AMC's Interview with the Vampire: First Full Trailer & First Impressions

 

 The long awaited official full trailer for the TV show of AMC's Interview with the Vampire (IWTV) is here! Oh boy! This better be good…  

 I don’t want to be that crazy person who nitpicks everything. I just want to stay calm, be rational, and state my honest opinions on it. These are the changes that they’ve made and my thoughts on them.

 

The TV show will be taking place in 1910 - the Jazz Age. In the trailer, the setting of New Orleans looks good and everything looks the part of that time period. In the book, it takes place in 1791. Now they’ve changed the time period for obvious reasons. Personally, I don’t mind the change of the era as long as it gives that the Anne Rice’s gothic vamp vibes.

The character of Louis (Jacob Anderson) gets the biggest change. Louis now owns brothels instead of plantations. Here, this is where many Rice fans have problems with, including myself. This doesn’t make any sense to what Louis’s personality is in the book. Louis is a sensitive soul. He’s a type of person who would rather read a book by a cozy fire place than to mingle with “the women of the night.” So, rather than owning black slaves, now he's owning women as property. As if that's a big improvement. I don’t know whether or not to laugh at the irony, but they’ve turned him into a stereotypical pimp. 

 

Claudia (Bailey Bass), a plague victim and an immortal child. Originally, I thought Claudia is going to be a young-adult vampire because the actress looks older. But according to the TV show’s creator/writer, Rolin Jones, she’s aged up to be 14 years old. So, does that means her backstory will remain true to the book? Claudia is a unique-tragic character. She’s a 6-year-old vampire whose body will never change, but mentally matures over the years. It makes sense to age up her character. I don’t think a 6 year-old is going to understand the complexity of the character. They did the same thing in the 1994 film adaptation, played by the young Kristen Dunst. She was about 11 years-old then. But it’s going to be very weird seeing Bailey Bass playing as a 14 year-old, when she’s clearly much older than that. 

 

Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian), the reporter who starts off this vampire tale by interviewing a vampire. Daniel Malloy is supposed to be young, like in his 20’s young, in the books. According to Rolin Jones:

“He was a boy when he did the interview in 1973, and we are seeing him now in 2020.”

So, does that mean Daniel has been keeping in contact with Louis for many years. Or, would we be seeing flashbacks to Daniel's younger days? I really don’t know. This is just my theory and I could be reading this wrong. Daniel is portrayed as an older gentleman, that's fine, I’m not really that concerned about it.  

Lestat (Sam Reid), the only character in this show that remains the same as in the books. The charismatic and flamboyant vampire who fully embraces his dark gifts and living his best life unapologetically. From Louis’s perspective, he’s the villain of this story. Lestat is one of my favorite characters and I hope that Sam Reid will do a good job. So far, I like what I am seeing.

After watching the full trailer, I’m still on the fence. It looks like a spin-off series of the Vampire Chronicles. What really concerns me is the changes they’ve made with Louis, it just doesn’t make any sense to his true motivations. It’s heart-breaking because I don’t want to see this is as a parody fanfic, I want to see Anne’s true essence of her Vampire Chronicles Universe. 

I am planning to watch the TV series when it comes out (Oct 2), hoping that it will prove me wrong on all of my worries. I really do want this show to be successful. Many fans have waited such a long time for this TV series to fully come to life. Anne Rice created such a rich lore, this has the potential of telling the story in more depth than what the 1994 film did and also reviving the franchise out of the coffin. (If its done well). There’s no excuses for it to fail. 

Whether or not I will like the show, it still gives me an excuse to talk/write about Anne Rice’s works because I love them and I’m such a big nerd. My blog might be taken over by IWTV content and I don’t regret it. I am more than happy to share my thoughts on it as we get new info about the show. 

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