Speaker 1: Hello, this podcast will contain spoilers for the very not
Speaker 1: recent movies, interview with a vampire and Queen of the
Speaker 1: dumed so invite us in to watch those films with
Speaker 1: you before you listen to this podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello. My name is Rosie Knight and Angel Money, and
Speaker 2: welcome back to.
Speaker 3: Spooooooky xtra Vision, the podcast where we dive deep into
Speaker 3: your favorite spooky shows, spooky movies, spooky comics, and spooky
Speaker 3: pop culture.
Speaker 2: We're here at iHeart Podcasts where we bring you two
Speaker 2: action packed episodes and at the moment very scary episodes
Speaker 2: every Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 4: In today's episode, first up in the Airlock, we're doing
Speaker 4: a deep dive and interview with a vampire. Oh and
Speaker 4: clud that's right, the an rights classics and their cinema journeys.
Speaker 4: We're exploring them. Then we're headed to the back matter
Speaker 4: to discuss our favorite vampire movie of all time. This
Speaker 4: was not easy, y'all. Eliminations had to be made and
Speaker 4: it was painful.
Speaker 2: Will I embarrass myself with an answer to that? Perhaps?
Speaker 2: Who knows? But first on previously, why do we love vampires? Joelle?
Speaker 4: Okay, there's a lot of reasons. I think if we're
Speaker 4: being honest. If I'm being honest, the number one reasons
Speaker 4: they're sexy vampires. They're so angry and going very hot.
Speaker 4: They willlament everything they're suffering. And I think as a
Speaker 4: young lady getting into the horrors, I was like, who
Speaker 4: are these bcs that are not disgusting to look at it?
Speaker 4: Because a lot of monsters are gross and I don't
Speaker 4: too gross.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: And then also you're upset. You have deep wells of emotion.
Speaker 4: Boys don't have emotions. This is crazy, and you live forever,
Speaker 4: you don't have to die. Wow, I mean a full
Speaker 4: package here. Why do you love vampires? What was the thing?
Speaker 4: Looked you?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I just think that you're right. I think there's something
Speaker 2: about the nature of like pushing our boundaries. But like
Speaker 2: there's something about a guy who's all he wants to
Speaker 2: do is kill you, but he won't kill you because
Speaker 2: he loves you. You know. That's the nature of like
Speaker 2: every so very toxic. Can I just say I'm just
Speaker 2: I just want to say that I'm not condoning that
Speaker 2: mindset from a vampire. But yeah, I think it's like,
Speaker 2: I just think it's also a very easy access point
Speaker 2: for horror, because I was just thinking about how when
Speaker 2: you're a kid and you can't necessarily like get a
Speaker 2: scary movie for the video store like when we were young,
Speaker 2: because your parents are like that's too scary, or they're
Speaker 2: just like, I want to watch something else. Russell Kuro
Speaker 2: and Gladiator. We can go to the library at our
Speaker 2: school as it was for us kids. Now I can
Speaker 2: just read them online. They can, they can get them online.
Speaker 2: But like you can read Dracula. You know, you can
Speaker 2: read Bram Stoker's Dracula, and it's a classic, so it's
Speaker 2: actually okay that, yes, you're reading it even though it's scary.
Speaker 4: You're proud of you repeating it. You're like, this is film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh huh.
Speaker 4: It's mildly traumatic. And they're like, but look at you reading.
Speaker 2: I know, I'm so glad you're reading this horrifying book. Uh.
Speaker 2: And then like you know, there are other ones, like
Speaker 2: obviously like car Miller, like another classic that kind of
Speaker 2: has really pushed the idea of like female vampiism and
Speaker 2: the kind of sexiness and the I think another thing
Speaker 2: as well, probably when you're a teenager, is like the
Speaker 2: sexual fluidity of a vampire, where it's like vampires. Dracula's
Speaker 2: like hot wives are gonna like try and have a
Speaker 2: threesome with you, but also Dracula obviously fancies you. Jonathan Harker,
Speaker 2: you know, there's like those levels to it that I
Speaker 2: think are exciting and appealing, and well, not only.
Speaker 4: Are they very queer, but they're very Victorian.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, oh my gosh, so Gothic. And like there's
Speaker 2: this quote from Belagosi where he's like, it is women
Speaker 2: who love horror, who gloat over it and feed on it,
Speaker 2: are nourished by it, shudder and cling and cry out
Speaker 2: and come back for more. And I'm like, you know what, Bella,
Speaker 2: you are right, there's something about horror that entices us,
Speaker 2: but that also like makes us feel brave and that
Speaker 2: we're trying to discover a new space. And I think
Speaker 2: that vampires encompass all of that. And also I think
Speaker 2: we've been blessed with a lot of really fantastic like
Speaker 2: vampire cinema. So I think once you discover a vampire
Speaker 2: in a book, or you discover the concept of a
Speaker 2: vampire in some folklore, or just it's something that's perennially
Speaker 2: been there as a kid, then when you start watching
Speaker 2: the movies, like the movies we're going to talk about today,
Speaker 2: but also movies like Bramsto because Dracula and Nosferatu and
Speaker 2: The Lost Boys and Twilight and what we do in
Speaker 2: the Shadows, Like, vampires have kind of transcended being a
Speaker 2: genre and are now in every other genre. And I
Speaker 2: think that also means that there's a lot of different
Speaker 2: stuff for different kinds of vampire fans.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can find them in your horror, you can
Speaker 4: find them in your yeah, your science fiction, your fantasy,
Speaker 4: your histories, your romances, your romantic comedies, your straight vampire
Speaker 4: comedy is like it's for kids, it's for adults, it's
Speaker 4: for like high brow literature, and it can be low brow.
Speaker 4: Like they're totally flexible creatures, and like the Victorians of
Speaker 4: it all, I think we really love Victorian romance. We
Speaker 4: look at the endearing nature of pride and prejudice, the
Speaker 4: deep exploration of feelings without the societal ability to share
Speaker 4: them express them howardly creates a lot, which I think
Speaker 4: is a key component to romance. And so like vampires
Speaker 4: are just constantly feeding, like they are creatures have to
Speaker 4: keep their whole entire identities secret, which I think for
Speaker 4: teenagers is very relatable. It's like I definitely got it.
Speaker 4: I mean, listen, we are of the Twilight generation, so
Speaker 4: it's no use to vampires are hidden hard between like
Speaker 4: twelve and twenty. And I was like, I think that
Speaker 4: there's really like an element of that Victorian nature of romanticism. Also,
Speaker 4: like the heightened danger and all the reasons we talked
Speaker 4: about why we love horror really apply to these beautiful
Speaker 4: creatures who might potentially kill you. Again, men are terrifying,
Speaker 4: Thus vampires, and then I think death, Like you know,
Speaker 4: vampires come, they're born.
Speaker 2: Well that that also might be why it appeals totally.
Speaker 4: I mean they come out. If you think about Victorian era,
Speaker 4: you're dealing with a lot of plagues. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of people looking pale and close to death, and they're
Speaker 4: too young to die, and so that's sort of the
Speaker 4: era in which vampires are born. And so if you
Speaker 4: are starting to explore mortality and what that means for you,
Speaker 4: I think vampires are a way of sort of like
Speaker 4: skirting that like, oh my gosh, it's gonna happen to
Speaker 4: all of us, and it's very scary, but also it
Speaker 4: can be kind of alluring and it's a big mystery,
Speaker 4: and I just think there's so much there to play
Speaker 4: with that they lend themselves to a lot of different
Speaker 4: spaces and yeah, and I think Anne Rice really she
Speaker 4: nailed all of that, like really well.
