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LEM Film Review: Interview With The Vampire
LEM FILM REVIEW:
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
Living Epistles Ministries is a Port Jefferson Station, New York-based teaching ministry providing services and educational materials to followers around the world. The Living Epistles Ministries (LEM) website, www.livingepistles.org, is home to a number of founder Sheila R. Vitale’s writings. Her works range from alternative Biblical translations to commentary on modern life and culture.
Ms. Vitale’s cultural commentary includes reviews of popular movies, such as Neil Jordan’s 1994 gothic horror film Interview with the Vampire, which was based on the 1976 Anne Rice novel of the same name. The film stars Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and a young Kirsten Dunst.
Ms. Vitale interprets the film’s message as a satire of human nature, and cites a written message from Rice that opens the film, which discusses the presence of the devil in the human mind. Despite the excessive violence featured throughout the movie, Ms. Vitale highlights a number of spiritual principles that anchors the narrative in a more human place. As Ms. Vitale explains, Rice and Jordan have “taken human relationships and transferred them into a gory physical relationship.”
In other words, the story of "Interview with the Vampire" examines the often subtle ways in which humans fail to communicate or recognize spiritual strife within themselves and others, all through the vibrant, exaggerated lens of a vampire horror film.
Of course, the film also expounds on the age-old topics of good and evil, and more specifically speaks to the idea that both good and evil exists in every person.
The complete transcript of Ms. Vitale’s film review, along with other cultural messages, is available online.
