#AntiInterview with the vampire

[thenightling]

Interview with the vampire episode 5 review:

No wonder I don’t like this version of Claudia. They merged her with Baby Jenks. And I always found Baby Jenks a bit insulting.  That character actually was fourteen-years-old and very vapid.  When I first read the novel Queen of the Damned I was fourteen and characters like Baby Jenks in The Queen of The Damned and Mona Mayfair in the Lives of the Mayfair Witches both insulted me.

  Now we have Bruce AKA Killer with his motorcycle and talking about The Fang Gang.  I never expected Claudia to be merged with Baby Jenks. 

Claudia’s questioning of if she’ll always be a virgin because she heals down there is right out of True Blood. This isn’t Claudia.  It’s Jessica from True Blood merged with Baby Jenks.  

Louis somehow psychically triggered a serious Parkinson’s tremor in Daniel and got a well-deserved slap for it. Claudia is being abused by Bruce.  There’s no elegance in this.  It’s cynical and rather mean spirited and that’s saying something when it’s a vampire story.  There’s no charm, no Gothic poetry.  It’s so... shallow. They even off-handedly tell you Lestat’s not a reader. That he reads the first ten or eleven pages of books to seem “cultured.”  Lestat loved to read in the novels.

 Yet again all the characters say that Claudia’s emotional state is the result of perpetual puberty so it’s dismissive. Lestat nearly killed Louis because he was going to leave him.  WTF?!  That is literally the opposite of his character in the books!    This version of Lestat behaves more like Armand, it’s insane. Having Claudia want to kill Lestat because he’s physically abusive to Louis really, really bothers me. They amplified Lestat’s abandonment issues to make him a violent and self-absorbed asshole.   

Even hearing the audio preview for the next episode with Daniel mockingly saying “He only beat me the one time, officer.” really bothers me.  It’s cynical and dismissive of cycles of abuse for the sake of plot drama that wasn’t even in the book! 

This show runner is awful.   He’s just an awful human being.   His commentary on the behind the scenes video of episode 5 shows his nature.  This is a terrible person running this show.  He trivializes and even seems to mock domestic violence and abuse.   The fact that they added physical and sexual abuse really rubs me the wrong way.  How are we ever supposed to potentially sympathize with Lestat later when he’s portrayed like this?   He would never, ever, ever have harmed Louis in the books, no matter what he did. Something that bugs me is the showrunner actually behaves as if Claudia being raped by Bruce / Killer was some sort of righteous punishment to make her realize her homelife isn’t that bad.  It’s victim blaming for any vulnerable person, especially runaway, or homeless, child who gets sexually assaulted.  And it really rubs me the wrong way.  It’s like the guy hates teenagers, especially girls.  It’s agist and misogynistic and I’m saying this as a forty-year-old woman.   This show is cynical, mean-spirited, unsubtle, in-your-face, blatant, exploitive, and crass. This episode in particular, with its blatant use of modern domestic abuse, and implied sexual abuse, is just mean spirited and it feels exploitive.  I went from disliking this show to starting to feel disgusted by it. 

[thenightling]

Review of Interview with The Vampire episode 6:

I notice more and more that this show borrows from other vampire fictions, as if the show runner and his crew don’t really like the writing of Anne Rice and so seek out other vampires for inspiration.

The teenage Claudia concerned about still being a virgin is actually Jessica from True Blood.  Louis’s “Prescription” turn-of-the-century tinted sunglasses are clearly inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992 movie), and even, perhaps, the manga and anime, Hellsing. When Claudia wanted Charley to look up at her it was reminiscent of Dracula’s “See me.  See me now.” from Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992 movie).  Even the name Charley for the teenage boy Claudia was attracted to. Charley doesn’t exist in Anne Rice’s novels but he is the name of the teenage boy protagonist of the 1985 vampire movie, Fright Night. When Lestat and Louis claim they sell incinerators to explain away why they have one- that’s how Dracula hastily explained his box of soil in The Dracula Tape, when his luggage was searched.  He claimed he was a “portable closet” salesman and was showing the “Closets” capacity.  Also an incinerator is how the vampires got rid of the bodies of their victims in Whitley Strieber’s The Hunger (never mind that the smell of the burning corpses should be unbearable to someone with heightened senses.)  Even Lestat composing a song and having it made into a music box for Nicki (now spelt “Nicky” in the subtitles for some reason) was “borrowed” from Barnabas Collins and the music box he had made for Josette from Dark Shadows (original 1960s series). 

Now in episode 6 of Interview with The Vampire we have Lestat singing a new version of “Come to me” to Louis.  The lyrics and melody might be different but “Come to me” is the vampire love song from Fright Night (1985).  It’s sung by a man in the first movie and sung by Deborah Holland in the sequel,  Fright Night: Part 2 (1988). Each representing the vampire antagonist of the story and the lyrics of the original 1980s versions of the song are very vampiric and honestly superior to what was written for this show.  I happen to very much like Deborah Holland’s version of Come to Me.    

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they would have a vampire write a song called “Come to me” when two popular 80s Vampire movies had “Come to me” as the vampire’s main love song.

