Hello, this podcast will contain spoilers for the very not recent movies, interview with a vampire and Queen of the dumed so invite us in to watch those films with you before you listen to this podcast.
Hello. My name is Rosie Knight and Angel Money, and welcome back to.
Spooooooky xtra Vision, the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite spooky shows, spooky movies, spooky comics, and spooky pop culture.
We're here at iHeart Podcasts where we bring you two action packed episodes and at the moment very scary episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
In today's episode, first up in the Airlock, we're doing a deep dive and interview with a vampire. Oh and clud that's right, the an rights classics and their cinema journeys. We're exploring them. Then we're headed to the back matter to discuss our favorite vampire movie of all time. This was not easy, y'all. Eliminations had to be made and it was painful.
Will I embarrass myself with an answer to that? Perhaps? Who knows? But first on previously, why do we love vampires? Joelle?
Okay, there's a lot of reasons. I think if we're being honest. If I'm being honest, the number one reasons they're sexy vampires. They're so angry and going very hot. They willlament everything they're suffering. And I think as a young lady getting into the horrors, I was like, who are these bcs that are not disgusting to look at it? Because a lot of monsters are gross and I don't too gross.
Uh.
And then also you're upset. You have deep wells of emotion. Boys don't have emotions. This is crazy, and you live forever, you don't have to die. Wow, I mean a full package here. Why do you love vampires? What was the thing? Looked you?
Yeah?
I just think that you're right. I think there's something about the nature of like pushing our boundaries. But like there's something about a guy who's all he wants to do is kill you, but he won't kill you because he loves you. You know. That's the nature of like every so very toxic. Can I just say I'm just I just want to say that I'm not condoning that
mindset from a vampire. But yeah, I think it's like, I just think it's also a very easy access point for horror, because I was just thinking about how when you're a kid and you can't necessarily like get a scary movie for the video store like when we were young, because your parents are like that's too scary, or they're just like, I want to watch something else. Russell Kuro and Gladiator. We can go to the library at our school as it was for us kids. Now I can
just read them online. They can, they can get them online. But like you can read Dracula. You know, you can read Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it's a classic, so it's actually okay that, yes, you're reading it even though it's scary.
You're proud of you repeating it. You're like, this is film.
Yeah, uh huh.
It's mildly traumatic. And they're like, but look at you reading.
I know, I'm so glad you're reading this horrifying book. Uh. And then like you know, there are other ones, like obviously like car Miller, like another classic that kind of has really pushed the idea of like female vampiism and the kind of sexiness and the I think another thing as well, probably when you're a teenager, is like the sexual fluidity of a vampire, where it's like vampires. Dracula's like hot wives are gonna like try and have a
threesome with you, but also Dracula obviously fancies you. Jonathan Harker, you know, there's like those levels to it that I think are exciting and appealing, and well, not only.
Are they very queer, but they're very Victorian.
Yes, yes, oh my gosh, so Gothic. And like there's this quote from Belagosi where he's like, it is women who love horror, who gloat over it and feed on it, are nourished by it, shudder and cling and cry out and come back for more. And I'm like, you know what, Bella, you are right, there's something about horror that entices us, but that also like makes us feel brave and that we're trying to discover a new space. And I think
that vampires encompass all of that. And also I think we've been blessed with a lot of really fantastic like
vampire cinema. So I think once you discover a vampire in a book, or you discover the concept of a vampire in some folklore, or just it's something that's perennially been there as a kid, then when you start watching the movies, like the movies we're going to talk about today, but also movies like Bramsto because Dracula and Nosferatu and The Lost Boys and Twilight and what we do in the Shadows, Like, vampires have kind of transcended being a
genre and are now in every other genre. And I think that also means that there's a lot of different stuff for different kinds of vampire fans.
Yeah, you can find them in your horror, you can find them in your yeah, your science fiction, your fantasy, your histories, your romances, your romantic comedies, your straight vampire comedy is like it's for kids, it's for adults, it's for like high brow literature, and it can be low brow. Like they're totally flexible creatures, and like the Victorians of
it all, I think we really love Victorian romance. We look at the endearing nature of pride and prejudice, the deep exploration of feelings without the societal ability to share them express them howardly creates a lot, which I think is a key component to romance. And so like vampires are just constantly feeding, like they are creatures have to keep their whole entire identities secret, which I think for teenagers is very relatable. It's like I definitely got it.
I mean, listen, we are of the Twilight generation, so it's no use to vampires are hidden hard between like twelve and twenty. And I was like, I think that there's really like an element of that Victorian nature of romanticism. Also, like the heightened danger and all the reasons we talked about why we love horror really apply to these beautiful creatures who might potentially kill you. Again, men are terrifying, Thus vampires, and then I think death, Like you know, vampires come, they're born.
Well that that also might be why it appeals totally.
I mean they come out. If you think about Victorian era, you're dealing with a lot of plagues. There's a lot of people looking pale and close to death, and they're too young to die, and so that's sort of the
era in which vampires are born. And so if you are starting to explore mortality and what that means for you, I think vampires are a way of sort of like skirting that like, oh my gosh, it's gonna happen to all of us, and it's very scary, but also it can be kind of alluring and it's a big mystery, and I just think there's so much there to play with that they lend themselves to a lot of different spaces and yeah, and I think Anne Rice really she nailed all of that, like really well.