Speaker 2: I love that. That's such a good point. And also
Speaker 2: I think you touch on something super interesting, which is
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's another like archetype or specifically
Speaker 2: like a monster archetype that has had such transcendent like
Speaker 2: All Ages success, because you have like Hotel Transylvania, but
Speaker 2: you can still have like a really terrifying vampire movie
Speaker 2: like Infected or something like. It really can be everything
Speaker 2: to everyone because of how well known the idea of
Speaker 2: it is now. And I think, yeah, I think what
Speaker 2: Anne Rice did in these books is she just wrote
Speaker 2: a fantasy about vampires and it is a horror book
Speaker 2: and it is a period drama, and it's lots of
Speaker 2: other things. But it's also like her incredible imagination just
Speaker 2: crafting this kind of underground vampiric world, which like, isn't
Speaker 2: that what every team Goth wants to find? Like you're
Speaker 2: the person who's going to get turned and get to
Speaker 2: live in this incredible life where you already feel like
Speaker 2: you're an outsider, but here's outsider with perks. You know.
Speaker 2: I just think it's really Yeah, I think vampires are
Speaker 2: so cool and I really love.
Speaker 4: They're both outsiders and the cool kid. Yes, it's a
Speaker 4: weird line they get to straddle.
Speaker 2: That's such a good point. But yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: love to see that kids are still loving vampires. I
Speaker 2: love that we're getting more interesting vampire stories. And I
Speaker 2: do think that both of these movies, as as maligned
Speaker 2: as the second one was, have played a huge part
Speaker 2: in keeping vampires relevant and interesting to like new generations.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well, I guess without further ado, we should.
Speaker 4: We should take a quick break. We're gonna grab a
Speaker 4: quick snack, guard your necks, and uh yeah, we come back.
Speaker 4: We're going to talk about its all the greatest vampire
Speaker 4: movies in all time, if we're being honest. Interview with
Speaker 4: the Vampire and Queen of the Dance. So stay tuned.
Speaker 2: So, now that we've established why we love vampires, let's
Speaker 2: get into the meat of Anne Rice's most famous adaptation,
Speaker 2: Interview with a Vampire from you know, the early nineties.
Speaker 2: We all remember this movie nineteen ninety four was released
Speaker 2: on November eleventh, So actually perfect season or watch for
Speaker 2: you guys right now and directed by Neil Jordan, with
Speaker 2: a screenplay, of course by ann Rice Joel. Where do
Speaker 2: we begin in the world of Interview the Vampire?
Speaker 4: There is so much But what I was really vice
Speaker 4: coming off of having read the books is this David
Speaker 4: Copperfield line. Okay, so when we open up, Oh, I
Speaker 4: forgot Christian Slater was in this movie.
Speaker 2: Oh I know, my absolutely, and also very cute and
Speaker 2: moving thing is that was supposed to be River Phoenix
Speaker 2: who was playing Daniel molloy, but he passed away. So
Speaker 2: his good friend Christian Slayer, who I love as well
Speaker 2: as I love River Phoenix, and uh yeah, he came
Speaker 2: in and took the role. And this is our first
Speaker 2: look at a non Eric Pagosian Daniel Malloy in a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 4: Yes, first of all, but such a good Daniel Malloy,
Speaker 4: like really understood and encapsulated the like hyper excitement of
Speaker 4: being like, holy cow, this story. And you don't get
Speaker 4: a lot of like back on who he is. So
Speaker 4: it's all got to be presented in character within a
Speaker 4: few lines. I mean, really you're talking two or three
Speaker 4: minutes up top, and then we're going into flashback. But
Speaker 4: when okay, so the film opens it is U we
Speaker 4: talking to the reporter and be like and they're like, basically,
Speaker 4: where shall we begin? And they start with David Copperfield.
Speaker 4: This is opening to David Copperfield, whether I shall turn
Speaker 4: out to be the hero of my own life, or
Speaker 4: whether that station will be held by anybody else. These
Speaker 4: pages must show to begin my life. With the beginning
Speaker 4: of my life, I record that I was born, as
Speaker 4: I had been informed and believe, on a Friday, at
Speaker 4: twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock
Speaker 4: began to strike, and I began to cry simultaneously. In
Speaker 4: consideration of the day and hour of my birth. It
Speaker 4: was declared by the nurse and by some sage women
Speaker 4: in the neighborhood who had taken a lively interest in
Speaker 4: me several months before there was any possibility of our
Speaker 4: becoming personally acquainted, first that I was destined to be
Speaker 4: unlucky in life, and secondly that I was privileged to
Speaker 4: see ghosts and spirits, both these gifts inevitably attaching, as
Speaker 4: they believe, to all unlucky infants of either gender born
Speaker 4: towards the small hours of a Friday night. Here's why
Speaker 4: that's really interesting to me. Louis, we could say, was
Speaker 4: born as a vampire in the small hours of what
Speaker 4: could be a Friday night. It's very clearly a weekend.
Speaker 4: It's rowdy outside. He's pondering his hero villain status. Might
Speaker 4: be the hero of this story or am I the villain?
Speaker 4: What does it mean? So it's a really interesting space
Speaker 4: to start a literary adaptation. Also, the first thing Louis
Speaker 4: sees with his vampire eyes is a frozen statue which
Speaker 4: like is briefly unbound and reveals itself to him, which
Speaker 4: I will talk more about in Queen of the Dand
Speaker 4: And so this comparison to like one of these great
Speaker 4: literary heroes who's always down on his luck, who nobody
Speaker 4: really understands, who struggles to get through an oppressed society
Speaker 4: and make something of himself to make it Louis, who's
Speaker 4: this white slave owner who was like, Who's like, how
Speaker 4: will I get through this life? And no one understands me.
Speaker 4: It's a really interesting place to start off your hero.
Speaker 4: It was moving back in the day, having seen the
Speaker 4: TV series this hits. It's so much more like Louis,
Speaker 4: get your shit together? What are you complaining about?
Speaker 2: Please? Suh.
Speaker 4: How do you feel about the intro of this Louie,
Speaker 4: this setting. How do you think the film did in
Speaker 4: capturing some of the novel here?
Speaker 2: I think they encapture one of the most important things,
Speaker 2: which is like the kind of malaise and depression of Louis,
Speaker 2: like his pair his daughter and his wife are dead,
Speaker 2: his unborn child and his wife are dead, and he's despondent.
Speaker 2: And really I do think that despite the empathy that
Speaker 2: this film clearly has for the stat I will say
Speaker 2: we and for you know, Louis, I will say we
Speaker 2: do get like glimpses of Louie's spoiledness here, which I
Speaker 2: think is something that was like really really great. An
Speaker 2: interview with the vampire is like so we kind of
Speaker 2: get that, like everything's about me. I'm just gonna like
Speaker 2: walk around in New Orleans. I don't care what's going on,
Speaker 2: Like everything is just terrible in my life, such for death. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that is like vital to the romantic nature
Speaker 2: of the vampire is like they're unhappy be with their lot.
Speaker 2: In life, and even when they get to live forever,
Speaker 2: then they're unhappy because they can't be with you for
Speaker 2: all that time. You know, there's this kind of emotional
Speaker 2: push and I think, you know, as as I would
Speaker 2: have said when I was a kid, I just think
Speaker 2: this is a good way of saying up that Louis
Speaker 2: is like an emo guy. Yes, like this guy is
Speaker 2: so fucking emo.
Speaker 4: He's got big, big feelings and he needs to share
Speaker 4: them despite the rules, and he doesn't want no therapy,
Speaker 4: and also freeing his slaves would not be helpful at all.
Speaker 4: This fem is something really interesting that I think a
Speaker 4: lot of films, literature, you know, whatever, if the if
Speaker 4: your main character is villainous or evil or a bad doer,
Speaker 4: you get this line where they're like, okay, sure, terrible
Speaker 4: to eat people, We get that, but you know, evil
Speaker 4: doers taste better. So really, are we doing a world
Speaker 4: of favor? Isn't this great?
Speaker 2: Were doing the world some good?
Speaker 4: Definitely giving the morally questionable is it? Oh gosh? It
Speaker 4: was a cocker who was like, you know, if you
Speaker 4: squish a cockroach, people cheer, but if you sqush a butterfly,
Speaker 4: they're upset. Morally. I really think like vampires fall well
Speaker 4: into that because we really be cheering them eating people.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, he has to feed. What possibly he's
Speaker 4: a newborn.
