Before “Twilight” and swarm of supernatural romance young adult stories, there was “Interview with the Vampire”. I watched this movie long, long time ago as a child, but watching it again as an adult is quite different experience. It’s also over three decades since this movie was created and changing social morals also influence interpretation.
When I looked up some contemporary comments on the movie, everybody was saying how gay this movie is. Indeed, innuendo abounds. Whole biting into the neck looks unmistakably sensual. When Lestrat bitten Louis I actually was surprised how much sensual. There’s more suggestive scenes. At some point Lestrat and Louis almost, almost kiss, their lips are so close and yet not. I can assume that this almost-but-not-kiss was necessary due to times when this movie was made, it was ‘90. But still, with how clear this implication is for us today (or maybe it’s just me, plenty of people caught it back then too, for sure), it is still quite impressive. We’re talking about mainstream Hollywood movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt here for goddess’ sake.
What commentators didn’t seem to notice as often was that there was very icky relationship that connected Lestrat and especially Louis with Claudia, 10 years old girl that Louis bitten and Lestrat turned into vampire to convince Louis to stay with him. They try to raise Claudia together, explicitly calling themselves her parents. It only adds point to queer readings. But in my mind it also adds certain incestuous vibe. When I watched it as a kid or teenager, the most memorable out of whole story was Claudia outburst about not being able to grow up and have adult relationships. I always saw sexuality as clear big part of the frustration. And yet, there have been suggestions throughout the story of her desirability, even in her child body. Not only about her, but also in general of “fresh blood of young” which raise to pedophilic reading, especially by taking account of previous observation that vampirism as sexual predation. So it makes vague, but not explicit, incestuous-pedophilic nature of Claudia in the story.
All of the above have been the reason why the movie was little disturbing experience. Of course, it would be right to point that it’s rather success if the story with main characters as vampires has this effect. But I think difference lies in where story tries to place moral problems and where it actually feels problematic to me. The story lingers on half-hearted dilemmas of Louis towards bloodsucking. Also with morals of transforming someone into vampire, which is more interesting, but at this point with oversaturation of vampires not as novel. But the narrative doesn’t seem to point at those incestuous and pedophilic problems.
Despite this, I rewatched this movie with interest. Meandering directionlessness of Louis can be little frustrating, but it didn’t detract me much. Where the story is at its most interesting is in the Claudia’s situation. I see her as actual heart of the story and where this story differs from other vampire stories. Probably such topic as eternal child vampire could be handled better, but however it was here, it made me remember this movie for years.