The Vampire Lestat Review
Vampires were never very interesting to me until I watched Interview with the Vampire. When I met Louis and Lestat, everything clicked. I understood why vampires were such a fascinating and romantic monster that people always fawn over. When I was coming of age, Twilight was all the rage which may have tainted me to the idea of the children of the night. But over and over again, Lestat De Lipncourt drags me back to the world of darkness. The Vampire Lestat continues that beautiful vampiric legacy with a fresh rock’n’roll paint over the suaveness of the interviews.
The Vampire Lestat follows the golden-haired vampire Lestat de Lioncourt. Resentful of his perfunctory portrayal in journalist Daniel Molloy’s bestseller, Lestat responds by starting a band, going on a multi-city tour, and dealing with the unnatural surge of vampires known as the Great Conversion.
It’s not clear where Sam Reid ends and Lestat begins because the two have perfectly melded into one idea when you watch The Vampire Lestat. His sardonic facial expressions, his witty retorts, and his overall who-gives-a-fuck nature shine this season as Lestat takes the spotlight from Louis’s previous two seasons. The fallout over the book being released is where the cracks that we have seen in Lestat before shine.
Lestat is vein, lonely, and broken in so many ways over a life of being eternal. This season is focused on his own self titled Failures. There is so much pizazz in Reid’s performance when Lestat himself is performing. His back and fourths with Daniel Malloy (Eric Bogosian) are even better than with Louis and Arman, because Lestat is just as combative as he is. But on the flip of a dime from sass and sarcasm, Reid can slip into a deeply emotionally unsound Lestat that lies beneath. There is a manic nature to Lestat this season as he reasons with his past, his present, and what nightmares may come next.
Louis (Jacob Anderson) is just as much a star this season as the last. Dealing with his own baggage, with the truth of vampirism being public being his fault is an interesting foil to Lestat’s. While Lestat creates a rock band and a huge tour, Louis handles his own reaction with a calmer response but when he lets loose…there is nothing stopping him. Louis gets such cathartic scenes this season that I dare not spoil but they ooze that quiet anger the character has had for so long.
Sam Reid’s performances of Lestat’s songs are phenomenal. Every new one that gets released automatically joins my most played tracks on Spotify within the day of its release. The songwriting by Daniel Hart is spectacular and catchy in ways a vampire’s rock confessions should.
The Vampire Lestat takes everything that was building in the previous seasons and attacks it from a different perspective. It’s a powerhouse of vampiric slaughter, sexiness, and literal blood piss. There’s a reason Lestat is one of the biggest vampires of all time and the show is a shining example of why he gleams in the moonlight. Watching the fallout of the novel of the first two seasons release is a spectacle to behold. In the words of Lestat himself…”Serving cunt has its consequences.”
Resentful of the perfunctory portrayal in the trashy best-seller Interview With the Vampire, the Vampire Lestat sets his story straight in a way only the Vampire Lestat can — by starting a band and going on tour.