I love that. That's such a good point. And also I think you touch on something super interesting, which is I don't know if there's another like archetype or specifically like a monster archetype that has had such transcendent like All Ages success, because you have like Hotel Transylvania, but you can still have like a really terrifying vampire movie like Infected or something like. It really can be everything to everyone because of how well known the idea of
it is now. And I think, yeah, I think what Anne Rice did in these books is she just wrote a fantasy about vampires and it is a horror book and it is a period drama, and it's lots of other things. But it's also like her incredible imagination just crafting this kind of underground vampiric world, which like, isn't that what every team Goth wants to find? Like you're the person who's going to get turned and get to live in this incredible life where you already feel like
you're an outsider, but here's outsider with perks. You know. I just think it's really Yeah, I think vampires are so cool and I really love.
They're both outsiders and the cool kid. Yes, it's a weird line they get to straddle.
That's such a good point. But yeah, I think I love to see that kids are still loving vampires. I love that we're getting more interesting vampire stories. And I do think that both of these movies, as as maligned as the second one was, have played a huge part in keeping vampires relevant and interesting to like new generations.
Oh yeah, well, I guess without further ado, we should. We should take a quick break. We're gonna grab a quick snack, guard your necks, and uh yeah, we come back. We're going to talk about its all the greatest vampire movies in all time, if we're being honest. Interview with the Vampire and Queen of the Dance. So stay tuned.
So, now that we've established why we love vampires, let's get into the meat of Anne Rice's most famous adaptation, Interview with a Vampire from you know, the early nineties. We all remember this movie nineteen ninety four was released on November eleventh, So actually perfect season or watch for you guys right now and directed by Neil Jordan, with a screenplay, of course by ann Rice Joel. Where do we begin in the world of Interview the Vampire?
There is so much But what I was really vice coming off of having read the books is this David Copperfield line. Okay, so when we open up, Oh, I forgot Christian Slater was in this movie.
Oh I know, my absolutely, and also very cute and moving thing is that was supposed to be River Phoenix who was playing Daniel molloy, but he passed away. So his good friend Christian Slayer, who I love as well as I love River Phoenix, and uh yeah, he came in and took the role. And this is our first look at a non Eric Pagosian Daniel Malloy in a long time.
Yes, first of all, but such a good Daniel Malloy, like really understood and encapsulated the like hyper excitement of being like, holy cow, this story. And you don't get a lot of like back on who he is. So it's all got to be presented in character within a few lines. I mean, really you're talking two or three minutes up top, and then we're going into flashback. But when okay, so the film opens it is U we talking to the reporter and be like and they're like, basically,
where shall we begin? And they start with David Copperfield. This is opening to David Copperfield, whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else. These pages must show to begin my life. With the beginning of my life, I record that I was born, as I had been informed and believe, on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry simultaneously. In
consideration of the day and hour of my birth. It was declared by the nurse and by some sage women in the neighborhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first that I was destined to be unlucky in life, and secondly that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits, both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believe, to all unlucky infants of either gender born
towards the small hours of a Friday night. Here's why that's really interesting to me. Louis, we could say, was born as a vampire in the small hours of what could be a Friday night. It's very clearly a weekend. It's rowdy outside. He's pondering his hero villain status. Might be the hero of this story or am I the villain? What does it mean? So it's a really interesting space
to start a literary adaptation. Also, the first thing Louis sees with his vampire eyes is a frozen statue which like is briefly unbound and reveals itself to him, which I will talk more about in Queen of the Dand And so this comparison to like one of these great literary heroes who's always down on his luck, who nobody really understands, who struggles to get through an oppressed society and make something of himself to make it Louis, who's this white slave owner who was like, Who's like, how
will I get through this life? And no one understands me. It's a really interesting place to start off your hero. It was moving back in the day, having seen the TV series this hits. It's so much more like Louis, get your shit together? What are you complaining about?
Please? Suh.
How do you feel about the intro of this Louie, this setting. How do you think the film did in capturing some of the novel here?
I think they encapture one of the most important things, which is like the kind of malaise and depression of Louis, like his pair his daughter and his wife are dead, his unborn child and his wife are dead, and he's despondent. And really I do think that despite the empathy that this film clearly has for the stat I will say we and for you know, Louis, I will say we do get like glimpses of Louie's spoiledness here, which I
think is something that was like really really great. An interview with the vampire is like so we kind of get that, like everything's about me. I'm just gonna like walk around in New Orleans. I don't care what's going on, Like everything is just terrible in my life, such for death. Yeah, I think that is like vital to the romantic nature of the vampire is like they're unhappy be with their lot.
In life, and even when they get to live forever, then they're unhappy because they can't be with you for all that time. You know, there's this kind of emotional push and I think, you know, as as I would have said when I was a kid, I just think this is a good way of saying up that Louis is like an emo guy. Yes, like this guy is so fucking emo.
He's got big, big feelings and he needs to share them despite the rules, and he doesn't want no therapy, and also freeing his slaves would not be helpful at all. This fem is something really interesting that I think a lot of films, literature, you know, whatever, if the if your main character is villainous or evil or a bad doer, you get this line where they're like, okay, sure, terrible to eat people, We get that, but you know, evil doers taste better. So really, are we doing a world
of favor? Isn't this great?
Were doing the world some good?
Definitely giving the morally questionable is it? Oh gosh? It was a cocker who was like, you know, if you squish a cockroach, people cheer, but if you sqush a butterfly, they're upset. Morally. I really think like vampires fall well into that because we really be cheering them eating people. I'm like, well, he has to feed. What possibly he's a newborn.