 And now they reveal that Rashid is a vampire via flashback to the 1970s. Way ahead of you, show.  I already figured out it’s Armand. 

Lestat literally threatening that he would kill them if they leave him and hacking off the finger of his mortal lover really rubs me the wrong way but I’m getting more and more numb to this show.

The flashback to the 1970s was probably the most Anne Rice-esque the show actually got to be.  When they start repeatedly calling the power of flight “Cloud gift” I was reminded how much I dislike the later books and the terms Anne Rice coined in the late 90s to early 2000s to try again shift the vocabulary of vampire fiction. I never liked the term “cloud gift.” Cloud Gift, Mind gift, and fire gift, all later novel terms for basic things like fight, telepathy, and pyrokinesis. Though based on how the cloud gift is described the correct term would actually be transvection.   

There’s something very cynical and mean about this show and the way the showrunner laugh-talks when he says “When you take him back when you know you shouldn’t.”  The way this showrunner acts about domestic violence really bothers me.

I get the impression this show runner has no real love for things Gothic.  He talks like a cynic, a mean one at that.   He doesn’t have any sense of romance.  And I don’t mean romance as in “love story” I mean romance as in the exaggerated and emotional drama that is Gothic fiction.  He’s too jaded to really seem to “get it.”  

Anyway, that’s pretty much all I can say for episode 6.  

[thenightling]

Interview with the vampire episode 4 review

I just watched Interview with the vampire episode 4.

More changes to the lore that don’t entirely sit right for me. They added a new reason to never make a child into a vampire.  Her “Child’s metabolism” is permeant, explaining away why she feels hungry at lot more than Louis and Lestat.

Also in the book Claudia’s mind still matured into a grown woman.  Now she’ll forever have the extreme emotions and hormones of a teenager.  This feels more like it is borrowing from True Blood and earlier Twilight more than The Vampire Chronicles.  In fact this version of Claudia is a lot like Jessica of the True Blood TV show and much more like her than Claudia of the Interview with the vampire novel.   

Also her and Lestat nicknamed blood “Kill juice.” That... doesn’t feel like something Lestat of the novel would make up.  They also made Lestat entirely accountable for turning Claudia instead of Louis and Lestat.  This time Louis didn’t feed on her at all. He pulled her from a fire and she was dying.  She was dying in the novel too (starved and exposed to the plague) but now Lestat is the only one who has a hand in her vampiric creation.  There’s no symbolic dual parental conception. 

This version of Claudia doesn’t seem to know how to even act human most of the time.  She’s ...not too bright.  I was fourteen-years-old the first time I read The Vampire Chronicles and this character is supposed to be fourteen and she mentally never matures past that and this was one dumb fourteen-year-old.  Claudia of the novel, even as a small child (mentally and physically before she mentally grew up) knew how to pretend and play a part.  She knew how to fake being a sickly and dying child for the coffin maker in the novel.  In this one she squeals with delight and can’t carry the pretense that she’s a dying little girl.  She doesn’t even try. In fact she’s ungrateful and self-absorbed pretty early on for a poor, orphaned, fourteen-year-old taken in by powerful, immortal, strangers.    

Yes, in the novel, her and Lestat did kill the coffin maker later (if I recall) but she played the part in front of Louis.  

This episode solidified my theory / belief that Rashied is Armand.  He’s pretty, youthful, curly haired, and they made it a point to show that during the daylight scene he strategically stood away from the direct sunlight. 

He’s religious, but they made him as Muslim instead of Catholic.   He also views Dubai as a “child”.  Also having Daniel suspicious of him makes it a bit obvious that he’s more than he seems.  Also he refers to E-mail as Electronic Mail, which is a bit archaic.  

 It is cute that Lestat and Louis speak in French when they’re arguing.  But also it’s odd that it’s Claudia who asks about Lestat’s maker and Louis never asked any questions about other vampires.

 There was a weird line in this episode about the bad after taste that would be in Claudia’s mouth after eating a cop.  ...Why would there be a bad after taste later?  I know blood spoils after a few hours but do these vampires not comprehend brushing their teeth?  And Anne Rice never claimed there was an aftertaste at all. 

  I don’t like Lestat dehumanizing his victims by calling them “The meat.”  It doesn’t feel right.  There’s no real class or tact with this version of Lestat.  Dracula with is fifteenth century sensibilities in Fred Saberhagen’s vampire novels shouldn’t be more humane and yet he is.      

I liked that Cluadia figured out how to block her thoughts from Louis.

I’m glad they have an adult woman playing Claudia because letting her have a sex life is... weird.  

The fact that Lestat forced her to watch the burning of the body of the boy she was in love with was really f--ked up.  This is nothing like the Lestat of Anne Rice’s novel. In the novel, perhaps, he would make her watch the body burn only so she would never accidentally kill someone she loves again, not to keep her from getting attached to mortals at all- which is why he seemed to do this.

Also it’s a bit uncomfortable that Claudia burns herself with sunlight as a metaphor for “cutting” and self-mutilation.   