Speaker 2: He's a new born vampire. So obviously this movie is,
Speaker 2: for the most part, is a double hander between Tom
Speaker 2: Cruise and Brad Pitt. Yes, you know, and there is
Speaker 2: so much tension and kind of fear that has to
Speaker 2: go into that relationship, despite the fact it's only like
Speaker 2: a two hour movie, right, whereas in Interview of the Vampire,
Speaker 2: we got a TV series on Yeah, the TV series
Speaker 2: on AMC, you know, you get to spend a lot
Speaker 2: more time with these characters. So when you rewatch this,
Speaker 2: I'm always impressed that it doesn't feel rushed. The nature
Speaker 2: of where Louis is in his life is he wants
Speaker 2: to die. He's asking for death. That appears almost like
Speaker 2: an angel and says, well, you hate life, but what
Speaker 2: if you just became a vampire and we just hung
Speaker 2: around and did cool stuff. And Louie's like, yeah, actually,
Speaker 2: you know, why not? I was going to kill myself,
Speaker 2: but now I get to live as a vampire forever.
Speaker 2: And obviously he immediately like regrets it, and it adds
Speaker 2: a new layer of complexity and like sadness to Louis,
Speaker 2: where he realizes, Oh, I'm going to have to become
Speaker 2: a murderer. I'm gonna have to kill people. And I
Speaker 2: think that they do such a good job establishing all
Speaker 2: of that in the opening kind of minutes of the
Speaker 2: movie and the first meeting with Lista and kind of
Speaker 2: understanding who he is. And I mean, he's kind of
Speaker 2: like a you know, a mirror for Louis of like
Speaker 2: this freedom and this like independence and the things that
Speaker 2: he wants to have because you know, it's so terrible
Speaker 2: to be like a rich slave owner. I feel like Louis,
Speaker 2: I'm not feeling very empathetic.
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 2: That probably should have just killed you.
Speaker 4: Actually, I mean you were talking about moral squammy. But
Speaker 4: I love that Lessay. It's constantly reading you for it.
Speaker 4: But he like, listen, this is such an interesting thing
Speaker 4: because they do in the same way. The book is
Speaker 4: very suggestive about the romance, like the film is suggestive
Speaker 4: in the most Victorian of ways. They're like, it's almost
Speaker 4: I'm seeing it felt like a code era, right, Like
Speaker 4: you can do really tight shots and there could be
Speaker 4: a lot of tension there's a point later in the
Speaker 4: film where Antonio Banderaz comes in and yay, you get
Speaker 4: a shot. So I was like, oh, do the kids
Speaker 4: and I forget did that happen in nineteen ninety four. No,
Speaker 4: it didn't.
Speaker 7: Know.
Speaker 4: We were way too homophobic a society to let that happen.
Speaker 4: But we will get inches apart.
Speaker 2: It's so implied and so heavily a part of the
Speaker 2: original books and the queerness of vampires that I think
Speaker 2: this is one of those funny movies where it's like, well,
Speaker 2: the studio can say they can't guss, they can say
Speaker 2: don't do it, doesn't matter, it's like ten thousand times
Speaker 2: twenty because you don't show it, trick. It's all about
Speaker 2: the tension and the moment and this life changing decision
Speaker 2: you've made to live with someone and to lay in
Speaker 2: a coffin with someone, and there's such an obvious romance
Speaker 2: to it that, you know what, that's okay if the
Speaker 2: studio is to scare in nineteen ninety four, because we
Speaker 2: all know this movie is gay as heck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's talk okay. So let's talk about two things
Speaker 4: really quick. So one, I have to say the casting
Speaker 4: director whose name I didn't pull up shout out to
Speaker 4: you though, because you were on your shit. So not
Speaker 4: only do you have like the hottest of the hot
Speaker 4: we've talked about our three main guys, plus Antonio comes
Speaker 4: in later for your extras, essentially your background characters, your
Speaker 4: secondary characters, as we might call them entitled. I'm giving
Speaker 4: them more modern titles because the way they were titled
Speaker 4: back in the day is a little offensive. So we
Speaker 4: have enslaved woman Sandy Newton, who Sandy Newton is in this.
Speaker 4: She playsn't enslaved like a houseworker who is like, uh yo,
Speaker 4: louis listat that you brought over here to our space
Speaker 4: is creeping us out. There's a lot of dead birds,
Speaker 4: a lot of dead bodies you are not eating. It's crazy.
Speaker 4: I'm worried about you because you might be my master,
Speaker 4: but you weren't doing whatever freaky shit that guy was
Speaker 4: into before. It's weird. Now she is so brilliant in
Speaker 4: the like two and a half minutes she's on screen,
Speaker 4: you completely understand she's almost offering herself up as like
Speaker 4: a sacrificial lamb. She's there's so much dignity in her character. Okay,
Speaker 4: she's great, Then we have Billina Logan, who plays a
Speaker 4: local sex worker. Billina Logan has done so much in
Speaker 4: her like very long career. You've definitely seen her face
Speaker 4: I'm trying to think of. She was like in Midnight Texas,
Speaker 4: if that was a show you were really in today. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she did Sons of Anarchy for a long time, like
Speaker 4: a face you know. Again, a stellar performance in the
Speaker 4: maybe minute and a half she's on screen, she's excellent.
Speaker 4: And then finally we have Indra Ova, who oh oh wow,
Speaker 4: my god. Okay, So basically Louis and Lestat are arguing.
Speaker 4: Loui's look, I'm not eating people. Stuff's like, listen, you
Speaker 4: gotta eat. It's crazy that you're not doing this. Look
Speaker 4: at I brought you Andrew Ovay. She's beautiful and amazing
Speaker 4: and you should. I'm not going to really give you
Speaker 4: a choice. You're going to have to eat her, and
Speaker 4: they do, and her death is so long and so
Speaker 4: drawn out. When they put her in that coffin and
Speaker 4: she's just screaming and she's like, it's a coffin and
Speaker 4: they're like, yeah, it's a coffin. Do so again she's
Speaker 4: just oh, you're totally enveloped in what she's doing, and
Speaker 4: she was Miss Black and resident Evil. She was a
Speaker 4: VIP stewardess and the fifth element You she's a firsorder
Speaker 4: officer in Star Wars. You again an actress with an
Speaker 4: extremely long career whose face you're definitely aware of. And
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe tho. I was like, back to back
Speaker 4: to back women of color playing you know, all either
Speaker 4: sex workers or they were enslaved, but their performances had
Speaker 4: so much dignity and beauty in them. I was kind
Speaker 4: of shocked at how overlooked they are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's true. And I do think that post
Speaker 2: the amc in to be the Vampire Show, It's obviously
Speaker 2: this feels very dated, yes, but but I do still
Speaker 2: think and I think the fact that they cast such
Speaker 2: a fantastic array of supporting actors is because this is
Speaker 2: like a Hollywood epic, Like there's so many huge set pieces.
Speaker 2: It's an old kind of film that feels like you
Speaker 2: wouldn't get made now. And I think that it is
Speaker 2: very interesting to look at the casting of Lestat and
Speaker 2: look at the casting of Louis and by which by
Speaker 2: the way, Anne Rice like hated she didn't want Tom
Speaker 2: Cruise to be listart. She didn't. She wanted Rapit to
Speaker 2: be the start. She had also originally written it. She'd
Speaker 2: written the part originally because she adapted her own screenplay
Speaker 2: from the movie, and she'd actually wanted the French actor
Speaker 2: Elaine Delon, who was Purple Noon and the Samurai, and
Speaker 2: that was her original Louis idea.
Speaker 4: Imagine Louis with an actual French accent.
