Interview With The Vampire – Season 1 Review

A year on from premiering in America, the BBC just released the complete first season of Interview With The Vampire on iPlayer, meaning we can at last tuck in to the latest iteration of Anne Rice’s gothic classic.

Many will be familiar with the 1994 adaptation of the same name starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and a young Kirsten Dunst in the lead roles. The story of Interview With The Vampire is one layered with homoeroticism, yet where the stigmas of the time wouldn’t have accepted the books and film from openly addressing this fact, the most recent instalment embraces this interpretation and makes a show that is unashamedly queer.

In 2022, the 145 year old vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac invites the world renowned journalist Daniel Malloy to Dubai for an exclusive interview with him. This is their second attempt at an interview, having already tried and failed some fifty years prior – a departure from the original book which is solely set in the year of 1973. What follows is the retelling of Louis’ life story, detailing the extravagant horrors of his romance with Lestat De Lioncourt, the vampire who made him, as well as the complex relationship they have with their adopted daughter Claudia.

Where the show succeeds is through its casting of Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid as Louis and Lestat respectively. Reid’s performance as Lestat is perfection, exuding a level of charisma and seduction that keeps both ourselves and those onscreen captivated from the outset. It’s also clear Jacob Anderson has grown tremendously as an actor since his days as Grey Worm on Game Of Thrones, successfully depicting the complex nuance of a man grappling with the remnants of his humanity in the face of his newfound immortality. The decision to racebend both his and Claudia’s characters, where Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst were previously cast in the role, opens the story up for a dynamic exploration of race in the Jim Crow South and what happens when a black man in the midst of such segregation gains the power of a vampire.

What sits at the heart of the show is the complex relationship between Louis and Lestat. A masterclass in queer storytelling, the show uses their vampiric nature to take the common staples of average relationships: passion, lust, boredom, and exasperates them into something far darker and twisted. We watch as the interracial power dynamics in the midst of segregation plays out between the men; their co-dependency growing into a means of avoiding an infinite lifetime of loneliness, as the mortality of mankind around them detaches them from any human affairs.

If there was one criticism of the portrayal, it’s that the producers didn’t cast actual LGBTQ+ actors in the roles. Whilst it doesn’t undermine the obvious nuance and care Reid and Anderson have taken with their performances, casting gay actors would’ve been the cherry on top for what is garnering a strong cult following within the community. Adding to the complexity of Louis and Lestat’s relationship is their adoption of a young 14 year old Claudia into their ranks, portrayed by Bailey Bass from Avatar: Way Of The Water. Born as the by-product of both racism and some of Louis’ actions, her arc of navigating life as an immortal trapped in the body of a child is particularly compelling.

Taking place across both the past and present, the show does a fine job of blending its period setting with the horror genre. Through costume and production design, the passage of time across the season is never explicitly told to the audience but rather shown through the evolving fashion and architecture of the early 20^th Century. It’s clear that our characters are simply changing with the times out of a need to blend in, presenting the characters as immortal spectators over the world who never fully engage with it. This combined with the use of practical effects for the blood and gore, as well as a general lack of CGI for the action sequences, all serve to build a fully believable portrayal of New Orleans and acts as a love letter to the horror classics of the past.  

Overall, Interview With The Vampire is everything you could ask for from a vampire flic. Brimming with blood, gore and complex queer storytelling, a second season is slated for release sometime in early 2024.