‘You have no idea how few vampires have the stamina for immortality!” Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt bring the staying power in Neil Jordan’s entirely outrageous horror-comedy bromance, produced by Stephen Woolley and adapted for the screen by Anne Rice from her own bestseller, now rereleased for its 30-year anniversary. The histrionic energy and ambition, operatic pathos and dapper, jaunty offensiveness are undimmed. Succeeding decades have only increased the film’s fanbase. I remember a dinner at the Edinburgh film festival with Catherine Breillat, director of Romance and Anatomy of Hell, as she discoursed with passion on how she adored it.
It is now almost mandatory with people of a certain age to claim that a certain masterpiece of their salad days “couldn’t be made now”. But … two hottie vampires who contrive to apply a sexualised bite-kiss to a 12-year-old girl (Kirsten Dunst – a performance for the ages) … and that girl becomes as worldly as any depraved grownup and travels with our two heroes through the night-time fleshpots as a daughter or stepdaughter or (sort of) platonic lover? Erm, which year was that ever OK for, again?