Speaker 2: Imagine that. And then she wanted Julian sand who we
Speaker 2: always seek. He's a classic British character act who's in
Speaker 2: a lot of genre stuff. But then they gave it
Speaker 2: to Tom Cruise. My understanding because it is a star name
Speaker 2: to attach right, he gets paid the most money, he
Speaker 2: gets the prophets. And Anne Rice like publicly was like
Speaker 2: dragging them about this choice to cast Tom Cruise. And
Speaker 2: I think that she had actually recommended like Peter Weller
Speaker 2: who played RoboCop Jeremy Irons. And then when they cast
Speaker 2: at least I knowed she was. She's like when she
Speaker 2: actually also recommended John Malkovich. I love her taste.
Speaker 4: She came out there.
Speaker 2: And then she was like, well, let Brad Pitt be
Speaker 2: lastat and Tom can be Louis and they were like no.
Speaker 2: And I think all of that added to the fact
Speaker 2: that they'd been you know, the novel was almost twenty
Speaker 2: years before this. At this point, you can see how
Speaker 2: certain stuff got overlooked and certain characters that would been
Speaker 2: incredibly interesting or complex, because even outside of the movie,
Speaker 2: that's just so much drama with the movie games.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's get to some of the One of the
Speaker 4: major changes that I personally was like, hold up, what
Speaker 4: is going on with this adaptation? List That is like
Speaker 4: it's his idea to turn Claudia, which is not how
Speaker 4: the book or the television series goes. And I was like,
Speaker 4: this changes every This is such a pivotal, crucial moment
Speaker 4: of Louis a being like again selfish to your point
Speaker 4: and just being like, listen, I have to be a vampire.
Speaker 4: I want a kid, Like give me one, please. I
Speaker 4: don't care about your rules or how it's hurting you.
Speaker 4: This is what I want. And then it also means
Speaker 4: that List that is not only breaking a rule he
Speaker 4: knows he wouldn't normally want to break, he's not really
Speaker 4: taking like him wanting a child is not conducive to
Speaker 4: the life. He tells us he wants to lead up
Speaker 4: until this point, but it's also an interesting way to
Speaker 4: try to keep Louis around.
Speaker 2: It shows exactly which is the That's the explanation they
Speaker 2: give in the movie is he's like manipulating Louis by saying, like, look,
Speaker 2: I've given you a child, we can raise her together.
Speaker 2: It makes him, which is obviously.
Speaker 4: Straight villain as opposed to like a person involved in
Speaker 4: this relationship that's toxic from all ankles, and it's sort
Speaker 4: of it takes a little bit of the windo out
Speaker 4: of the sales. I think of all the dynamics of
Speaker 4: that relationship. I didn't love that. I do love the
Speaker 4: casting of Kirsten Dunst as Claudia.
Speaker 2: Yes, Kirsten Dunt's ten years old in this movie. They
Speaker 2: had originally been thinking they were going to have like
Speaker 2: six year olds, as that is her age in the book.
Speaker 2: Kirsten Dunst was ten, and they cost her because they
Speaker 2: wanted someone who could like understand the nuances of the role.
Speaker 2: And she is unbelievable. And this is where we get
Speaker 2: to the part of the movie that I think is
Speaker 2: like the saddest and of course I'm not feeling sad
Speaker 2: for Louis, though he feels sad for himself, but we
Speaker 2: see the family and the way that Louis loves Claudia,
Speaker 2: and the Stack kind of I don't know, just treats
Speaker 2: her a doll, right like he he wants to dress
Speaker 2: her up and spoil her and teach her and mold her,
Speaker 2: you know them.
Speaker 4: As in society he's been closed off too. Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Love that read. And then you know we end up
Speaker 2: in a situation where thirty years after that, as time
Speaker 2: moves so you know, quickly as it does for these
Speaker 2: for these vampires, and Claudia is still just a baby.
Speaker 2: I always remember being a kid. I thought that was
Speaker 2: so scary, the idea that, like, you would be an
Speaker 2: adult in your brain, but you are ten years old
Speaker 2: to everyone else. And I think that Kirsten duntce just
Speaker 2: like I love this whole sequence where she freaks out,
Speaker 2: starts cutting her hair, tells them like, I hate you,
Speaker 2: how could you do this to me? And then she
Speaker 2: takes it out on the stat because he is the
Speaker 2: one who made her, He's the one who had this
Speaker 2: plan in this and you know, they try and run
Speaker 2: away and she I always remember as well, when I
Speaker 2: was first saw this this being like a really haunting
Speaker 2: scene where she has the twins who she killed with
Speaker 2: like poison and then she tricks list that into drinking
Speaker 2: their blood to try and kill them, and then we
Speaker 2: get kind of it's really funny to talk about this
Speaker 2: post watching the AMC show because everything happens so quickly.
Speaker 2: But then you know, boom, they're gonna get rid of
Speaker 2: the stat's body and they're going to Paris. Baby, it's happening,
Speaker 2: and we're already like in season two of the show,
Speaker 2: like they fit so much into the movie tight and
Speaker 2: we get it's really tight, and it feels also like engaging.
Speaker 2: It keeps you watching. It's not something that feels like
Speaker 2: a slot.
Speaker 4: It's so it really highlights the difference between television and
Speaker 4: film if you watch these adaptations back to back in
Speaker 4: an interesting way, I have a filmmaker friend who doesn't
Speaker 4: understand television, and I'm very excited to be like, I
Speaker 4: have a solution so you can understand.
Speaker 2: Watch these two things back to back.
Speaker 4: And understand because television really allows you to luxuriate in
Speaker 4: how a person arrived to an emotional standpoint. A film
Speaker 4: really allows you to explore how an emotion can transform
Speaker 4: you quickly.
Speaker 2: Right, like, Wow, that's fantastic Joe.
Speaker 4: And I like both of them, and I think they
Speaker 4: both work like it feels like it shouldn't work because
Speaker 4: you get so much time to explore, like how do
Speaker 4: Louis and the stat fall for each other? Why does
Speaker 4: their relationship not work? What does Claudia mean in such
Speaker 4: a significant way? But you can cut through all of
Speaker 4: that if you just tell the audience you have to
Speaker 4: accept what I'm telling you. I'm not going to bother
Speaker 4: to explain it. We don't have time to explain it.
Speaker 4: The actors have to be so prepared and so invested,
Speaker 4: and the visual imagery of like your sets have to
Speaker 4: be so tight that they tell you what's going. For example,
Speaker 4: if we look at Claudia's the bedroom scene, so she
Speaker 4: Claudia's room is filled with dolls that she's collected over time.
Speaker 4: Some of them are really old. That really highlights her
Speaker 4: age in a way that doesn't you know, need a
Speaker 4: lot of time to explain. These dolls look ancient. Why
Speaker 4: does she have them? Because she look in them all
Speaker 4: time ago? And then underneath all of this beautiful finery
Speaker 4: a rotting body that she longs to possess that she cannot.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's really fast telling you what we get
Speaker 4: through like three or four episodes of Claudia exploring and
Speaker 4: the television neither one better or worse than the other,
Speaker 4: but just really fascinating. I was watching some clips of
Speaker 4: Kirsten Dunst recently where she was talking about playing the
Speaker 4: role of Claudia, and it's so charming because they were like,
Speaker 4: you know how at one point she's supposed to look
Speaker 4: like very suggestive and like your ten how do they
Speaker 4: talk to you about this stuff? And it's the nineties
Speaker 4: and we've seen a lot of crazy stuff about kids
Speaker 4: back in the day, so that was a line of questioning.
Speaker 4: Her response is so beautiful. She was like, so first,
Speaker 4: both Brad and Tom protected me, which if you've heard
Speaker 4: of thinking about how these guys are on their personal
Speaker 4: lives versus how they behave on set, this calculates right.
