While not an immediate success, Anne Rice’s 1976 debut novel Interview with the Vampire eventually sold millions of copies and launched a franchise called The Vampire Chronicles. Nearly 20 years after the book’s publication, Interview leapt to movie screens via a highly hyped and much anticipated cinematic adaptation of the same title.

Told in flashback, rich Louisiana plantation owner Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) gets assaulted by Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise). This turns Louis into a vampire.

Though Louis does so willingly, he develops dissatisfaction with the undead lifestyle, a contrast to the more freewheeling Lestat. Their relationship evolves over the years and eventually brings in surrogate daughter Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), a youngster they transform into a vampire, one who gets stuck in pre-adolescence over the years.

Despite its adaptation of a hugely popular novel and the presence of major movie stars, Interview encountered some headwinds in 1994, primarily because Rice initially expressed serious misgivings about the casting. In particular, she found Cruise to seem like the wrong choice for Lestat.

Rice changed her mind when she saw Cruise’s performance, though I admit I always wondered if she really felt that impressed by Tom’s work. I couldn’t help but think folks at the studio pressured Rice to clean up the controversy so her legions of fans would see the film.

I never read any of Rice’s novels so I can’t compare. Indeed, I only saw Interview once back during its theatrical run and don’t recall much about it, so I guess it didn’t make a huge impression on me.

As I saw it again 32 years later, I realized why Interview left little mark: it offers a fairly dull experience. While not devoid of pleasures, too much of the film just plods.

Whatever controversies accompanied Cruise’s casting, Interview doesn’t entertain without him. Despite his top billing, Cruise goes MIA for fairly large chunks of the film, as Louis becomes the film’s true main character.

I’ve long liked Pitt but he fails to provide an engaging performance as Louis. He seems flat and bland too much of the time.

As noted, I never read Rice’s novel, so perhaps Pitt played Louis as written. Whatever the case, Louis turns into a drag on the rest of the proceedings, a considerable problem given he appears in virtually every scene.

Rather than make Louis seem tortured and filled with regrets, Pitt just feels vapid. Pitt quickly developed into a strong actor but here he comes across as little more than a bland pretty boy.

Cruise brings energy to his scenes, and Interview really zings when Lestat, Louis and Claudia form their own little perverted family. Interview didn’t become Dunst’s cinematic debut – she’d been in a handful of movies as early as 1989 – but it turned into her breakout, one that established her as a formidable child actor.

In a cast of established performers, Dunst turns in the best work of the bunch. Of the three leads, only Claudia goes through a real arc because her status as an immortal stuck in the body of a young girl.

Dunst pulls off these demands with aplomb. She manages to display the attitude of a frustrated “child” without phony affect and truly impresses.

During the parts of Interview that focus on the Lestat/Louis/Claudia “family”, the movie comes to life. Unfortunately, we lose Lestat before long and then barely see him the rest of the way, factors that make too much of the tale a snoozer.

During its second half, Interview sends Louis and Claudia to Paris and they encounter a pack of vampires there. Though these moments come with potential, they don’t develop well and they fail to bring much intrigue to the project.

At the risk of entering dead horse territory, this happens because of the focus on Louis. I get it: the movie’s titular interview comes from Louis so we need to stick with his POV the whole way.

Or most of the way, as the film does come with some scenes that Louis couldn’t have witnessed. Nonetheless, the basic framework leans heavily on that character.

When matched with strong other roles, we can endure Louis’s eternal dreariness. But without Lestat or Claudia, boredom results.

Heck, even with Lestat or Claudia, the movie can drag. As noted, only when we see Louis with both does the film really click.

Since this occupies a brief portion of Interview, the end result fails to engage on a consistent basis. It does kick to life with a vivid finale, one that teases a sequel we never got.

That feels like too little, too late, however. Despite occasional pleasures, too much of Interview creates a snoozer.

Franchise footnote: 2002’s Queen of the Damned offered a continuation of the Lestat tale but I feel reluctant to call it a true sequel. It included no one from Interview and felt more like a semi-reboot than a continuation of the 1994 saga.

This seems especially true because Interview essentially ends on a teaser for a sequel but Queen doesn’t pick up from there. I see Queen as a standalone film with some characters in common with Interview but not a true sequel.

Interview with the Vampire appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Overall, this became a satisfying Dolby Vision presentation.

