Interview With The Vampire

• Cat.no: D 013176
• Cert: 18
• Running time: 118 minutes
• Year: 1994
• Pressing: 1998
• Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
• Chapters: 34 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC-3)
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: English, Arabic, English for the hearing-impaired
• Widescreen: 16:9
• Price: £15.99
• Extras : Scene index, Interactive Menus

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Director:

Neil Jordan

(The Butcher Boy, The Crying Game, Michael Collins, Mona Lisa)

Producers:

Screenplay:

(based on her novel)

Music:

Cast:

Lestat: Tom Cruise (The Firm, Jerry Maguire, Mission: Impossible, Top Gun)
Louis: Brad Pitt (The Devil’s Own, Seven, Sleepers, Thelma And Louise)
Armand: Antonio Banderas (Assassins, Desperado, Evita, The Mask Of Zorro, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!)
Santiago: Stephen Rea (Angel, Angie, The Butcher Boy, The Crying Game)
Malloy: Christian Slater (Heathers, Kuffs, Murder In The First, Pump Up The Volume)
Claudia: Kirsten Dunst (Bonfire Of The Vanities, Jumanji, Little Women, New York Stories)
Yvette: Thandie Newton (Flirting, Gridlock’d, The Year My Voice Broke)
Piano Teacher: Roger Lloyd Pack (The Cook The Thief His Wife And Her Lover, Fiddler On The Roof, 1984, TV: “Only Fools And Horses”)

I nterview With The Vampire is the screen adaption by Anne Rice from her own novel. Tom Cruise plays the supremely evil and charismatic vampire Lestat. Brad Pitt is Louis, hired by Lestat into the immortaility of the damned, then tormented by an unalterable fact of vampire life: to survive, he must kill. One lifetime alone offers plenty of opportunities for the savage revelries of the night. Imagine what an eternity can bring.

Both Cruise and Pitt are excellent here, perhaps Cruise moreso, and while more scenes feature Pitt, it is Cruise who gets top billing due to him being a bigger Hollywood draw. As you watch though, you get the feeling that either they’re acting the way they normally do for the camera, or they’re doing such a good job that their performances fit the roles perfectly.

The picture quality is mostly good. Like a lot of DVDs it suffers from motion artifacts in the dark scenes of grey, brown and black colours, but most of these are not noticeable from a normal viewing distance.

The film is presented in 16:9, thus losing a little of the originally-shot 1.85:1 ratio but not enough to get upset about, and is 16:9 enhanced for widescreen televisions so as to gain extra picture resolution. The DVD also has an average bitrate of 4.00 Mb/s.

The Dolby Surround soundmix comes across very clear during the film and is effectively used for Elliot Goldenthal’s music score, not to mention the action scenes with Cruise moving from one spot to another at the speed of light giving the viewer a shock which surprises the viewer both aurally and visually. The disc also features a Dolby Digital AC-3 soundtrack which I cannot comment on as I don’t have a suitably-equipped amplifier.

Extras :

Chapters : There are 34 chapters spread throughout the film which is superb, giving a large choice of scenes with which to get instant access. However, you’re probably better off selecting the required chapter yourself via the remote control as the scene index only allows jumping to 9 particular scenes throughout the film plus “Start Movie” and “End Credits”.

Cast and Production Notes : Brief biographies and filmographies are given for the principal cast members and director. There are also three pages of notes which give a small insight to some aspects of the film.

Film Flash : Recommendations for four other Warner Bros. films – Copycat, The Lost Boys, Excalibur and Risky Business.

Languages : English is the only language on the disc, but there are subtitles for English, Arabic and English for the hearing-impaired.

This disc opens with the Warner logo which can be bypassed by selecting ‘Menu’ from the remote control. The main menu is fairly easy to find your way around although, on a PC, some parts require a click slightly above or below the intended selection to implement it.

Overall, this film is a great mix of horror, with a few shocking suprises mostly coming from Cruise himself, and comedy. The film seems, at times, a blend of docu-soap – as ‘family’ rows break out between Cruise, new recruit Pitt and child prodigy Dunst, road movie – as the action changes setting frequently, and horror – as cast members are offed in some of the most gruesome ways possible.

In fact the horror portrayed here sometimes reminds me of the murder scenes in Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer. In that film certain scenes were edited for UK video release because of the suffering inflicted upon the victims, whereas this film escapes such edits. Moments these films share include those where victims are bumped off in sadistic fashion… but they’re not dead and it’ll take a little bit more pain infliction to finish the job.

Given Warner’s low-pricing of its DVDs, this disc comes well-recommended. It would have been nice to include a trailer and director’s commentary, if such has been recorded, but what is available is well worth the asking price. FILM : ****½ PICTURE QUALITY: ***½ SOUND QUALITY: ***** EXTRAS: * ——————————- OVERALL: ***½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1998.