INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

The film version of Anne Rice's immensely popular 1976 novel is less a horror movie than a luxurious reverie on horror-movie themes. The director, Neil Jordan, and his cinematographer, the great Philippe Rousselot, have given the movie an extraordinary seductive look, but Rice (who wrote the screenplay) doesn't provide enough narrative to keep the audience satisfied. Her vampires are so isolated from the world that there really isn't much for them to do except go on their nightly rounds and squabble-suck and bicker, suck and bicker, in scene after scene. Gorgeous as the picture is, the endless elaborations on the vampire story's obvious eroticism become very tiresome. This movie is convincing evidence that in popular genres subtext should stay where it belongs-underground. If it's brought into the light, it shrivels and dies. With Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rae, and Christian Slater.