Speaker 4: Both of them have a lot of problematic shit that's
Speaker 4: in their personal lives that you can read about, but
Speaker 4: on set, for the most part, all you ever hear
Speaker 4: is about how gentlemanly both of these guys are. So
Speaker 4: they're professional and it's nice to know that that professionalism
Speaker 4: was brought into being. In order to protect her, they
Speaker 4: built her a Christmas tree in her dressing room, also
Speaker 4: protesting her with her acting coach. She would work really
Speaker 4: hard on the roll. She said she had like ten
Speaker 4: return auditions, and she was like, when I was supposed
Speaker 4: to be suggestive or older, my kind of coach would
Speaker 4: be like, okay, so just I want you to make
Speaker 4: a face like you stole your little brother's toy and
Speaker 4: he doesn't know where it is and it's looking and
Speaker 4: you're holding it. You know where it is, but he
Speaker 4: can't find it. And she's like, and instantly you look
Speaker 4: mischievous and older and wiser and like you know something
Speaker 4: and like you have secrets. And it was so easy
Speaker 4: for me as a ten year old to attach to that.
Speaker 4: And it's always wonderful to hear about like how like
Speaker 4: are there safe ways to bring children into performance where
Speaker 4: this performance for children can be really releasing and it
Speaker 4: helps them express a lot of things. And I think
Speaker 4: theater and film and television are potentially great places for
Speaker 4: children to experience art, but obviously there's also been very
Speaker 4: detrimental not safe ways, And so I love hearing about
Speaker 4: like old directors be like, no, this was a really
Speaker 4: I had a great time on set and I was
Speaker 4: able to pull the performance and it was good for everybody.
Speaker 4: So that's silver linings on this movie, and I like it. Okay.
Speaker 4: So Claudia and them they head over to and Louis
Speaker 4: head over to Europe. Lestat's body he was dragging to
Speaker 4: a swam but surprised he came back in a truly
Speaker 4: horrifying masterful. Oh my gosh, we didn't even talk about
Speaker 4: the makeup and stuff. Yet there's so much to talk about,
Speaker 4: really very quickly. San Winston icon of cinema legend, truly iconic,
Speaker 4: beautiful work. And there's this scene where Tom cruisells a
Speaker 4: status at the piano and he was the one that ate.
Speaker 4: When he's into the swamp, you think a gator eats him,
Speaker 4: but no, he ate the gator. He's blood to get out. Listen.
Speaker 4: He said he could survive on animals. Why no one thinks,
Speaker 4: I don't know. But he takes it back to the
Speaker 4: house he's playing for.
Speaker 2: Joe said, I have notes on this plan. I have
Speaker 2: notes every time.
Speaker 4: When he tries to kill a stet, I'm gonna have notes.
Speaker 4: You do it? Badly, sir, you don't want this. And
Speaker 4: there's a reversal, almost thriller like of his persona like
Speaker 4: from decrepit swamp corpse to like thriving vampire. It happened
Speaker 4: so fast and just a couple of shots. It's really
Speaker 4: beautiful work. So if you just want to come in
Speaker 4: for the costuming and the makeup and stuff, like, if
Speaker 4: that's the thing, you appreciate this movie. Okay, we're in Europe.
Speaker 4: Antonio Bandera shows up again. They just picked all the
Speaker 4: hottest men of the era.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also as well, so he's playing Armand, And
Speaker 2: I think that this is a really clever piece of
Speaker 2: casting because in this version, Armand is basically everything that
Speaker 2: the stat is not, even in the way he looks
Speaker 2: and the way he behaves and the way he tells
Speaker 2: stories and the way he lives, and that comes across
Speaker 2: so clearly here when you look at banderas versus Cruise,
Speaker 2: you know, and I love the vampire show, the Vampire
Speaker 2: Parisian Ballet, where they do a show and they kill
Speaker 2: people in front of the audience and the audience never
Speaker 2: knows if they're like if they're humans and if they're vampires.
Speaker 2: They're loving it. I just think it's one of the
Speaker 2: coolest representations of vampirism and this idea of like how
Speaker 2: vampires could live among us, and I found that really enchanting.
Speaker 2: As a kid, I actually got to go to a
Speaker 2: thing called the Circus of Horrors once I was a
Speaker 2: little kid. I was probably about eleven, and it was
Speaker 2: like a contortionist and like you know, aerial acting, but
Speaker 2: all scary and gothic, you know, And that was definitely
Speaker 2: something I wanted to go to Because of this, and
Speaker 2: also circ The Freak. I loved those books as a kid,
Speaker 2: and I think something I really loved about the AMC
Speaker 2: Plus series is I really really loved how much time
Speaker 2: we got to spend in Paris and how we got
Speaker 2: to learn about Armand's relationship with Louis. Because when I was,
Speaker 2: you know, a kid, I watched this. This just feels
Speaker 2: almost like a blink of the eye. The most important thing,
Speaker 2: and the most important thing is yeah, and they basically
Speaker 2: we you know, the Parisian vampires abduct. They abduct Louis
Speaker 2: and Claudia and Claudia's new like adult plaything that Louis
Speaker 2: has made her and basically are like you guys killed
Speaker 2: the Stat and that goes against number one vampire of rule.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna kill your ladies. You're gonna kill Claudia,
Speaker 2: gonna kill her friend, and then you're gonna be put
Speaker 2: in like a for it of a closet to die,
Speaker 2: like in a coffin. You're going to be up in
Speaker 2: the in the scary catacombs. And it's it's a cool moment.
Speaker 2: It's a cool like thing where it's really sad the
Speaker 2: way they kill Claudia. We really get to see like
Speaker 2: her fear in that moment. But this is never the
Speaker 2: part of the movie that I'm always like remembering. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Whereas in the TV series, I will always remember Armand
Speaker 2: I will always remember Santiago. I will always remember the
Speaker 2: drama and the love. And I love how, you know,
Speaker 2: in this film we see armand free Louis. But I
Speaker 2: love how in the TV series they like twisted it
Speaker 2: around and he expected that it was armand but really
Speaker 2: it was you know, uh less Stat. And this is
Speaker 2: where I think it gets really interesting, because you know,
Speaker 2: Anne Rice did say she knew the Hollywood was homophobic.
Speaker 2: She'd actually rewritten the script at one point to make
Speaker 2: listat a woman so that it wouldn't be seen as gay,
Speaker 2: so that it would be able to be heterosexual. And
Speaker 2: it's very interesting thinking about the finale of season two
Speaker 2: of Interview the Vampire and that unbelievable reunion that we get.
Speaker 2: That is like probably one of my favorite episodes of
Speaker 2: TV I've seen in years, where you kind of learn
Speaker 2: the real truth of what the last eight years have been.
Speaker 2: And here all we get is like Louie's emo around
Speaker 2: the world and he just goes around the world and
Speaker 2: he's like and then he sees Louis and then they
Speaker 2: never joined back together again. And I'm just like, guys, like,
Speaker 2: this is not what the people want to see. This
Speaker 2: is a tragic romance. We don't need Louis to be
Speaker 2: smart and say I wouldn't get with you Lista. I
Speaker 2: want to know that those two are going to be
Speaker 2: together forever because they love each other.
Speaker 4: At the toxic you don't get the full like closure
Speaker 4: you need with armand because you're okay mm hmm, everything
Speaker 4: happens if you've seen the series emails, so basically they
Speaker 4: get there the Paris Covenants, like not cool that you
Speaker 4: came here and didn't check in with us, or like
Speaker 4: we don't really follow your new old school vampire rules
Speaker 4: like where new vampires get with it, and they're like, hey,
Speaker 4: not cool. Actually we're gonna kill your progeny because you're
Speaker 4: not supposed to make a you own one, and we
Speaker 4: don't like that. You're taking our leader and questioning all
Speaker 4: of our rules. So now you're getting buried, right, deal
Speaker 4: with it. Yeah, none of that gives you the emotional
Speaker 4: power of like the murder Mansion party in the series
Speaker 4: is sensational in the books, this second, like the following
Speaker 4: for armand of here's somebody who's stable and also looking
Speaker 4: to change his life, and like we're gonna be two
Speaker 4: owners who have come together to like go out into
Speaker 4: the world and make something for ourselves. Like that's really
Speaker 4: valuable to and again when you have the queer context
Speaker 4: that I've been hidden my whole life, and here's a
Speaker 4: new world and a new day that I get to
Speaker 4: embrace on my own terms, Like all of that has
Speaker 4: so much value in here. Man Lily is just really
Speaker 4: he's just crying and he's leaving his daughter and you're
Speaker 4: not quite sure why. It's truly a mess. But what
Speaker 4: I will say is the last tiny bit of this movie.
