esteemed reporter in the twilight of a storied career.

Every time I think about 1994’s Interview with the Vampire, I think about Norm MacDonald. Anchoring Weekend Update on the film’s opening weekend, he gives his review of the film. “Not gay enough,” MacDonald declares with a smirk. I get the joke, but… he’s kind of right. It was unlikely that a major studio movie released in the early 90s (or, frankly, today) would truly embrace the queer sensibility of The Vampire Chronicles, and the extremely toxic gay love story at the center of Interview with the Vampire—and it didn’t. Louis and Lestat are bound together, but it’s just not that gay, and neither Pitt nor Cruise seem particularly interested in playing up that angle. By contrast, the series quickly establishes Louis and Lestat as lovers and never looks back. “Queer,” Louis says about himself during a fight, before gesturing to Lestat. “Half queer, mostly queer, what is it?” “Non-discriminating,” Lestat replies curtly, as he slams the incinerator shut on one of the pair’s latest victims. This is a gothic romance, an abusive marriage, an immortal love story, and the series would never allow it to be anything less.

AMC’s Interview with the Vampire is brilliantly, gleefully bloody. Where the film doesn’t entirely shy away from the death and gore inherent in stories about vampires, the series revels in it. Kills are vicious and over-the-top, characters are regularly drenched in blood, and corpses rot and fester. It’s an absolute delight. The bloodbaths also serve to highlight one of the core conflicts between Louis and Lestat: Louis’s reluctance to kill, and Lestat’s insistence that he embrace his nature. When the pair turn Claudia, further conflict arises as the perpetual child (played in season one by Bailey Bass and season two by Delainey Hayles) clearly takes after her “Uncle Les,” in her zest for murder. The fate of Claudia will always be central to Louis and Lestat’s story, and the series hammers home their decade spanning grief.

The series told the story of Interview with the Vampire over two seasons and has now closed the book. In an ecstatically received announcement at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, Rolin Jones and company unveiled the first look at their plans for season three: adapting The Vampire Lestat. Rice’s second novel in The Vampire Chronicles gives Lestat the reins, and there’s no doubt that Sam Reid is up to the challenge. The Mayfair Witches, another Rice creation, will soon begin its second season, and AMC has announced a Talamasca series as well, following the secret society that keeps an eye on the supernatural beings of the world. Dubbed Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe, it is now in uncharted territory when it comes to Rice adaptations. It will set the tone for a new generation of vampire lovers, and it will be as queer and bloody and lush and outrageous as a Rice story deserves.