I checked out what Maven of the Eventide thought of the episode and in her video she pointed out that Daniel’s Parkinson disease would not be treated with a transfusion of any kind.  An infusion treatment is given for end stage Parkinsons for patients who can’t use their mouth.  But Daniel is no where near end stage and an infusion is not a transfusion.  I, personally, suspect this medical treatment might be tampered with anyway otherwise why mention this kind of treatment at all?  This show is full of lazy writing. Nothing is said for no reason. Likely he’ll be given someone’s vampiric blood (likely Armand) during one of his treatments there, if not the very first.    

Something else odd that Maven pointed out in her video is that Claudia asks when she’ll grow while holding up the jewel pendant given to her by Lestat.  The actress playing her is a grown woman.  And she’s not even that short of a grown woman. All they did was put her in a binder to hide her breasts. Judy Garland looked younger in The Wizard of Oz.  They don’t bother to hide this actress’s size.  She’s a moderately sized woman.  Louis claims she took down a cop who was double her size but the kill scene shows she’s only a few inches shorter than him. She’s taller than me.  

 I just checked.  Bailey Bass, the actress who plays Claudia, is five feet and five inches tall.  That’s one inch above average height for most women.  And I’m only five feet tall, maybe five feet and one inch.  And yet this show keeps trying to convince us that this girl is tiny.  She’s not.  And they don’t make any efforts to try to make her look tiny other than the chest binder.  

Also this version of Claudia was made a vampire at fourteen and the character wants to keep growing. ...Are the show writers aware that many fourteen-year-old girls have already reached the height they’re going to be as grown ups?  Girls tend to grow faster than boys in that regard.  I was already the height I am now at fourteen-years-old.   

I still don’t understand the trope of leaving blood on the face or around the mouth when they feed.  Anne Rice, herself, used to talk about how ridiculous that was in movies and yet they do that here.  Do we, humans, walk around with soup on our faces all day? Why should vampires?  Real animals that drink blood (and they do exist in nature) don’t do that.  Why is this lazy thing done so often in TV and movies?   

The show again brought up the fact that vampire and fledgling cannot read each other’s minds or project their thoughts to each other... again contradicting Lestat guiding Louis’s first feeding psychically when he was first made a vampire. 

Maven of the Eventide also pointed out that the show seemed to forget there were supposed to be race riots that night...

It’s weird to me to see Louis feed on a fish. I know an alligator and chickens get fed on in the book but I always figured vampires prefer mammalian blood as it is closer to human blood and usually warm. I don’t imagine amphibian, reptile, or fish tasting good to him, especially when the blood is cold or at least not close to human blood temperature.       

It’s also weird that the show even bothered to let them able to eat human food.  There’s no point to it.  

I can accept the retractable fangs even though they were not retractable in the books.  But the eating of human food feels completely unnecessary.  

I do like that the horse belonging to the boy Claudia has a crush on reacts to her vampirism with fear.  Animals should be afraid of vampires unless enthralled / hypnotized.  

 I’m not really enjoying this but I can’t say this episode was the worst of them.  even though the “hints” of who Armand is has become pretty blatant...

Also it appears Maven of the Eventide agrees with me that Rashied is Armand.  She noticed that he hides his hands under gloves, so you never see his fingernails.  I’m pretty certain he IS Armand.  The hints are pretty big. Update:  I’ve had an entire night to think it over and the more I think about this episode the more what they did with Claudia angers me. Having Lestat explain away all her emotions as the result of permeant teenage metabolism and teenage “histrionics” annoys me.  It doesn’t feel like it’s just Lestat’s opinion. It feels like it’s meant to be a fact conveyed by her actions. Not only does this Claudia feel less intelligent and more vapid than her literary counterpart (who was a coping mechanism for the death of Anne Rice’s real-life daughter, Michelle) but also we’re apparently not supposed to feel any sympathy toward her. Even her own journal entries make her feel self-absorbed, selfish, and indifferent. 

If the fourteen-year-old girl version of me, the version of me that was obsessed with these novels, saw this version of Claudia, I would be very, very insulted. I think the implication that her emotions are just the result of permanently unstable hormones bothers me because of the nineteenth century notion of hysteria being used to dismiss the emotional needs of women, like it’s invalid and should be ignored. 

Also this lore feels weird for another reason.  WHY are her emotions and metabolism still like this?  The vampires are supposed to be “fixed” in the physical state they were at the time they turned into vampires.  In Dracula they age if they don’t feed and can revert to about middle aged or prime when well fed.  In Anne Rice’s lore they stay exactly the age they were when they became a vampire, right down to the hairstyle.  That means nothing about the body changes.  Whatever her hormonal level was at the time of her transformation is what the hormones should be. Her body isn’t growing anymore so there’s no need for a ridiculous “child’s metabolism.”  

And part of Claudia’s tragedy in the book is that her mind did mature even though her body did not.  Implying that her mind cannot mature is right out of Twilight and ignores things like life experience and memory effecting how you think and feel.  And frankly I find it stupid and dismissive and thus ruins any significance for what the character goes through in the story.