4 Reasons to Watch Interview With The Vampire S1 If You Love All Things Gothic
The creators were able to stay true to the original source while refreshing and modernizing the story.
In the midst of the vampire renaissance, a new adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, the most famous novel in The Vampire Chronicles series, has hit the small screen in 2022. Despite their popularity, Rice's books received only two movie adaptations.
This was probably due to the fact that the author herself was very sensitive about her creation. Over the past decade, Rice has persistently tried to get the books into good hands. And she succeeded.
1. Creators Know How to Deliver the Story
The showrunner of the Interview with the Vampire series, Rolin Jones, is no stranger to creating large-scale dramas that take place in multiple time periods. He has worked on Perry Mason and Boardwalk Empire, The Exorcist and Friday Night Lights.
Anne Rice's son Christopher is one of the producers of the series. Unfortunately, the author herself died in December 2021 at the age of 80.
2. Slow Pacing Helps You Immerse Yourself in the Story
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Approximately $30-40 million has been invested in the rights to The Vampire Chronicles series. The show was renewed before the premiere, and the producers plan to extend only the first book for three seasons. As a result, the narrative is leisurely.
At the same time, the slow pacing will not make you bored – jumps between past and present make sure the show remains dynamic, and the dialogues between the already mature Louis and the journalist Daniel fill the events that happened to the vampire decades ago with meaning.
3. Story Has Modernized – And That's a Good Thing
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In the show, Louis is not the wealthy owner of a slave plantation, but the descendant of former slaves brought to America from Cameroon. The sudden change of race makes Louis even more faithful to the canon – after all, the vampires created by Anne Rice were conceived as eternal outcasts, not accepted or understood by ordinary society.
In addition, the show dives deeper into the queer subtext of the story – the focus is on the difficult relationship between Louis and Lestat. Initially cold conversations are filled with understatements that eventually elevate the two to a new status, and their love relationship takes on the form of a classic co-dependency.
4. The Claudia Storyline Got a Touching Subtext
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Anne Rice would certainly have been touched by the line about the girl Claudia, whom the vampires adopt to feel like a mortal family.
The idea for the novel came to her after a terrible personal tragedy: her six-year-old daughter died of leukemia. Writing a novel about an immortal child became a form of healing for Anne.
In the 1994 movie, Kirsten Dunst's eccentric Claudia seemed more like a monster than a victim, but in the series, the girl becomes a truly tragic figure.