Much of the film looked concise and accurate, but exceptions occurred. I suspect these stemmed from the source, however, especially because Interview used candlelight to illuminate many of its scenes.

Jagged edges and moiré effects created no concerns, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain felt natural and I saw no print flaws.

Interview boasted a palette that leaned toward red/orange to suit all the candlelit scenes, with a blue/gray tint at times as the story progressed. The colors consistently seemed vivid and bright, and they appeared rich, with a nice boost from HDR.

Black levels also felt deep and dense, while shadow detail seemed appropriately heavy but not excessively thick. HDR gave whites and contrast extra punch. The nature of the source kept the image from objective greatness, but the 4K UHD likely looked as good as the film could.

Down converted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the remixed Dolby Atmos soundtrack of Interview presented a vivid affair. To a fair degree, the focus remained on the music.

The score displayed excellent stereo imaging and really added a lot of kick to the mix. Otherwise, much of the track stayed fairly heavily oriented toward the center channel.

I noted reasonably good general ambience throughout the film, and some more heavily populated scenes provided a greater level of activity. The surrounds seemed fairly passive throughout the movie, but they contributed a nice sense of reinforcement, particularly in regard to the music.

Audio quality appeared excellent. Speech came across as natural and crisp, and I noticed no issues related to intelligibility or edginess.

Effects largely played a minor role in the film, but they always seemed accurate and well defined, with no issues related to distortion or other areas. Of course, the music remained the most important element, and the mix provided very solid reproduction of the score.

Music sounded bright and vivid, and those components boasted good dynamic range. This turned into an effective mix for the story.

When we head to the set’s extras, we open with an audio commentary from director Neil Jordan. He brings a running, screen-specific look at what brought him to the project, story/characters/adaptation, sets and locations, stunts/action, effects, cast and performances, music and connected domains.

For the most part, Jordan gives us a quality look at the film’s production. Though he goes silent a little too often, we learn more than enough about Interview to make the commentary worth a listen.

An Introduction from Jordan, author Anne Rice and actor Antonio Banderas spans a mere one minute, two seconds and brings some very basic notes. Packed with film clips, it seems superfluous.

Approximately seven Deleted Scenes occupy a total of eight minutes, one second. I say “approximately” because the scenes come without chapter stops and they run together in a way that occasionally makes it difficult to see when one ends and another starts.

In any case, we get more about Louis’s encounter with Lestat/initial transformation as well as a few other character beats. Some seem interesting but we wind up with more dreary whining from Louis.

Four featurettes follow, and Eternal Night and Deadly Light goes for eight minutes. It involves Jordan and editor Mick Audsley.

We get a discussion of photography and always shooting at night. "Light" offers some useful thoughts.

Creating the World lasts 10 minutes, 40 seconds. This one features Jordan and production designer Dante Ferretti.

As implied, "World" examines the movie's set design, costumes and related choices. Expect another worthwhile discussion.

Next comes In the Shadow of the Vampire. During the 29-minute, 40-second program, we hear from Rice, Jordan, creature effects designer Stan Winston, visual effects designer Rob Legato, vampire historians Professor Laurence Rickels, and actors Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea, and Kirsten Dunst.

"Shadow" covers the origins/creation of Rice's novel and its path to the screen, story/characters, cast and performances, various effects, and the vampire genre. Some parts of "Shadow" go silly - like when the participants get asked if they believe in vampires - but we get enough good film-related material to overcome these flaws.

Finally, Lestat, Louis and the Vampire Phenomenon occupies 24 minutes, four seconds. It brings information from Jordan, Rice, Harvard Associate Dean and Lecturer Dr. Sue Weaver Schropf, Vampire Nation author Dr. Toma Longinovic, UC San Diego Professor Lisa Lampert-Weissig, The Vampire Goes to College editor Dr. Lisa Nevarez, and Curry College Professor Dr. Melissa Anyiwo.

The program views aspects of vampires in culture along with Rice's take and reflections on the movie. Some decent notes emerge but too much of it seems oriented toward praise for Interview.

When it focuses on all three of its primary characters, Interview with the Vampire snaps to life. Most of the movie focuses on its lead interesting role, unfortunately, and that makes it a sluggish bore too much of the time. The 4K UHD offers positive picture and audio along with a mix of supplements. Despite some engaging moments, too much of Interview turns into a drag.