I SAW THE VAMPIRE LESTAT

AMC's The Vampire Lestat has concluded, and so, you ask, how did the culmination of its seven episodes strike me, or should that be, bite me (tee hee)? 

It drained me. That's what it did, and that's not a bad thing. I believe that was the intent. In that raucous regard, it tapped Stephen Herek's Rock Star as much as it did Anne Rice's novel. Sam Reid's bloodsucker needn't have been an eternal parasite to demonstrate the dangers of excess. All the same, the saga's ironic, audio-book confessional, "The Failures," was the ultimate anthem of unbridled, vampiric, Dionysus heedlessness. (Its "One More Pallbearer" finale only strengthened it.)

On this basis, the AMC version was sprung as an indisputable, hyperbolic impression (at best and most), with many impudent liberties taken. That's not a bad thing, either. It is what it is, in any event. I can't change that. Should I even wish to, considering (for one) how effective that witchy, left-field, Regina/Claudia angle was? Such also goes for Eric Bogosian's Daniel Molloy and his overbearing though absorbing modification, induced by Assad Zaman's manipulative (ordained-to-behead) Armand (a turn that only came toward the end of the Queen of the Damned novel, mind you). 

Indeed, these tweaks weren't Rice-ian in any loyal sense, but then nor has been Jacob Anderson's not-so-sensitive Louis de Point du Lac, a reinterpreted, discontented entity who lamented his outcast state far, far less than in his fledgling, pop-cultural years (and his outspoken angst even prevailed in a Brain That Wouldn't Die state). Blasphemous or ingenious? That's for the audience to decide and in that ambivalence, "Ay, there's the rub." 

The supporting (new-to-the-queue) cast is what won me over, as its recruits rattled the cage in ways I'd never dreamed: Christopher (Twilight/Hell on Wheels) Heyerdahl as Marius, Damien (Take This Waltz) Atkins as Magnus and Jennifer (John and the Hole) Ehle as Gabriella, Lestat's incestuous mom, and then there's the grandmommy of 'em all, Sheila (Mufasa: The Lion King) Atim's Akasha. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I do consider Aaliyah's take in Michael Rymer's movie to be closer to the book (or at least she was closer to the way I envisioned the character based on my disposition at the time), but Atim's version is a hyper-kinetic one that situates the Queen on a ferocious level, much more in tune with a horror semblance than the one introduced in the novel or the 2002 movie, where amatory, ancient enchantment is the rule of the day or, uh, make that, the night.

I believe it's Atim's facial quirks and her wild vocalization (full of frantic rhythm and rhyme) that sets her Akasha apart. I realize, too, that (as with the three-season jaunt so far) such may not meet everyone's approval, but then the same could be said of so many (re)visions pulled from a page, including Lugosi's debonaire countenance and Karloff's flat head and electrodes, and yet those results have plucked an iconic chord. I think Atim's deviating persona does the same or at least will, given time.

So, enough (for the moment) of Atim's Akasha. The show is Lestat, and Reid has soared high as the tyrannical de Lioncourt, more this time than before, which is saying a lot, considering how he excelled within the layering seasons. For his titular blast, his conniptions came straight from the bowels, and his impassioned (Theatre des Vampires-inspired) stage presence (so shameless and defiant) did an uncanny job channeling INXS' Michael Hutchence, with a few unavoidable nods to Jim Morrison. (It's odd that I'd never considered Hutchence as Lestat until this AMC incarnation, but I can see how he would have worked in the part, but why press the notion? For the here and now, it's not here nor there.) 

Overall, I believe the AMC Lestat was A-okay, even if long delayed. As I said in my June, warmup post, a Vampire Lestat movie should have been greenlit on the heels of Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire (and if that wasn't to be the case, due to Tom Cruise's reluctance to reprise the role, then the tardy Queen of the Damned should've at least spawned The Tale of the Body Thief, with Stuart Townsend continuing his flaxen-haired reign), but again, it is what it is, and it can't be changed. The AMC adaptation now paves a path for a new Queen of the Damned (one that's not missing certain, bridging precursors), and if Lestat's incensed psychedelia is instilled, I do believe all will be well with the allegorical, amoral world.🧛