Interview with the Vampire TV series (2022)

Seven episodes of this! Who’s watching? I’m just catching up on it now.

Some absolutely lol lines in this which ofc is entirely in line with the source material

“I was a red-blooded son of the south, seeking ass before absolution.”

these vampires kinda gay fr

It’s funny because it’s true and it’s also funny how extremely gay the process of becoming a vampire in this continuity is - and always has been. The drinking, the gasping, the savouring- even in the books when her vampires couldn’t have sex this was basically the next thing to it.

I really like the film adaptation but it’s so self serious. This is and always has been a very silly series and I don’t even mean that as an insult.

Thought the casting was amazing. The guy who plays Lestat actually playing French and speaking it as well was a nice surprise. Jacob Anderson is a really good Louis - introspective, grave, irresistibly drawn to Lestat. Lestat in this - and admittedly I’m only one episode in - probably the closest adaptation on first inspection. He even looks quite similar to the drawing on the old book covers.
https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/interview-with-the-vampire.jpg
https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/779886807.jpg

I liked the adaptational changes for Louis! Like, in the original book he’s a slave owner. It’s the least important part of his character. They do more to give him a background and family life in this first episode and that works for him too because he’s kind of depicted as being solitary and aloof even in his human life until the point he becomes a vampire. I saw an interview somewhere where the director was like “nobody wants to hear that story,” and honestly? Yes. They don’t make him a saint either, though. There’s still moral ambiguity.

I feel that you can’t really do this series without tons of DRAMA and DECADENCE and CATHOLICISM and everything and first episode delivered. Lestat veering from attached to fixated to obsessed to encouraging and back again is done really well, he’s a malign presence but one you like to see more of!

Also, modern day Louis living in Dubai is funny as fuck. Firstly, because if you’re going to buy an apartment where the sun is blocked out by specially made windows, then yeah, Dubai probably does that. Secondly, it’s a place where nobody is going to notice much if you never leave the house. Lastly, iirc from the one and only time I was in UAE, the sun sets early there. So all made sense but was also pretty funny. Maybe Louis got the money from being bought out by the techbros in San Francisco.

Also, the book references are great. When Lestat talks about the violinist!

I'm up to ep 3 on this, it's quite good fun and the Lestat guy is a huge improvement on Tom fk-ing Cruise in that crappy movie.

It is fun! That bit where there’s a quick cut from their fighting to the coffins and Lestat saying he doesn’t want to sleep angry is really funny.

Did you eat the baby
DID YOU EAT THE BABY

I vaguely remember they go to Europe in the movie, finished ep 5 and totally up for something similar happening in this. You sound like every Sorbonne student I've ever eaten.

Interview with Bailey Bass, who plays Claudia, here: https://decider.com/2022/10/23/interview-with-the-vampire-bailey-bass-claudia-interview/

I like this version of Claudia so far. Going with a 19 year old actress who could briefly play the character at age 14 works well.

Claudia’s age has always been controversial, I think she is 5(!) in the books, 10 in the film and so I have no objection to older. There’s a lot going on with the character that people found and find discomforting. I haven’t got to her yet.

I get how it'd kind of work in the books, the movie adaptation was creepy enough to hammer home the point that a kid never aging is fucked up, and the tv adaptation delivers a character that you're able to assign agency to and understand that this is an adult person. A ten year old is just never going to seem like an adult to us non-vampires, regardless of how great of a job Kirsten Dunst did

S1E6 has a TWIST

I wonder how much of this shit Louis has been lying about

I need to watch the last few episodes bc have been distracted this week! I really liked Claudia when she was introduced.

TICKETS PLEASE

How does lestat get cuntier every episode?? I always think he’s peaked but then he skips into a train holding a head saying “tickets please”

— k 🦇 iwtv spoilers (@burritochilles) October 30, 2022

he's really more of a child than the vampire that's stuck looking like a teenager

They used the same Haydn piece that was used in the film, love it

if it weren't for the the present day timeline where the retelling is taking place you'd think that Louis is going to spend a thousand uninterrupted years simping for Lestat

Rashid is apparently thousands of years old and imbued with ancient wisdom, but he still gets off on doing that "oooh, I could levitate over a doll's house" routine to startled mortals!

That season ending omg. I thought he was Armand since the end of 6, and also, another casting choice I like, like in the novels Armand is maybe 14 and looks like a child and also everyone fancies him and…yeah.

Also there totally is/was a Louis/Lestat/Armand triangle in the series.

The thing I’m thinking about though is that Daniel (the journalist) ends up with Armand?

I looked up Assad Zaman (the actor who plays him) to see how old he is and he’s 38! Also loled at this on one of his casting pages:

Geordie (Native), Pakistani, Middle Eastern General, General Scottish, RP, Cockney

Can’t believe we were robbed of Geordie Armand.