Speaker 4: It comes right back and hits the sunrises through cinematic hite.
Speaker 4: If your Sinning'm a buff was beautiful, like all these
Speaker 4: great scenes from these classic movies with the sunrises in it. Again,
Speaker 4: if you're a person who's putting yourself in the place
Speaker 4: of Louis, when you're reading or watching this, you're like, wow,
Speaker 4: you must like the colors coming back, like the things
Speaker 4: he sees us. That really hits me emotionally. The conversation
Speaker 4: between them is to your point mid it's okay. Louis like,
Speaker 4: so you've come back, and he's like, no, I gotta go.
Speaker 4: You're like, why did we see this? Why did we
Speaker 4: come back here to why did you make the trip?
Speaker 4: Like so annoying?
Speaker 2: Did not need it? I don't want to hear you're no.
Speaker 4: But then yes, I love this.
Speaker 2: I just love I love the ending of this movie
Speaker 2: because like Louis like so pissed at Malloy and he's like,
Speaker 2: you do don't write this story.
Speaker 6: You're gonna scandalize it, like you don't understand it, like
Speaker 6: and he's being a little spoiled guy again. And then
Speaker 6: they were like, okay, so we need to let people
Speaker 6: know that Malloy is going to become a vampire in
Speaker 6: the Cannon and maybe there's another movie.
Speaker 2: So what if we just had him drive over the
Speaker 2: Golden gate Bridge where Lestat just appears and like take
Speaker 2: control of the car in an unbelievable Hollywood jump scene
Speaker 2: like up there, maybe with like when Carrie's hand comes
Speaker 2: out of the grave at the end, but it's just
Speaker 2: the dream, or when Jason grabs the girl at them Yes,
Speaker 2: Friday thirteenth, I definitely think this is up there, like
Speaker 2: and I always I really distinctly remember like Tom Cruise's
Speaker 2: face as the stat in this moment, and it's kind
Speaker 2: of like like it's scary, classic Halloween. And then he's like, bro,
Speaker 2: guess what want to be a vampire? I can make
Speaker 2: you a vampire. I'll give you the choice I never had.
Speaker 2: And he started again, and he obviously has hooked the
Speaker 2: young Malloy, who obviously we know and love. Now I
Speaker 2: love you, Christian Slater, But this is Eric Bogosian's magnum opus,
Speaker 2: is his his role as Daniel Malloy, and I he
Speaker 2: is a.
Speaker 4: Fan the way he's teasing, like he did are Mind
Speaker 4: from the series in him if you ever seen them
Speaker 4: an interview, He's like, Hey, excited for us to get together.
Speaker 4: He's like, oh, baby, I have could wait. Like the
Speaker 4: two of them together are so excited for this romance
Speaker 4: that it's genuinely made me thrilled. I would hate this change,
Speaker 4: except it makes perfect sense in the context of this
Speaker 4: film adaptation, Like it's got to be our mom that
Speaker 4: changes malloy. It just has to. But in this movie
Speaker 4: adaptation where you're really only spending time with your two
Speaker 4: main vampires, I like it. I think it's a good
Speaker 4: jump scare ending. It feels tight. Man. If they could
Speaker 4: have just figured out the end part of that second
Speaker 4: act from Europe on and just really brought again they
Speaker 4: were too afraid to be queer, and that part is
Speaker 4: extremely gay. All your gay friends don't like your new lover.
Speaker 4: They want to kick you out of the group, but
Speaker 4: you don't want to leave the conflict So good. But yeah,
Speaker 4: that is Interview with Vampire nineteen ninety four. It's a
Speaker 4: huge turning point for Brad Pitt to did have Ema
Speaker 4: and Louise in nineteen ninety one, and then a river
Speaker 4: runs through it comes out this same year. I think
Speaker 4: a little bit earlier, around the same time, and from
Speaker 4: there he's Brad Pitt Like, these are the two movies
Speaker 4: that really submit to who he is as an icon
Speaker 4: in cinema and it's changing. And then for Tom, you know,
Speaker 4: as a producers.
Speaker 2: It really like also reintroduces Tom Cruise after like his
Speaker 2: AES movie is run. You know, here he is in
Speaker 2: like a serious period horror, fantasy, queer epic, and I
Speaker 2: think that is like a huge moment for both of them.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, I really, I really do love
Speaker 2: this film. I watch it so often. I just I
Speaker 2: think it's so great and I think I do have
Speaker 2: a nostalgia for it totally. But I also just like
Speaker 2: to explore worlds with vampires, and I think this is
Speaker 2: a very immersively built world.
Speaker 4: They get it, they get it. We'll talk about if
Speaker 4: they get it in Queen of the Damned.
Speaker 7: When we come back, Oh Baby, Oh Baby, We're back
Speaker 7: to talk about Oh the early arts seminal film Queen
Speaker 7: of the Danned.
Speaker 4: It was the Leah's debut and exit as a star.
Speaker 4: We'll talk about that role. I have many thoughts. It
Speaker 4: has been a manute since I watched this film, but
Speaker 4: we've talked a lot about how this was like a
Speaker 4: real turning put so remind the audience for you, ye
Speaker 4: Queen of the Dand what's the time period, what's happening?
Speaker 4: Why do you fall in love with that?
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's two thousand and two, which means I
Speaker 2: am fourteen, and I am a goth. I was a
Speaker 2: cool goth, and I love vampires and I love vampire movies.
Speaker 2: And I was also starting to get into kind of
Speaker 2: like rock music, but like no I'd always been into
Speaker 2: like ACDC and like classic rock, but I was starting
Speaker 2: to get into like Deaftones, and I was hanging around
Speaker 2: with cool girls who made like cool mixed CDs of
Speaker 2: like Slipknot and stuff. And I went to see this
Speaker 2: movie at the cinema in Woodgreen. We went on the
Speaker 2: bus and we went to see it because it was
Speaker 2: on I don't even know that it had been particularly
Speaker 2: well marketed, because, as you mentioned, this movie actually only
Speaker 2: got a theatrical release because of the tragic death of Aleah.
Speaker 2: It was supposed to be a straight to video sequel
Speaker 2: before that. And we went to cinema and we watched it,
Speaker 2: and I legit like thought it was one of the
Speaker 2: coolest movies I've ever seen. Like for me, it was
Speaker 2: like it was not an ironic like early on, it
Speaker 2: was like, this is really cool. I love Stuart Townsend.
Speaker 2: This soundtrack is all like new male and also a
Speaker 2: Leah's in it as like a cool, powerful female vampire,
Speaker 2: and there's all this like weird Talamasca law which you
Speaker 2: never really get into in interview the Vampire. And also
Speaker 2: you get the classic dream scenario that from everything from
Speaker 2: Star Wars to Harry Potter is that you are special,
Speaker 2: and you're so special that while your life is boring
Speaker 2: and unhappy and maybe doesn't fulfill you, you are actually going
Speaker 2: to get a second chance at a life that is
Speaker 2: going to be so fulfilling and so romantic and so adventurous.
Speaker 2: And I really do think that Queen of the Damned
Speaker 2: kind of encapsulates all of that. And obviously, like now,
Speaker 2: it's one of those movies that I kind of champion
Speaker 2: as like, hey, yeah, this movie might objectively be a
Speaker 2: pretty bad movie, but there is so much fun to
Speaker 2: be had. I also am a big proponent of like
Speaker 2: this era of Zero's movies and the esthetic that they have.
