The Review: Interview With The Vampire

Interview With The Vampire 10/10

I have to admit that when I first heard from L. that Interview with the Vampire was going to be a new series with a Black man playing Louis I was very hesitant to even try watching it. By the end of the first episode I was addicted to this show. Just like with Wonder Years reboot showing that time period through the eyes of a Black child this series having it set in the time period that it's set in and it being in New Orleans it changed so much about the story that they could not have had a white actor the way they had with Brad Pitt in the film. Looking back at recaps of the season there's so much stuff that happened but it did not feel rushed.

Louis and his family have money because of a sugar plantation that his family had owned but he supplements the income and makes a lot of money running a brothel. One day Lestat shows up and he just changes everything about Louis's life. Back at home Louis is living with his mother, his brother, and his sister. His brother has some mental issues and his sister is about to get married and his mother is very religious. One day after his brother kills himself the mother blames Louis for it. Between his mother blaming him for his brother's death and Lestat popping up everywhere he is his ass starts going crazy. He ends up heading into a church to confess his sins and Lestat straight up murders the priest and someone else working in the church and then decide to make Louis a vampire. Lestat that tries to teach Louis how to be a vampire but he has close to zero desire to kill people and instead eats a lot of different animals and each time he does it it's gross. Lestat on the other hand has zero problem killing people and is and gets pissed off at Louis every single time he ends up eating an animal and just wants him to embrace that he is now an undead monster and they can do whatever that they want.

Oh I should also point out that Louis is being interviewed by Daniel who is the same guy who interviewed him 40 years ago. He flies Daniel overseas and lives in this big building where he has servants and helpers and people show up to give him blood and they bounce. The more Daniel interviews Louis the more you start to see holes in Louis stories. He leaves out different things and changes the behavior of certain people and sort of makes it seem like he's the victim of everything. The shit truly hits the fan after Lestat says “Hey let's just eat bad people and criminals because we can read their minds so you can pick one out and eat them.” This also does not work for Louis who chooses to continue eating animals. Louis starts to get jealous when Lestat meets this woman named Antoinette who's a performer and so Louis is like “Oh okay” and bumps into an old friend and ends up having sex with him not knowing that Lestat is nearby watching the whole thing. Despite all of the things that they're going through they seem to be pretty successful but then these new laws come along would start affecting only the Black businesses and Louis can't take it anymore and ends up attacking one of the important people and hanging his body up on the gate for the public to see. This starts off a whole situation where businesses are being burned down and different houses were black people are and Louis ends up finding this little girl inside and brings her back home. This is Claudia.

This show was already good once they brought Claudia on board this show lost its mind in the best of ways. I don't want to say too much more about this show because there are some spoilers that come later in the series but this was a perfect season of a show. Sadly, it was only seven episodes but it encompasses book one and there's going to be eight episodes when the next season eventually airs. Like I said I was hesitant about a Black person playing Louis but it turned out to be one of the best decisions they could have made. The actor that plays Lestat that was perfect in his role. I want to read the books over again just to recast Tom Cruise and have this guy as Lestat in my head. He is wicked, handsome as fuck, and brutal as hell. 

Everything about the show from the set design to the costumes to the music to the acting was fantastic. I have absolutely no complaints about this show and nothing that I would add other than maybe one or two more episodes just because I'm being greedy. This is an AMC series and I did not know that this was being made or existed until the day before it debuted. I hope that more people find out about this show and talk about this show so it gets more recognition because you might have some reservations about watching it the same way I did after reading so many of Anne Rice's books and watching the original film (we do not talk about Queen of the Damned because that was a horrible film) but if you're not into this show after watching the first episode you can stop.

Jacob Anderson as Louis de Pointe du Lac

Sam Reid as Lestat de Lioncourt

Eric Bogosian as Daniel Molloy

Bailey Bass as Claudia

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