'Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.'

Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid in the television adaptation of ‘Interview with the Vampire’ (2002); available on iPlayer).

I have been watching (truthfully, I have concluded) the television adaptation of ‘Interview with the Vampire.’

While opinions naturally vary, I enjoyed this serialised version of Anne Rice's eternal tale for reasons that differ from my enjoyment of the 1994 Neil Jordan-directed sumptuously starry film. While the movie relied on star power and visual decadence, it was reluctant to depict the sex and homoeroticism the late author never shied away from in her work. The television series — complete with a few tweaks updating the modern parts of the storyline to our post-pandemic age — is lavish and gloriously erotic in exploring and depicting the complex and frequently fraught love affair between Lestat (Sam Reid, perfect in the role and resembling a gorgeous blonde marble statue) and Louis (beautifully sensual Jacob Anderson) in their respective roles of maker and fledging vampire; a relationship bound by love, blood, and passion, but also control, abandonment issues, and violence. All these are very human issues, yet these undead beauties are essentially sucking and fucking their way through the centuries.

It's no secret (and hardly anyone will be shocked) that I was an Anne Rice (pre)teen who was – pardon the pun - sucked into the worlds she created. I also harbour a not-so-secret fondness for the film Queen of the Damned, which Rice effectively disowned after studios dismissed and ignored her ideas and vision. It is, I admit, a rather messy piece of work — it's all over the place — in its attempts to combine two (I would even say three) books into one cinematic romp. The result is a capsule of early millennium culture, with vampires who dressed like they bought their clothes not from a fine tailor in Vienna but from Oasis Market in Birmingham (or Hot Topic in the States), complete with a blaring nu-metal soundtrack. It is frequently and unintentionally funny, but who cares when one of the most memed moments occurs when Chino Moreno's dulcet vocals are soundtracking the sex scene?

In light of these swirling thoughts, and as an accompaniment to my most recent dispatch for paid subs, here is a short piece I wrote for Warwick Arts Centre's ‘Show Me Your Teeth’ season last autumn/winter, a fun a series of films exploring representations of the female vampire on screen. I was part of a panel and wrote this short piece for the accompanying zine. (In typical fashion, I would probably make some minor tweaks now — but regardless, enjoy!)

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Aaliyah as Queen Akasha in Queen of the Damned (Michael Rymer, 2002).

In the opening scenes to Queen of the Damned (Michael Rymer, 2002) the loose sequel to Interview with the Vampire, the Vampire Lestat is awoken from his eternal slumber by the hard rock of his musician neighbours. This band, epitomising all the tropes of millennium nu metal, are startled when this pale, beautiful creature appears out of nowhere, all leather-trousered and open shirt, splayed across their Marshall stack. It's a titillating sight, with Stuart Townsend possessing the allure of the late INXS singer Michael Hutchence. He is the Vampire Lestat, the original rockstar before rockstars were even part of cultural terminology. He is more metal than this band will ever be.

Lestat's music is potent enough to awaken Akasha, *the Queen of the Damned*, the mother of all vampires, played by the late singer Aaliyah in her final film role. The two embark on carnal love affair that only the undead can experience, culminating in an incredible sex scene soundtracked to Deftones' Change (In the House of Flies).

There's always been an overlap between vampires and rockstars: sexiness, eternal life after death, and the transient power of music. If Queen of the Damned is the most nu-metal film, vampiric or otherwise, The Hunger (1983) is the most vampirically goth. Directed by the masterful Tony Scott in his directorial debut, the opening nightclub scene soundtracked by Bauhaus’ Bela Lugosi's Dead could have been a cliché and a goth pastiche. Instead, it's a mighty rallying cry complete with a sneering Peter Murphy in a wire cage.

Or maybe we are the ones being held captive? And we effectively are. As the synths and drumbeats coalesce and stir, we feel something inside us brew, something carnal, deeply visceral, not quite human.

Nightclubs are feeding grounds for vampires. Among the noise is the intimacy between beautiful vampire couple David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve, eyeing their prey around them. Suddenly we are jolted as a knife slashes, and there is blood. It breaks our hypnotic trance, threatens us with violence, and we feel those cuts before seeing the blood, interrupted by sex on screen. The images start to splinter, and a monkey in a cage screams. The images begin to fragment, the intensity builds, and the animal screams.

Anne Rice famously said, “In the very depths of Hell, do not demons love one another?” Blood. Sex. Music. Violence. Pleasures of the undead.