Rashid is apparently thousands of years old and imbued with ancient wisdom, but he still gets off on doing that "oooh, I could levitate over a doll's house" routine to startled mortals!

I thought he said thousands, must have heard it wrong.

ok i just started ep1 and I love it

you cant do this story without giving over to the OTT of it all and the movie did up to a point but i like that they have freedom here to push it to the full extent

it still feels inherently anne rice with all her kookiness but the new touches are welcome too, they struck a good balance. updating louis is such a great call bc he becomes interesting again & gives you a new way into a well trodden character

love how they lean into the violence & power of lestat & the goriness of the vampirism

lestat casting is A+

i did not expect to be this impressed right out of the gate, i’m SO in

"lestat casting is A+"

RIP tom cruise. I couldn't remember the details but this good casting choice does highlight how the author was correct about her misgivings over the movie at the time.

to be clear i do actually like Cruise as Lestat as well

Cruise as Lestat is good! But the film is way too serious for the source material.

yeah i agree

I can much more easily see this continuity’s Lestat with a short lived campy rock career than I could Tom Cruise.

It’s really funny to see people rereading the book and sharing “spoilers” like this. Also, has inspired me to reread. The books are so cheesy but compulsive?

dear followers, how does it feel like to know that these two kissed at least once at some point?#InterviewWithTheVampire pic.twitter.com/SbnZteaIfC

— no context lestat de lioncourt (@nocontextlestat) November 8, 2022

i am very fond of the books - the Mayfair Witches trilogy is fun too

one of my friends in high school got into her erotic fiction, all the nom de plume Rampling/Roquelare stuff, and she’d read racy bits to us while we ate lunch lol

but it helped contextualize the vampire novels when i read them, high drama high camp INTENSE EMOTIONS it’s very good fun

Incredibly otm. I’ve never read the witches books and I’m aware of the racy stuff by its reputation only - but I gather it was proper filth?

with frills on it

there's a Mayfair Witches show in January

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTjAn3dMT00

ooohhh

I'm not watching but ILX-adjacent https://genufa.tumblr.com/ has been good no this, and https://undecimber-of-joy.tumblr.com/post/701023804106964992/alright-then-i-need-to-say-my-piece-or-i-will indicates that fandom is as into it as you'd absolutely expect.

we’re progressing very slowly through the series but gosh I really do love it

we just finished ep5: the louis-lestat blowup over claudia was insanely epic… and the charles manson needledrop over the credits was ~chef’s kiss*

finished s1

goddamn, really impressed.

i said to mr veg, Louis is such a fucking balloon. he never really commits to a conviction. and Claudia, just true helldemon.

most of all i think they really captured Lestat so well, the lure of him, the massive ego, the violence. like he feels much more tangible and layered in this version. Cruise was good but it was a caricature. this version feels like everyone read the book & embraced it as a text, whereas the movie had a bit of ironic remove because of the time obv, like no one could really say with a straight face that they were making a vampire movie

anyway. 5 stars no notes. makes me want to reread the book again.

You should! You’re right about the ironic remove of the film as well.

I watched the first ep of Mayfair Witches

seems less artfully made than Interview, everything looks a little cheaper? idk. I’ll watch the whole thing regardless

Haven’t watched this yet but I will. Have you read that series? I know nothing about it.

(haven't watched any of this yet (interview i mean) despite yr strong and compelling recommendation, poster gyac, bcz i am currently trying to save money on everything except storage until i move house and sadly that includes streaming subs!)

(but once i move i will be back ITT no doubt)

Watched the first episode of Mayfair and agree with VG’s comment about the production quality - it seemed very Hallmark channel?

I’m actually reading the first book, The Witching Hour, and I’m about 10% in (it’s about 1000 pages long). The first twenty or so minutes of this show is confusing as fuck if you haven’t read this book, which is not great for an adaptation. It’s unfair to compare a bit but I watched both this and The Last of Us with my husband last night & he did not get the start of it at all. It’s not so much show don’t tell as just “idk here’s some stuff that happened”. Iirc this is the first time this series has been adapted, so unlike Interview with the Vampire which is already more of a known quantity, you kind of need to ease the audience in?

There’s also the kind of YA quality to the whole thing. Again, I’m not that far into the book? But the book is dark, and the tone is quite off?

I don’t know, I will probably keep watching while I read the book (I really like the book!) but it’s not as great as IWtV was from the start. Hopefully it gets better?!

Mayfair Witches is so bad. So bad!

I’m not sure I can manage a third episode, I might just continue reading the book (which is great!)

i still haven’t brought myself to watch the second ep

guys: season 2 starts soon :D

May 12, apparently!
Mark your calendars and dust the candelabras