He's a new born vampire. So obviously this movie is, for the most part, is a double hander between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Yes, you know, and there is so much tension and kind of fear that has to go into that relationship, despite the fact it's only like a two hour movie, right, whereas in Interview of the Vampire, we got a TV series on Yeah, the TV series on AMC, you know, you get to spend a lot more time with these characters. So when you rewatch this,
I'm always impressed that it doesn't feel rushed. The nature of where Louis is in his life is he wants to die. He's asking for death. That appears almost like an angel and says, well, you hate life, but what if you just became a vampire and we just hung around and did cool stuff. And Louie's like, yeah, actually, you know, why not? I was going to kill myself, but now I get to live as a vampire forever.
And obviously he immediately like regrets it, and it adds a new layer of complexity and like sadness to Louis, where he realizes, Oh, I'm going to have to become a murderer. I'm gonna have to kill people. And I think that they do such a good job establishing all of that in the opening kind of minutes of the movie and the first meeting with Lista and kind of
understanding who he is. And I mean, he's kind of like a you know, a mirror for Louis of like this freedom and this like independence and the things that he wants to have because you know, it's so terrible to be like a rich slave owner. I feel like Louis, I'm not feeling very empathetic.
I am.
That probably should have just killed you.
Actually, I mean you were talking about moral squammy. But I love that Lessay. It's constantly reading you for it. But he like, listen, this is such an interesting thing because they do in the same way. The book is very suggestive about the romance, like the film is suggestive
in the most Victorian of ways. They're like, it's almost I'm seeing it felt like a code era, right, Like you can do really tight shots and there could be a lot of tension there's a point later in the film where Antonio Banderaz comes in and yay, you get a shot. So I was like, oh, do the kids and I forget did that happen in nineteen ninety four. No, it didn't.
Know.
We were way too homophobic a society to let that happen. But we will get inches apart.
It's so implied and so heavily a part of the original books and the queerness of vampires that I think this is one of those funny movies where it's like, well, the studio can say they can't guss, they can say don't do it, doesn't matter, it's like ten thousand times
twenty because you don't show it, trick. It's all about the tension and the moment and this life changing decision you've made to live with someone and to lay in a coffin with someone, and there's such an obvious romance to it that, you know what, that's okay if the studio is to scare in nineteen ninety four, because we all know this movie is gay as heck.
Yeah, let's talk okay. So let's talk about two things really quick. So one, I have to say the casting director whose name I didn't pull up shout out to you though, because you were on your shit. So not only do you have like the hottest of the hot we've talked about our three main guys, plus Antonio comes in later for your extras, essentially your background characters, your secondary characters, as we might call them entitled. I'm giving them more modern titles because the way they were titled
back in the day is a little offensive. So we have enslaved woman Sandy Newton, who Sandy Newton is in this. She playsn't enslaved like a houseworker who is like, uh yo, louis listat that you brought over here to our space is creeping us out. There's a lot of dead birds, a lot of dead bodies you are not eating. It's crazy. I'm worried about you because you might be my master, but you weren't doing whatever freaky shit that guy was
into before. It's weird. Now she is so brilliant in the like two and a half minutes she's on screen, you completely understand she's almost offering herself up as like a sacrificial lamb. She's there's so much dignity in her character. Okay, she's great, Then we have Billina Logan, who plays a local sex worker. Billina Logan has done so much in her like very long career. You've definitely seen her face I'm trying to think of. She was like in Midnight Texas,
if that was a show you were really in today. Yeah, she did Sons of Anarchy for a long time, like a face you know. Again, a stellar performance in the maybe minute and a half she's on screen, she's excellent. And then finally we have Indra Ova, who oh oh wow, my god. Okay, So basically Louis and Lestat are arguing. Loui's look, I'm not eating people. Stuff's like, listen, you gotta eat. It's crazy that you're not doing this. Look at I brought you Andrew Ovay. She's beautiful and amazing
and you should. I'm not going to really give you a choice. You're going to have to eat her, and they do, and her death is so long and so drawn out. When they put her in that coffin and she's just screaming and she's like, it's a coffin and they're like, yeah, it's a coffin. Do so again she's just oh, you're totally enveloped in what she's doing, and she was Miss Black and resident Evil. She was a VIP stewardess and the fifth element You she's a firsorder
officer in Star Wars. You again an actress with an extremely long career whose face you're definitely aware of. And I couldn't believe tho. I was like, back to back to back women of color playing you know, all either sex workers or they were enslaved, but their performances had so much dignity and beauty in them. I was kind of shocked at how overlooked they are.
Yeah, yeah, it's true. And I do think that post the amc in to be the Vampire Show, It's obviously this feels very dated, yes, but but I do still think and I think the fact that they cast such a fantastic array of supporting actors is because this is like a Hollywood epic, Like there's so many huge set pieces. It's an old kind of film that feels like you
wouldn't get made now. And I think that it is very interesting to look at the casting of Lestat and look at the casting of Louis and by which by the way, Anne Rice like hated she didn't want Tom Cruise to be listart. She didn't. She wanted Rapit to
be the start. She had also originally written it. She'd written the part originally because she adapted her own screenplay from the movie, and she'd actually wanted the French actor Elaine Delon, who was Purple Noon and the Samurai, and that was her original Louis idea.
Imagine Louis with an actual French accent.
Imagine that. And then she wanted Julian sand who we always seek. He's a classic British character act who's in a lot of genre stuff. But then they gave it to Tom Cruise. My understanding because it is a star name to attach right, he gets paid the most money, he gets the prophets. And Anne Rice like publicly was like dragging them about this choice to cast Tom Cruise. And I think that she had actually recommended like Peter Weller who played RoboCop Jeremy Irons. And then when they cast
at least I knowed she was. She's like when she actually also recommended John Malkovich. I love her taste.
