AMC’s Interview with the Vampire Gets a Couple of Teasers

Television

AMC is sharpening its fangs for the fall. The network has released two short teasers for its upcoming series, Interview with the Vampire. Based on the landmark horror novel by Anne Rice – and following the excellent movie adaptation directed by Neil Jordan – Interview with the Vampire tells the story of Louis de Pointe Du Lac and his journey through becoming a vampire, as told by Louis to a reporter in the modern day. Jacob Anderson – Grey Worm from Game of Thrones – will be playing Louis, with Sam Reid as Louis’ maker (and everybody’s favorite character), Lestat de Lioncourt. Interview with the Vampire will air on AMC this fall. Check out the teasers below:

There isn’t much to these videos. They’re really just quick samples of the show’s flavor. From a production design standpoint, this looks fantastic; the winding trip through the spooky mansion leading to the vampires’ coffins is unnerving, and the lively streets of New Orleans in the second one capture the town’s flavor. I like how they’re slowly teasing Lestat as well; while Louis is the main character in the first novel of The Vampire Chronicles (Lestat would take over from there, sit out for a while, then return), Lestat is the main attraction, the fun vampire everyone imagines they would be if they were turned. But, unfortunately, the good stuff is just window dressing because this series has already made a disastrous mistake in its casting. Louis is being played by a black man in a bid to “diversify” Rice’s characters (which indicates that the people behind this haven’t read much of her work because they get more diverse as the vampires’ origins are revealed). If you haven’t read any of the books or seen the movie, Louis was a wealthy French landowner in the Antebellum South who owned slaves before he became a vampire. To make him black, they’ll either have to ignore the contradiction this creates – which is so stupid Disney would put it in a Star Wars movie – or change the character to such a degree that he simply isn’t Louis anymore. Anne Rice passed away late last year (an absolute tragedy, in itself and to literature; I know her more modern books – which I haven’t gotten to yet – aren’t held in high regard, but she’s written some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read), so I don’t know how involved she was or what she thought of the recasting, but she was supposed to have been an executive producer on the show. It’s a shame, but it looks like we’re in for another wokefest, despite how gorgeous the visuals look.

What do you think of the Interview with the Vampire teasers? Are you going to watch the series? Are you getting a barf bag ready for the interviews with all the preening narcissists who are about to tell us about how they’ve “fixed” the “problematic” books that they’re exploiting for profit? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned to Geeks + Gamers for more TV news!