Tom Cruise’s bloody scene in Interview with the Vampire
earns a glowing review from VFX artists. Released in 1994, director Neil Jordan’s gothic horror adaptation of Anne Rice’s 1976 novel follows vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) as he recounts his life to journalist Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater). Cruise stars as Lestat de Lioncount in Interview with the Vampire, the vampire who is responsible for turning Louis into a vampire himself in 1791. One particularly notable sequence in the movie features Lestat morphing into a more monstrous form after getting his throat slit.
The VFX artists at Corridor Crew, including Sam Gorski, Wren Weichman, and Jordan Allen, now take a look at Cruise’s bloody throat-slitting scene in Interview with the Vampire, praising the sequence for its inventive visuals. Sam praises the sequence as being “more subtle than I thought it would be,” with Wren then going on to explain that it was accomplished using a mix of practical effects, including an animatronic from legendary Hollywood effects artist Sam Winston, and visual effects:
“Sam Winston’s shop actually made this whole hydraulic-powered puppet, like full robotic, the hands were all prosthetic, and they made 14 different faces that they were able to put onto the head.”
Wren then goes on to explain how motion control was used in the shot, with multiple passes and methods ultimately composited together to make up the final sequence in the movie:
“Obviously, the robot is doing the same motion over and over again, but the camera is also doing the same motion over and over again. And so they’re able to blend between all the different faces they made so that he slowly starts aging. So they start with the young prosthetic face and end with the really Tales From the Crypt face and all of the ones in between and they’re just blending between them.
“I’m pretty sure what they did was they had some base model that had the hair and all the clothing that they keep. So the sleeves, the rest of the clothing is probably just from one take. It’s not being blended back and forth, as far as my guess goes. But the hands change over time and the face changes over time.”
What Interview With The Vampire’s Impressive Tom Cruise Sequence Meant For The Movie
How The Film Was Received
Though Interview with the Vampire isn’t hailed alongside movies like The Terminator (1984) or Jurassic Park (1993) as films that pushed visual and special effects forward in a major way, it certainly features several sequences that stand out. In addition to Lestat’s throat-slitting scene, there is another sequence in which Cruise dons extensive amounts of makeup and facial prosthetics in order to look old and partially decomposed as he plays the piano.
Related
Interview with the Vampire never got a sequel because of Tom Cruise, and though he was right in not doing it, that doomed the franchise.
The impressive effects didn’t, however, lead to critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, Interview with the Vampire has a lukewarm 63% score from critics. Audiences, however, seemed to enjoy the film far more, as the Popcornmeter score is 86%. Interview with the Vampire was also a box office success, grossing $223 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million. The film and novel have stood the test of time so effectively that an AMC TV adaptation was released on AMC in 2022, earning glowing reviews. Interview with the Vampire season 3 is now confirmed to be on the way.
The Interview with the Vampire TV show is part of AMC’s Immortal Universe of shows, which includes Mayfair Witches and The Talamasca.
Our Take On Interview With The Vampire’s Impressive Effects
The Movie Is An Interesting Tom Cruise Outlier
Cruise has now been one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood for over two decades, and he will be best known to many viewers now for his role in the Mission: Impossible movies. There remain a number of notable movies from the ’80s and ’90s that remain true Cruise classics, however, and Interview with the Vampire could certainly be considered among them. Cruise isn’t an actor who usually delves too far into horror, meaning the 1994 film occupies a unique position in his career.
Cruise has a handful of standout moments in Interview with the Vampire, and it’s rare to see him playing such a monstrous figure. It’s also rare to see him die on camera, making his vampire bloodbath scene particularly memorable (even though it doesn’t actually result in Lestat’s death). If this Interview with the Vampire scene were done today, it would likely rely far more on visual effects and CGI, but its the mixture of digital effects and practical elements in the 1994 movie that makes the scene so impressive.
Source: Corridor Crew
Interview with the Vampire
- Release Date
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November 11, 1994
- Runtime
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123 minutes
- Director
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Neil Jordan
- Writers
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Anne Rice