She came out there.
And then she was like, well, let Brad Pitt be lastat and Tom can be Louis and they were like no. And I think all of that added to the fact that they'd been you know, the novel was almost twenty years before this. At this point, you can see how certain stuff got overlooked and certain characters that would been incredibly interesting or complex, because even outside of the movie, that's just so much drama with the movie games.
Yeah, let's get to some of the One of the major changes that I personally was like, hold up, what is going on with this adaptation? List That is like it's his idea to turn Claudia, which is not how the book or the television series goes. And I was like, this changes every This is such a pivotal, crucial moment of Louis a being like again selfish to your point and just being like, listen, I have to be a vampire.
I want a kid, Like give me one, please. I don't care about your rules or how it's hurting you. This is what I want. And then it also means that List that is not only breaking a rule he knows he wouldn't normally want to break, he's not really taking like him wanting a child is not conducive to the life. He tells us he wants to lead up until this point, but it's also an interesting way to try to keep Louis around.
It shows exactly which is the That's the explanation they give in the movie is he's like manipulating Louis by saying, like, look, I've given you a child, we can raise her together. It makes him, which is obviously.
Straight villain as opposed to like a person involved in this relationship that's toxic from all ankles, and it's sort of it takes a little bit of the windo out of the sales. I think of all the dynamics of that relationship. I didn't love that. I do love the casting of Kirsten Dunst as Claudia.
Yes, Kirsten Dunt's ten years old in this movie. They had originally been thinking they were going to have like six year olds, as that is her age in the book. Kirsten Dunst was ten, and they cost her because they wanted someone who could like understand the nuances of the role.
And she is unbelievable. And this is where we get to the part of the movie that I think is like the saddest and of course I'm not feeling sad for Louis, though he feels sad for himself, but we see the family and the way that Louis loves Claudia, and the Stack kind of I don't know, just treats her a doll, right like he he wants to dress her up and spoil her and teach her and mold her, you know them.
As in society he's been closed off too. Yeah, yeah, I.
Love that read. And then you know we end up in a situation where thirty years after that, as time moves so you know, quickly as it does for these for these vampires, and Claudia is still just a baby. I always remember being a kid. I thought that was so scary, the idea that, like, you would be an adult in your brain, but you are ten years old
to everyone else. And I think that Kirsten duntce just like I love this whole sequence where she freaks out, starts cutting her hair, tells them like, I hate you,
how could you do this to me? And then she takes it out on the stat because he is the one who made her, He's the one who had this plan in this and you know, they try and run away and she I always remember as well, when I was first saw this this being like a really haunting scene where she has the twins who she killed with like poison and then she tricks list that into drinking their blood to try and kill them, and then we get kind of it's really funny to talk about this
post watching the AMC show because everything happens so quickly. But then you know, boom, they're gonna get rid of the stat's body and they're going to Paris. Baby, it's happening, and we're already like in season two of the show, like they fit so much into the movie tight and we get it's really tight, and it feels also like engaging. It keeps you watching. It's not something that feels like a slot.
It's so it really highlights the difference between television and film if you watch these adaptations back to back in an interesting way, I have a filmmaker friend who doesn't understand television, and I'm very excited to be like, I have a solution so you can understand.
Watch these two things back to back.
And understand because television really allows you to luxuriate in how a person arrived to an emotional standpoint. A film really allows you to explore how an emotion can transform you quickly.
Right, like, Wow, that's fantastic Joe.
And I like both of them, and I think they both work like it feels like it shouldn't work because you get so much time to explore, like how do Louis and the stat fall for each other? Why does their relationship not work? What does Claudia mean in such a significant way? But you can cut through all of that if you just tell the audience you have to accept what I'm telling you. I'm not going to bother to explain it. We don't have time to explain it.
The actors have to be so prepared and so invested, and the visual imagery of like your sets have to be so tight that they tell you what's going. For example, if we look at Claudia's the bedroom scene, so she Claudia's room is filled with dolls that she's collected over time. Some of them are really old. That really highlights her age in a way that doesn't you know, need a lot of time to explain. These dolls look ancient. Why does she have them? Because she look in them all
time ago? And then underneath all of this beautiful finery a rotting body that she longs to possess that she cannot. I mean, that's really fast telling you what we get through like three or four episodes of Claudia exploring and the television neither one better or worse than the other,
but just really fascinating. I was watching some clips of Kirsten Dunst recently where she was talking about playing the role of Claudia, and it's so charming because they were like, you know how at one point she's supposed to look like very suggestive and like your ten how do they talk to you about this stuff? And it's the nineties and we've seen a lot of crazy stuff about kids back in the day, so that was a line of questioning.
