Best Looking Vampire Cast Ever

Rating: 6/10 (19 November 2005)

Neil Jordan's interpretation of Anne Rice's initial novel, Interview With the Vampire, the first of the Vampire Chronicles stories is noted for having the most beautiful lineup of males with fangs. Casting Brad Pitt as Louis, Antonio Bandaras as Armand, and over the top as always, Tom Cruise as Lestat, this group of male beauties is the deadly trio who toy with the child-vampire, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) to her ultimate demise.
An uneasy novel when it was first released in the mid-70s, the translation to film was almost a generation in development before reaching the public. First choice for casting of Lestat as Anne Rice noted was Rutger Hauer and later, Sting, however, by the time the film hit the screen, both actors were too old and the part went to Cruise, much to Rice's initial disapproval. However, as Cruise grew into his fangs and no doubt, on Rice, she changed her mind about the actor. His Lestat is outrageous if only as a foil for Pitts bottled up Louis, the reluctant member of the trio. While Lestat and Claudia enjoy the human hunt for victims to sustain their lives, Louis is never comfortable nor as delighted with his fate as a hunter of blood. His torment after 2 hours is to shout, "Enough, get over yourself, Louis."
While a fan of vampire film and of male eye candy, Interview with the Vampire is never in the same league with the novel and can not be compared with the moody and sexually overt, Frank Langella performance as Dracula (1979). This is another kind of vampire story, an oral history of sorts with Pitt in a one-man monologue. Costumes and sets are appropriate, but, in total, the film is flat despite the attention to details, if fails to satisfy, perhaps because the overload of testosterone on screen never has sufficient acting chops to pull off the fantasy and romanticism of the lore of the undead.