[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

No matter how many times i watch this i never grow weary of it. The minute i sit down i'm lost in Neil Jordan and Anne Rice's world of decaying decadence.

A vampire, Louis, (Brad Pitt) relates his 200 year story to an inquisitive reporter (Christian Slater). Telling of his relationship and introduction to vampirism by Lestat (Tom Cruise).

A rather divisive vampire film but one that is almost unique in the way it portrays the vampire. It's very non-traditional in the way it lets it's metaphors of the daily struggle for survival and the need to search for a mentor to lead them out of the darkness play out.

Probably the films most striking sequence in the Theatre des Vampire show in Paris, where a coven of vampires carries out daily sacrificial rites in front of an audience. Director Neil Jordan stages this brilliantly and a feeling of dread overcomes the viewer as it doesn't take long to realize what exactly is going to happen. As Pitt's Louis smiles to Claudia (the superb Kirsten Dunst), a vampire in the body of a child, 'Vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires'.

Everyone appears at the top of their game. From the production design to the score to the acting and the rich dialogue. Tom Cruise has never been so miscast in a role as he is Lestat and yet he totally owns the part whilst Pitt, Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas also excel.

"That morning I was not yet a vampire, and I saw my last sunrise. I remember it completely, and yet I can't recall any sunrise before it. I watched the whole magnificence of the dawn for the last time as if it were the first. And then I said farewell to sunlight, and set out to become what I became."

Lost Hearts (1973)

Every time i watch this during the month of December i always tell myself to watch it in late October seeing as it's set on Halloween.

Whether you see this in October or December it doesn't make it any less bloody creepy with those two blue dead kids nodding their heads from side to side sporting inane grins whilst playing a bloody hurdy gurdy, empty cavities in their chests where their hearts once resided.

This always seems so far removed from the other cosy fireside tales of the rest of James Ghost Story for Christmas adaptations that i'm happy to watch at the time of year when the thin veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is at it's weakest.