Her response is so beautiful. She was like, so first, both Brad and Tom protected me, which if you've heard of thinking about how these guys are on their personal lives versus how they behave on set, this calculates right. Both of them have a lot of problematic shit that's in their personal lives that you can read about, but on set, for the most part, all you ever hear is about how gentlemanly both of these guys are. So they're professional and it's nice to know that that professionalism
was brought into being. In order to protect her, they built her a Christmas tree in her dressing room, also protesting her with her acting coach. She would work really hard on the roll. She said she had like ten return auditions, and she was like, when I was supposed to be suggestive or older, my kind of coach would be like, okay, so just I want you to make a face like you stole your little brother's toy and he doesn't know where it is and it's looking and
you're holding it. You know where it is, but he can't find it. And she's like, and instantly you look mischievous and older and wiser and like you know something and like you have secrets. And it was so easy for me as a ten year old to attach to that. And it's always wonderful to hear about like how like are there safe ways to bring children into performance where this performance for children can be really releasing and it
helps them express a lot of things. And I think theater and film and television are potentially great places for children to experience art, but obviously there's also been very detrimental not safe ways, And so I love hearing about like old directors be like, no, this was a really I had a great time on set and I was able to pull the performance and it was good for everybody. So that's silver linings on this movie, and I like it. Okay. So Claudia and them they head over to and Louis
head over to Europe. Lestat's body he was dragging to a swam but surprised he came back in a truly horrifying masterful. Oh my gosh, we didn't even talk about the makeup and stuff. Yet there's so much to talk about, really very quickly. San Winston icon of cinema legend, truly iconic, beautiful work. And there's this scene where Tom cruisells a status at the piano and he was the one that ate. When he's into the swamp, you think a gator eats him,
but no, he ate the gator. He's blood to get out. Listen. He said he could survive on animals. Why no one thinks, I don't know. But he takes it back to the house he's playing for.
Joe said, I have notes on this plan. I have notes every time.
When he tries to kill a stet, I'm gonna have notes. You do it? Badly, sir, you don't want this. And there's a reversal, almost thriller like of his persona like from decrepit swamp corpse to like thriving vampire. It happened so fast and just a couple of shots. It's really beautiful work. So if you just want to come in for the costuming and the makeup and stuff, like, if that's the thing, you appreciate this movie. Okay, we're in Europe.
Antonio Bandera shows up again. They just picked all the hottest men of the era.
Yeah, and also as well, so he's playing Armand, And I think that this is a really clever piece of casting because in this version, Armand is basically everything that the stat is not, even in the way he looks and the way he behaves and the way he tells stories and the way he lives, and that comes across so clearly here when you look at banderas versus Cruise, you know, and I love the vampire show, the Vampire Parisian Ballet, where they do a show and they kill
people in front of the audience and the audience never knows if they're like if they're humans and if they're vampires. They're loving it. I just think it's one of the coolest representations of vampirism and this idea of like how vampires could live among us, and I found that really enchanting. As a kid, I actually got to go to a thing called the Circus of Horrors once I was a
little kid. I was probably about eleven, and it was like a contortionist and like you know, aerial acting, but all scary and gothic, you know, And that was definitely something I wanted to go to Because of this, and also circ The Freak. I loved those books as a kid, and I think something I really loved about the AMC Plus series is I really really loved how much time we got to spend in Paris and how we got to learn about Armand's relationship with Louis. Because when I was,
you know, a kid, I watched this. This just feels almost like a blink of the eye. The most important thing, and the most important thing is yeah, and they basically we you know, the Parisian vampires abduct. They abduct Louis and Claudia and Claudia's new like adult plaything that Louis has made her and basically are like you guys killed the Stat and that goes against number one vampire of rule.
So we're gonna kill your ladies. You're gonna kill Claudia, gonna kill her friend, and then you're gonna be put in like a for it of a closet to die, like in a coffin. You're going to be up in the in the scary catacombs. And it's it's a cool moment. It's a cool like thing where it's really sad the way they kill Claudia. We really get to see like her fear in that moment. But this is never the
part of the movie that I'm always like remembering. Yeah, Whereas in the TV series, I will always remember Armand I will always remember Santiago. I will always remember the drama and the love. And I love how, you know, in this film we see armand free Louis. But I love how in the TV series they like twisted it around and he expected that it was armand but really
it was you know, uh less Stat. And this is where I think it gets really interesting, because you know, Anne Rice did say she knew the Hollywood was homophobic. She'd actually rewritten the script at one point to make listat a woman so that it wouldn't be seen as gay, so that it would be able to be heterosexual. And it's very interesting thinking about the finale of season two of Interview the Vampire and that unbelievable reunion that we get.
That is like probably one of my favorite episodes of TV I've seen in years, where you kind of learn the real truth of what the last eight years have been. And here all we get is like Louie's emo around the world and he just goes around the world and he's like and then he sees Louis and then they never joined back together again. And I'm just like, guys, like, this is not what the people want to see. This is a tragic romance. We don't need Louis to be
smart and say I wouldn't get with you Lista. I want to know that those two are going to be together forever because they love each other.
At the toxic you don't get the full like closure you need with armand because you're okay mm hmm, everything happens if you've seen the series emails, so basically they get there the Paris Covenants, like not cool that you came here and didn't check in with us, or like we don't really follow your new old school vampire rules like where new vampires get with it, and they're like, hey, not cool. Actually we're gonna kill your progeny because you're not supposed to make a you own one, and we
don't like that. You're taking our leader and questioning all of our rules. So now you're getting buried, right, deal with it. Yeah, none of that gives you the emotional power of like the murder Mansion party in the series is sensational in the books, this second, like the following for armand of here's somebody who's stable and also looking to change his life, and like we're gonna be two owners who have come together to like go out into
the world and make something for ourselves. Like that's really valuable to and again when you have the queer context that I've been hidden my whole life, and here's a new world and a new day that I get to embrace on my own terms, Like all of that has so much value in here. Man Lily is just really he's just crying and he's leaving his daughter and you're not quite sure why. It's truly a mess. But what I will say is the last tiny bit of this movie.