Speaker 2: I was on Escape Patch formerly known as junepod recently
Speaker 2: talking about Chronicles of Riddick, and it also has a
Speaker 2: very similar aesthetic, which is this like early days of
Speaker 2: CG and these bleed kind of these darkened palettes that
Speaker 2: were really bleached out, which we get a lot of here,
Speaker 2: mostly because they need to make the vampires look pale.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was a huge moment for me. I
Speaker 2: love the soundtrack. I still know every word of it
Speaker 2: by heart. Last year I actually wrote an article about
Speaker 2: the soundtrack at Polygon and about how influential it is.
Speaker 2: And I've been incredibly stoked to see loads of young
Speaker 2: women on TikTok who do like the Akasha dance and
Speaker 2: they dress up like Akasha and they dance to the soundtrack.
Speaker 2: And Akasha obviously played by Eliyah, who's essentially like the
Speaker 2: queen of all vampires, like the oldest vampire you could imagine.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just love this movie. I watch it
Speaker 2: a lot. I watch it every spooky season. I always
Speaker 2: like am prostolytizing to people about the soundtrack, especially now
Speaker 2: like kids wearing Jinko jeans again. And the best thing
Speaker 2: is about the movie and the soundtrack is that the
Speaker 2: story begins as it does in the book and as
Speaker 2: it will maybe in the new in season three, but essentially,
Speaker 2: the start's bored. He's been asleep all this time. No
Speaker 2: louis to distract him, and he is awakened by the
Speaker 2: sound of music. In this case, he's literally awakened his
Speaker 2: deathly slumber by new metal. And he's like, bro, this
Speaker 2: is waiting for He's like, this is it. He's like,
Speaker 2: I've lived through, you know, the Harlem Renaissance, Like I've
Speaker 2: heard every single piece of music that's ever been written
Speaker 2: since the nineteen hundreds when I first went to sleep
Speaker 2: in this little coffin. But you know what woke me up?
Speaker 2: New metal and I love it. And Stuart Townsend is
Speaker 2: that basically goes over there in his low cut jeans
Speaker 2: and starts doing some weird singing and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can be the leader of our band. And then
Speaker 2: it's just like a story about how list that is
Speaker 2: in a band tell and his lyrics tell the secrets
Speaker 2: of vampire songs.
Speaker 4: For not a clear reason, by the way, if I
Speaker 4: can in it, yeah, yeah. This was the part of
Speaker 4: the movie that hooks me up the most, where I
Speaker 4: like completely as a kid, I was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 4: no fuck. The establishment was essentially the vibes of this
Speaker 4: film was like, yeah, but they told me I couldn't tell,
Speaker 4: so I'm gonna. I'm doing it. Why does he lure
Speaker 4: all these vampires to a place where humans that he
Speaker 4: claims to love their mortality are uh? And then the
Speaker 4: plot is loose, it's it's yeah, it's very thin. But
Speaker 4: because it's about him being a rock star, there's something
Speaker 4: that makes a lot of sense about him just being like, no,
Speaker 4: I'm just here, like literally a rebel without a cause.
Speaker 4: I have no reason to be this angry or upset.
Speaker 4: I just am, and you need to get on board.
Speaker 4: I will fight, I will tell all of our secrets
Speaker 4: and see what does a great job? I forget how
Speaker 4: solid the first like fifteen to twenty minutes of this
Speaker 4: film is like they oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's another world where if it all stayed
Speaker 2: at like that quality, and it would probably be less
Speaker 2: of like a B movie cult classic and more of
Speaker 2: just like a standard cult fave. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The first half feels more expensive than the back half,
Speaker 4: which made me have a lot of true yeah, like
Speaker 4: just tonally, I think the performances are stronger up top.
Speaker 4: The story is much tighter. They explain the Tallamascus so
Speaker 4: quickly for somebody if you have no idea what that
Speaker 4: Laura is about or who they are. The explanation and
Speaker 4: as quick it is sufficient, it like gets you into
Speaker 4: the story. I think that Stewart does a great job
Speaker 4: is like narrating early Lissette story. The press conference scene
Speaker 4: was sending me.
Speaker 2: Out in a minute, and it was that scene is
Speaker 2: like so good.
Speaker 4: I didn't recognize that. The teaser they did for the
Speaker 4: next season of Interview with the Vampire the TV show
Speaker 4: is kind of riffing on that press conference definitely like
Speaker 4: he's yeah, so Listat has to give a press conference
Speaker 4: to the band basically be like, hey, you've heard our
Speaker 4: album is I'm a Vampire. I'm telling you all of this.
Speaker 4: I don't care. So he's in another room but adjacent
Speaker 4: so he can see the reporters. Uh there's like cameras
Speaker 4: facing them. He has TV screens in front of them,
Speaker 4: and he's said he's revealing who he is. It's so
Speaker 4: funny because none of the reporters are like okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: like we're gonna need Everyone's like, okay, so you're a vampire.
Speaker 1: Cool?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you're a vampire. I'm into it. Like that
Speaker 2: makes a lot of sense. I mean, the talamasca exists
Speaker 2: in this world enough that are in character is just
Speaker 2: a random talamasca like research, so but perhaps people are
Speaker 2: aware of it. But yeah, I really love the first
Speaker 2: whole opening part of this movie. I think that the
Speaker 2: idea of him being a kind of rock stars. It's
Speaker 2: Jonathan Davis's voice and then it's Stuart Townsend singing, you know,
Speaker 2: and I think it's such a cool idea. And I
Speaker 2: think that now it kind of looks like a gem
Speaker 2: of like wow, they just didn't get this when it
Speaker 2: came out, because now there's all these kids and they
Speaker 2: wear Jinko jeans and tiny shirts and cool golf makeup. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they're watching this like this is cool as hell,
Speaker 2: Like how did this?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So this is also, I will say, one of
Speaker 2: my favorite eras of Zero's movies, and also vampire representation,
Speaker 2: which is like every vampire is a hot steam punk
Speaker 2: adjacent like bondage leather wearing sexy raver. Yeah they and
Speaker 2: they all meet in like a sexy rave pub in London,
Speaker 2: and it's really like, how would you update a vampire
Speaker 2: and The truth is, as we kind of touched on
Speaker 2: in the previously on, you really don't need to because
Speaker 2: the nature of a vampire is inherently appealing to many people,
Speaker 2: so you can really have any kind of vampire. But
Speaker 2: they're like, these vampires are goths. You would see these
Speaker 2: vampires at slime light, like and when she goes to
Speaker 2: the pub where she wants to find, you know.
Speaker 4: Of the talamask of them. Before this, you see a
Speaker 4: very quick dream where she's an orphan and she's like,
Speaker 4: I dreamed of having this family, but it's probably just
Speaker 4: dream all orphans have. Crazysco is like, girl, mind your business.
Speaker 4: We observe the occult from like afar. We don't get involved.
Speaker 4: That's not our job. We're just here to be recording.
Speaker 4: Please don't get involved. She's like through that, this isn't
Speaker 4: time travel. I'll crush all the butterflies, as she goes
Speaker 4: straight to the coolest nightclub, a nightclub in the Warehouse district.
Speaker 4: I cannot tell you about the early adds L ninety.
Speaker 2: The best thing is it's also like a pub. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like it's it's so it feels very akin when
Speaker 2: I was a kid. We would go to like raves
Speaker 2: and after parties, and they would be in what looks
Speaker 2: like a normal pub like this, which one's the Admiral
Speaker 2: Arms and then inside it's like a rave I was.
Speaker 2: Actually it's like one of the best, funniest, most specific
Speaker 2: London points here that actually is very realistic. And Jesse
Speaker 2: puts on her best like long black trench coat and goes.
Speaker 6: Down and she sciphers, I love her so much.
Speaker 2: And she goes there to look for the stat because
Speaker 2: she is the only one clever enough from the Talamasca
Speaker 2: to uncover what his secret songs mean. And they have
Speaker 2: this like meet cue and then you know it's it's
Speaker 2: like she sees him, and then we learn about there's
Speaker 2: a lot of actually there's a lot of interview the
Speaker 2: Vampire Law here, because you learn about the person who
Speaker 2: turnedstat Marius, and you learn about the Talamasca, and they
Speaker 2: really did expand the world of it, even as the
Speaker 2: stuff that we mostly remember is like list that wearing
Speaker 2: low cut snakeskin pants and like crawling up on a
Speaker 2: ceiling before he eats some girls, you.
