SCAREDY CAT'S FILE

Is Interview with the Vampire Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot

Rating: 5
Author: Scaredy Cat

Yes, 5 out of 10. It's a gothic tragedy with a few brutal scenes and a lot of sorrow.

THE SCARE SIGNAL

SCARE SCORE

5 /10

DREAD LEVEL

Medium

The sad parts stay with you for an evening, and the frightening parts fade sooner.

DOG

Dog: not fine

not fine, and we're sorry.

Ruling: Fine for adults who like their vampires sad, and a poor choice if you want a scare.

Interview with the Vampire runs 123 minutes, most of them spent listening to a man explain why immortality was a mistake. The man is being recorded on cassette tape, which is the only thing in the movie that keeps good records.

The premise, briefly

A reporter in San Francisco interviews a man who says he is a vampire, who describes two centuries of love, grief and a very bad household arrangement with another vampire.

How much do you want to know?

The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.

CUT TO THE CHASE

How it ends

Louis loses Claudia, burns down the Paris vampire theater in revenge, and decades later finds Lestat alive and declines to rejoin him. Louis then attacks the reporter to scare him off, and Lestat appears on the Golden Gate Bridge and offers the reporter a choice.

The scene you're dreading

Late in the movie, the Paris vampires shut Claudia and Madeleine in a room that the morning sun reaches, and both burn to ash. Louis is locked in an iron coffin at the time and cannot reach them.

The dog

A dog dies when one of the main vampires drinks its blood. Rats are drained too, and a woman's dogs are also killed.

It is a melancholy drama with a few violent stretches, and the part that hurts most is what happens to Claudia.

THE SHORT VERSION IS HIDDEN

How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.

What actually happens

A widower accepts an offer he did not read

In San Francisco in 1991, a reporter named Daniel Molloy interviews Louis de Pointe du Lac, who says he is a vampire. Louis begins in 1791 Louisiana, where he is a rich plantation owner who has lost his pregnant wife and their unborn baby. One night he walks drunk along the New Orleans waterfront and is attacked by a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt. Lestat sees how unhappy Louis is and offers to change him. Louis accepts and regrets it almost at once. Lestat revels in hunting and killing humans, while Louis resists the urge and gets by on animal blood, which Lestat finds irritating.

Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.

Raising a daughter who is also a vampire

During a plague outbreak in New Orleans, Louis feeds on a small girl whose mother died in the plague. Lestat then changes the dying girl, Claudia, to persuade Louis to stay. They raise her as their daughter. Louis loves her, and Lestat treats her as an apprentice and trains her to kill without mercy. Thirty years pass, and Claudia grows up inside while staying a child on the outside. When she understands she will never age, she turns on Lestat and tells Louis they should leave him. She poisons twin boys with laudanum and has Lestat drink their blood, which weakens him, and she cuts his throat. Louis is shaken but helps her drop Lestat's body in a swamp. Lestat comes back the night they are leaving, and Louis sets him on fire. The blaze spreads through the French Quarter, and they escape by ship.

Paris and the theater of vampires

After searching Europe and the Mediterranean without finding other vampires, Louis and Claudia settle in Paris in 1870. There they meet Santiago and Armand, and Armand invites them to the Théâtre des Vampires, his group's theater, where vampires perform horror shows for human audiences. Santiago reads Louis's mind and suspects they killed Lestat. Claudia demands that Louis change a woman named Madeleine to be her companion, and he does. The Paris vampires then abduct all three to punish them for Lestat's murder. They lock Louis in an iron coffin to starve and shut Claudia and Madeleine in a room that the morning sun reaches, where both burn up. This is the scene to brace for, and it comes late in the movie. Armand does nothing, but he frees Louis the next day. At dawn Louis returns to the theater, lights it on fire and kills every vampire in it.

An old friend in an old house

Armand helps Louis get away from the sunrise and asks him to stay. Louis refuses. He cannot accept how Armand lives, and he knows Armand let Claudia die. Over the following decades Louis explores the world alone and never gets over losing her. In 1988 he returns to New Orleans and finds Lestat weak and decayed in an abandoned mansion, living on rat blood as Louis once did. Lestat says he regrets what he did to Claudia and asks Louis to come back to him. Louis says no and leaves. Back in the interview, Molloy begs Louis to change him too. Louis, furious that Molloy has missed the point of his story, attacks him to frighten him off.

The ending, explained

Molloy flees to his car and drives off, playing the tapes of the interview. On the Golden Gate Bridge, Lestat appears and attacks him, taking over the wheel. Molloy's blood revives Lestat, who then offers him the choice that he himself was never given, which is whether to become a vampire. Lestat laughs and keeps driving. Claudia, Madeleine, Santiago and the rest of the Paris vampires are dead, and Louis has turned down both Armand and Lestat.

The post-credits ruling

There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.

✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: not fine, and we're sorry.

Questions people ask at 1am

Is Interview with the Vampire scary?

Yes. Interview with the Vampire is a 5 out of 10 with medium dread. It is a sad gothic story with some violent scenes and a few jump scares.

How does Interview with the Vampire end?

Louis loses Claudia, burns the Paris coven, and later finds Lestat alive in New Orleans. Lestat then attacks the reporter on the Golden Gate Bridge and gives him the choice of becoming a vampire.

Does the dog die in Interview with the Vampire?

Yes, a dog dies in Interview with the Vampire when one of the main characters drinks its blood. Rats are drained several times as well, and a woman's dogs are killed.

Is there a post-credits scene in Interview with the Vampire?

No. Interview with the Vampire has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.

What happens to Claudia in Interview with the Vampire?

The Paris vampires punish Claudia for the murder of Lestat by shutting her in a room with Madeleine that the morning sun reaches. Armand does nothing to stop it, and both burn to ash.

BLURRED FOR YOUR PROTECTION

The whole plot of Interview with the Vampire is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.

You can skip two hours of sorrow in Interview with the Vampire and still know what happens. Install Scaredy Cat and it blurs horror before you see it.

Get Scaredy Cat, free