It comes right back and hits the sunrises through cinematic hite. If your Sinning'm a buff was beautiful, like all these great scenes from these classic movies with the sunrises in it. Again, if you're a person who's putting yourself in the place of Louis, when you're reading or watching this, you're like, wow, you must like the colors coming back, like the things he sees us. That really hits me emotionally. The conversation
between them is to your point mid it's okay. Louis like, so you've come back, and he's like, no, I gotta go. You're like, why did we see this? Why did we come back here to why did you make the trip? Like so annoying?
Did not need it? I don't want to hear you're no.
But then yes, I love this.
I just love I love the ending of this movie because like Louis like so pissed at Malloy and he's like, you do don't write this story.
You're gonna scandalize it, like you don't understand it, like and he's being a little spoiled guy again. And then they were like, okay, so we need to let people know that Malloy is going to become a vampire in the Cannon and maybe there's another movie.
So what if we just had him drive over the Golden gate Bridge where Lestat just appears and like take control of the car in an unbelievable Hollywood jump scene like up there, maybe with like when Carrie's hand comes out of the grave at the end, but it's just the dream, or when Jason grabs the girl at them Yes, Friday thirteenth, I definitely think this is up there, like and I always I really distinctly remember like Tom Cruise's face as the stat in this moment, and it's kind
of like like it's scary, classic Halloween. And then he's like, bro, guess what want to be a vampire? I can make you a vampire. I'll give you the choice I never had. And he started again, and he obviously has hooked the young Malloy, who obviously we know and love. Now I love you, Christian Slater, But this is Eric Bogosian's magnum opus, is his his role as Daniel Malloy, and I he is a.
Fan the way he's teasing, like he did are Mind from the series in him if you ever seen them an interview, He's like, Hey, excited for us to get together. He's like, oh, baby, I have could wait. Like the two of them together are so excited for this romance that it's genuinely made me thrilled. I would hate this change, except it makes perfect sense in the context of this film adaptation, Like it's got to be our mom that
changes malloy. It just has to. But in this movie adaptation where you're really only spending time with your two main vampires, I like it. I think it's a good jump scare ending. It feels tight. Man. If they could have just figured out the end part of that second act from Europe on and just really brought again they were too afraid to be queer, and that part is extremely gay. All your gay friends don't like your new lover. They want to kick you out of the group, but
you don't want to leave the conflict So good. But yeah, that is Interview with Vampire nineteen ninety four. It's a huge turning point for Brad Pitt to did have Ema and Louise in nineteen ninety one, and then a river runs through it comes out this same year. I think a little bit earlier, around the same time, and from there he's Brad Pitt Like, these are the two movies that really submit to who he is as an icon in cinema and it's changing. And then for Tom, you know, as a producers.
It really like also reintroduces Tom Cruise after like his AES movie is run. You know, here he is in like a serious period horror, fantasy, queer epic, and I think that is like a huge moment for both of them. But yeah, I mean, I really, I really do love this film. I watch it so often. I just I think it's so great and I think I do have a nostalgia for it totally. But I also just like to explore worlds with vampires, and I think this is a very immersively built world.
They get it, they get it. We'll talk about if they get it in Queen of the Damned.
When we come back, Oh Baby, Oh Baby, We're back to talk about Oh the early arts seminal film Queen of the Danned.
It was the Leah's debut and exit as a star. We'll talk about that role. I have many thoughts. It has been a manute since I watched this film, but we've talked a lot about how this was like a real turning put so remind the audience for you, ye Queen of the Dand what's the time period, what's happening? Why do you fall in love with that?
Okay, so it's two thousand and two, which means I am fourteen, and I am a goth. I was a cool goth, and I love vampires and I love vampire movies. And I was also starting to get into kind of like rock music, but like no I'd always been into like ACDC and like classic rock, but I was starting to get into like Deaftones, and I was hanging around with cool girls who made like cool mixed CDs of like Slipknot and stuff. And I went to see this
movie at the cinema in Woodgreen. We went on the bus and we went to see it because it was on I don't even know that it had been particularly well marketed, because, as you mentioned, this movie actually only got a theatrical release because of the tragic death of Aleah. It was supposed to be a straight to video sequel before that. And we went to cinema and we watched it, and I legit like thought it was one of the
coolest movies I've ever seen. Like for me, it was like it was not an ironic like early on, it was like, this is really cool. I love Stuart Townsend. This soundtrack is all like new male and also a Leah's in it as like a cool, powerful female vampire, and there's all this like weird Talamasca law which you
never really get into in interview the Vampire. And also you get the classic dream scenario that from everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter is that you are special, and you're so special that while your life is boring and unhappy and maybe doesn't fulfill you, you are actually going to get a second chance at a life that is going to be so fulfilling and so romantic and so adventurous. And I really do think that Queen of the Damned
kind of encapsulates all of that. And obviously, like now, it's one of those movies that I kind of champion as like, hey, yeah, this movie might objectively be a pretty bad movie, but there is so much fun to be had. I also am a big proponent of like this era of Zero's movies and the esthetic that they have.