Speaker 4: Know, as an interview with the vampire fan. And again,
Speaker 4: I've not completed the series, so feel free to just
Speaker 4: check me about the facts. As far as I've gotten
Speaker 4: into the book series and as far as Mary's is
Speaker 4: not the vampire that turns the stat the stats maker
Speaker 4: kills himself pretty quickly. Spoiler alert, I guess, but we
Speaker 4: gave it to you at the top. Please don't be mad.
Speaker 4: Stats Maker destroys himself, he self immolates. He's like, listen,
Speaker 4: and the wayless that is chosen in the books is
Speaker 4: the most metal thing ever. I couldn't believe he's the
Speaker 4: wolf killer he like in order to protect his really
Speaker 4: his mother, but technically his village. He was like, I
Speaker 4: would go out into the woods and he kills a
Speaker 4: bunch of wolves by as a human. He's not a vampire.
Speaker 4: He's just out here sling a vampire series. He's like, Wow,
Speaker 4: that kid is gorgeous and he's a wolf killer. Okay,
Speaker 4: wolf killer, and you're gonna take on my lineage. And
Speaker 4: it's a huge traumatic experience for the stat that really
Speaker 4: defines who he is in his vampire state, because he's
Speaker 4: left alone, there's no one which again, they'll talk, they'll
Speaker 4: bring a lot of these things back. Is reflected in
Speaker 4: his relationship with Marius. Marius does love to leave his progyny.
Speaker 4: He's like, listen, peace, I don't have time.
Speaker 2: And he's like, man, I got you.
Speaker 4: Just go for it, guys, right, I have the responsibility
Speaker 4: of caring for the king and queen back here Akasha,
Speaker 4: that's Leah's a character and her king. They're ancient. Sometimes
Speaker 4: they just need to sleep for a very long time.
Speaker 4: It's Mariyu's job to protect them. Marius is a horrible, horrible,
Speaker 4: horrible person. He's god awful and bad as a human being,
Speaker 4: worst as a vampire. But he's not the status maker.
Speaker 4: And it just I was like tweaked a little bit of.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is like hell the law. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I love your point of that. I will also say
Speaker 2: it's like, the funniest thing is when people think about
Speaker 2: this movie, they don't think about any of the stuff
Speaker 2: we're talking about. They just think about Leah. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: think about Akasha, who is literally in the movie for
Speaker 2: like twenty minutes, but it is a powerful twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: She enters, she burns up the bar, she's doing a
Speaker 2: sexy dance, she loves the stat and then they end
Speaker 2: up in this romance all of like making out in
Speaker 2: a Bathtub full of Roses.
Speaker 4: So good we love honestly one of the.
Speaker 2: Best songs and scenes of all time.
Speaker 4: I totally forgot how we got to this part, but
Speaker 4: I was like, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen,
Speaker 4: but I really love it. They're good. The concert scene
Speaker 4: is all like in Death Valley, really works well. I
Speaker 4: think overall, like this is a totally watchable film. The
Speaker 4: romance at the end, and you get a trope that
Speaker 4: sort of has now become like a standard if you're
Speaker 4: going to do an interview with a vampire adaptation, which
Speaker 4: is you must end with the turning of an unsuspecting character.
Speaker 4: A vampire pops up out of nowhere and must turn
Speaker 4: one of the humans as the vampires continue to grow
Speaker 4: their numbers, and it really works here. It's so lovely.
Speaker 2: I also love that Jesse gets to be turned into
Speaker 2: a vampire. I think that's part of what made it
Speaker 2: appeal so much to me as a kid. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was like, you actually get the wish fulfillment of well,
Speaker 2: now you get to fall in love with a vampire
Speaker 2: and be turned, which I guess then becomes a very
Speaker 2: influential on like a Twilight totally or something you know,
Speaker 2: the dream of, like do you get to live as
Speaker 2: a creature of the night completely?
Speaker 4: She's so cool and effortless. I will say, them making
Speaker 4: Nikki a girl in this, I was like, what sab
Speaker 4: be bisexual? It's really pain panimy gay gay, Like you
Speaker 4: could have done that scene with a guy and not
Speaker 4: had it venture an issue, a clear quarity and just
Speaker 4: left a little bit for us. But no, the two
Speaker 4: thousands were very homophobic and they wouldn't let.
Speaker 2: Us have it.
Speaker 4: Okay, ROSI believe to go do very important comic book things.
Speaker 4: But before you go, I really quickly wanted to know
Speaker 4: favorite vampire movie of all time Ago.
Speaker 2: I am going to go with a cheat answer, which
Speaker 2: is the mid calla trilogy of Hamma horror movies, which
Speaker 2: are basically car Milla movies, the second kind of big
Speaker 2: vampire novel and they're very gay. They were incredibly controversial
Speaker 2: when they came out from Hammer because they were incredibly
Speaker 2: delicitly erotically lesbian. And Nick discovered them recently like maybe
Speaker 2: like this time last year, and we've watched them so
Speaker 2: many times. They're so great. There's three of them, and
Speaker 2: I honestly think they're like some of the best vampires
Speaker 2: we've ever gotten. If I was if I just have
Speaker 2: to pick one, it will be Lost Boys, because I
Speaker 2: am the world's biggest Lost Boys Stan. But I'm going
Speaker 2: a little bit out of the box with Meyercarla aka
Speaker 2: Kameila trilogy.
Speaker 4: That's so beautiful. My quick cut would be Thirty Days
Speaker 4: of Night. It's so graphic.
Speaker 2: Anchory and it's a comic book movie.
Speaker 4: Yes, and filled with so much horror, and it's great.
Speaker 4: But my absolute ultimate, the one I would die for,
Speaker 4: the thing that restarted my love of DVDs is only
Speaker 4: Lovers Left Alive. When I tell y'all, stuck his whole
Speaker 4: foot in this movie, it starts till the Swinton to
Speaker 4: Mia Wazakowska and one of Antony Jelchin's last roles, and
Speaker 4: Jeffrey right before he really has this like major resurgence
Speaker 4: within his career. Y'all want to talk about healthy Vampire?
Speaker 2: Also there soundtracks? Yeah, So I went to actually I
Speaker 2: went to see that by myself at the Leicester Square odeon.
Speaker 2: They did an event. It was twenty dollars for a ticket,
Speaker 2: twenty pounds for a ticket. I now realize if we
Speaker 2: were pressed like it would probably have mostly been a
Speaker 2: press thing, but they probably sold tickets, and they had
Speaker 2: the band and it was a mixture of a Detroit
Speaker 2: garage band and then I believe, like a Yemeny band
Speaker 2: and they play all the music from the movie. And
Speaker 2: they showed the movie and there was like an after
Speaker 2: party at Heaven, which is a gay bar, and I
Speaker 2: just I love that movie so much. That's such a
Speaker 2: fantastic pick.
Speaker 4: Well. I really love about this movie is the fact
Speaker 4: that it explores the destruction of Detroit and actually has
Speaker 4: like healthy romances. In addition to the soundtrack, everything about
Speaker 4: this really works. And Jim Jarmus's camera is some of
Speaker 4: the most beautiful camera worker're going to see maybe ever.
Speaker 4: It's astounding. So check out Only Lovers Left Alive. It's
Speaker 4: available in a lot of places.
Speaker 2: That's it for today's episode. Next week, we're back with
Speaker 2: more coverage of the Penguin and Agatha all along. Aren't
Speaker 2: we lucky to have these quality superhero shows BA truly
Speaker 2: on our TV, Plus some more Halloween and an exploration
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty four, possibly the greatest year for horror.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 5: Bae x ray Vision is hosted by Jason N. Supsion
Speaker 5: and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5: Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our
Speaker 5: supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen
Speaker 5: Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 2: and Heidi our discoord moderator.