I was on Escape Patch formerly known as junepod recently talking about Chronicles of Riddick, and it also has a very similar aesthetic, which is this like early days of CG and these bleed kind of these darkened palettes that were really bleached out, which we get a lot of here, mostly because they need to make the vampires look pale. But yeah, it was a huge moment for me. I love the soundtrack. I still know every word of it
by heart. Last year I actually wrote an article about the soundtrack at Polygon and about how influential it is. And I've been incredibly stoked to see loads of young women on TikTok who do like the Akasha dance and they dress up like Akasha and they dance to the soundtrack. And Akasha obviously played by Eliyah, who's essentially like the queen of all vampires, like the oldest vampire you could imagine. And yeah, I just love this movie. I watch it
a lot. I watch it every spooky season. I always like am prostolytizing to people about the soundtrack, especially now like kids wearing Jinko jeans again. And the best thing is about the movie and the soundtrack is that the story begins as it does in the book and as it will maybe in the new in season three, but essentially, the start's bored. He's been asleep all this time. No louis to distract him, and he is awakened by the sound of music. In this case, he's literally awakened his
deathly slumber by new metal. And he's like, bro, this is waiting for He's like, this is it. He's like, I've lived through, you know, the Harlem Renaissance, Like I've heard every single piece of music that's ever been written since the nineteen hundreds when I first went to sleep in this little coffin. But you know what woke me up? New metal and I love it. And Stuart Townsend is that basically goes over there in his low cut jeans and starts doing some weird singing and they're like, yeah,
you can be the leader of our band. And then it's just like a story about how list that is in a band tell and his lyrics tell the secrets of vampire songs.
For not a clear reason, by the way, if I can in it, yeah, yeah. This was the part of the movie that hooks me up the most, where I like completely as a kid, I was like, well, yeah, no fuck. The establishment was essentially the vibes of this film was like, yeah, but they told me I couldn't tell, so I'm gonna. I'm doing it. Why does he lure all these vampires to a place where humans that he claims to love their mortality are uh? And then the
plot is loose, it's it's yeah, it's very thin. But because it's about him being a rock star, there's something that makes a lot of sense about him just being like, no, I'm just here, like literally a rebel without a cause. I have no reason to be this angry or upset. I just am, and you need to get on board. I will fight, I will tell all of our secrets and see what does a great job? I forget how solid the first like fifteen to twenty minutes of this film is like they oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah, there's another world where if it all stayed at like that quality, and it would probably be less of like a B movie cult classic and more of just like a standard cult fave. Yeah.
The first half feels more expensive than the back half, which made me have a lot of true yeah, like just tonally, I think the performances are stronger up top. The story is much tighter. They explain the Tallamascus so quickly for somebody if you have no idea what that Laura is about or who they are. The explanation and as quick it is sufficient, it like gets you into the story. I think that Stewart does a great job
is like narrating early Lissette story. The press conference scene was sending me.
Out in a minute, and it was that scene is like so good.
I didn't recognize that. The teaser they did for the next season of Interview with the Vampire the TV show is kind of riffing on that press conference definitely like he's yeah, so Listat has to give a press conference to the band basically be like, hey, you've heard our album is I'm a Vampire. I'm telling you all of this. I don't care. So he's in another room but adjacent so he can see the reporters. Uh there's like cameras facing them. He has TV screens in front of them,
and he's said he's revealing who he is. It's so funny because none of the reporters are like okay, yeah, like we're gonna need Everyone's like, okay, so you're a vampire.
Cool?
Oh yeah, you're a vampire. I'm into it. Like that makes a lot of sense. I mean, the talamasca exists in this world enough that are in character is just a random talamasca like research, so but perhaps people are aware of it. But yeah, I really love the first whole opening part of this movie. I think that the idea of him being a kind of rock stars. It's Jonathan Davis's voice and then it's Stuart Townsend singing, you know,
and I think it's such a cool idea. And I think that now it kind of looks like a gem of like wow, they just didn't get this when it came out, because now there's all these kids and they wear Jinko jeans and tiny shirts and cool golf makeup. Yeah, and they're watching this like this is cool as hell, Like how did this?
Oh?
Yeah? So this is also, I will say, one of my favorite eras of Zero's movies, and also vampire representation, which is like every vampire is a hot steam punk adjacent like bondage leather wearing sexy raver. Yeah they and they all meet in like a sexy rave pub in London, and it's really like, how would you update a vampire and The truth is, as we kind of touched on in the previously on, you really don't need to because the nature of a vampire is inherently appealing to many people,
so you can really have any kind of vampire. But they're like, these vampires are goths. You would see these vampires at slime light, like and when she goes to the pub where she wants to find, you know.
Of the talamask of them. Before this, you see a very quick dream where she's an orphan and she's like, I dreamed of having this family, but it's probably just dream all orphans have. Crazysco is like, girl, mind your business. We observe the occult from like afar. We don't get involved. That's not our job. We're just here to be recording. Please don't get involved. She's like through that, this isn't
time travel. I'll crush all the butterflies, as she goes straight to the coolest nightclub, a nightclub in the Warehouse district. I cannot tell you about the early adds L ninety.
The best thing is it's also like a pub. Yeah, it's like it's it's so it feels very akin when I was a kid. We would go to like raves and after parties, and they would be in what looks like a normal pub like this, which one's the Admiral Arms and then inside it's like a rave I was. Actually it's like one of the best, funniest, most specific London points here that actually is very realistic. And Jesse puts on her best like long black trench coat and goes.
Down and she sciphers, I love her so much.
And she goes there to look for the stat because she is the only one clever enough from the Talamasca
to uncover what his secret songs mean. And they have this like meet cue and then you know it's it's like she sees him, and then we learn about there's a lot of actually there's a lot of interview the Vampire Law here, because you learn about the person who turnedstat Marius, and you learn about the Talamasca, and they really did expand the world of it, even as the stuff that we mostly remember is like list that wearing low cut snakeskin pants and like crawling up on a
ceiling before he eats some girls, you.
Know, as an interview with the vampire fan. And again, I've not completed the series, so feel free to just check me about the facts. As far as I've gotten into the book series and as far as Mary's is not the vampire that turns the stat the stats maker kills himself pretty quickly. Spoiler alert, I guess, but we gave it to you at the top. Please don't be mad. Stats Maker destroys himself, he self immolates. He's like, listen, and the wayless that is chosen in the books is
the most metal thing ever. I couldn't believe he's the wolf killer he like in order to protect his really his mother, but technically his village. He was like, I would go out into the woods and he kills a bunch of wolves by as a human. He's not a vampire. He's just out here sling a vampire series. He's like, Wow, that kid is gorgeous and he's a wolf killer. Okay,
wolf killer, and you're gonna take on my lineage. And it's a huge traumatic experience for the stat that really defines who he is in his vampire state, because he's left alone, there's no one which again, they'll talk, they'll bring a lot of these things back. Is reflected in his relationship with Marius. Marius does love to leave his progyny. He's like, listen, peace, I don't have time.
And he's like, man, I got you.
Just go for it, guys, right, I have the responsibility of caring for the king and queen back here Akasha, that's Leah's a character and her king. They're ancient. Sometimes they just need to sleep for a very long time. It's Mariyu's job to protect them. Marius is a horrible, horrible, horrible person. He's god awful and bad as a human being, worst as a vampire. But he's not the status maker. And it just I was like tweaked a little bit of.
I was like, this is like hell the law. But yeah, I love your point of that. I will also say it's like, the funniest thing is when people think about this movie, they don't think about any of the stuff we're talking about. They just think about Leah. Yeah, they think about Akasha, who is literally in the movie for like twenty minutes, but it is a powerful twenty minutes.
She enters, she burns up the bar, she's doing a sexy dance, she loves the stat and then they end up in this romance all of like making out in a Bathtub full of Roses.
So good we love honestly one of the.
Best songs and scenes of all time.
I totally forgot how we got to this part, but I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen, but I really love it. They're good. The concert scene is all like in Death Valley, really works well. I think overall, like this is a totally watchable film. The romance at the end, and you get a trope that sort of has now become like a standard if you're going to do an interview with a vampire adaptation, which is you must end with the turning of an unsuspecting character.
A vampire pops up out of nowhere and must turn one of the humans as the vampires continue to grow their numbers, and it really works here. It's so lovely.
I also love that Jesse gets to be turned into a vampire. I think that's part of what made it appeal so much to me as a kid. Yeah, it was like, you actually get the wish fulfillment of well, now you get to fall in love with a vampire and be turned, which I guess then becomes a very influential on like a Twilight totally or something you know, the dream of, like do you get to live as a creature of the night completely?
She's so cool and effortless. I will say, them making Nikki a girl in this, I was like, what sab be bisexual? It's really pain panimy gay gay, Like you could have done that scene with a guy and not had it venture an issue, a clear quarity and just left a little bit for us. But no, the two thousands were very homophobic and they wouldn't let.
Us have it.
Okay, ROSI believe to go do very important comic book things. But before you go, I really quickly wanted to know favorite vampire movie of all time Ago.
I am going to go with a cheat answer, which is the mid calla trilogy of Hamma horror movies, which are basically car Milla movies, the second kind of big vampire novel and they're very gay. They were incredibly controversial when they came out from Hammer because they were incredibly delicitly erotically lesbian. And Nick discovered them recently like maybe like this time last year, and we've watched them so
many times. They're so great. There's three of them, and I honestly think they're like some of the best vampires we've ever gotten. If I was if I just have to pick one, it will be Lost Boys, because I am the world's biggest Lost Boys Stan. But I'm going a little bit out of the box with Meyercarla aka Kameila trilogy.
That's so beautiful. My quick cut would be Thirty Days of Night. It's so graphic.
Anchory and it's a comic book movie.
Yes, and filled with so much horror, and it's great. But my absolute ultimate, the one I would die for, the thing that restarted my love of DVDs is only Lovers Left Alive. When I tell y'all, stuck his whole foot in this movie, it starts till the Swinton to Mia Wazakowska and one of Antony Jelchin's last roles, and Jeffrey right before he really has this like major resurgence within his career. Y'all want to talk about healthy Vampire?
Also there soundtracks? Yeah, So I went to actually I went to see that by myself at the Leicester Square odeon. They did an event. It was twenty dollars for a ticket, twenty pounds for a ticket. I now realize if we were pressed like it would probably have mostly been a press thing, but they probably sold tickets, and they had the band and it was a mixture of a Detroit garage band and then I believe, like a Yemeny band
and they play all the music from the movie. And they showed the movie and there was like an after party at Heaven, which is a gay bar, and I just I love that movie so much. That's such a fantastic pick.
Well. I really love about this movie is the fact that it explores the destruction of Detroit and actually has like healthy romances. In addition to the soundtrack, everything about this really works. And Jim Jarmus's camera is some of the most beautiful camera worker're going to see maybe ever. It's astounding. So check out Only Lovers Left Alive. It's available in a lot of places.
That's it for today's episode. Next week, we're back with more coverage of the Penguin and Agatha all along. Aren't we lucky to have these quality superhero shows BA truly on our TV, Plus some more Halloween and an exploration of nineteen eighty four, possibly the greatest year for horror. Thanks for listening.
Bae x ray Vision is hosted by Jason N. Supsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi our discoord moderator.