I was skeptical at first. I had been a fan of the original movie. The cast in the movie was nearly perfect at the time. But the books were always disturbing to me. They had pedophilia and incest, which was such a typical thing in Anne Rice's books. That always bothered me. This series has taken the essentials of the book and made it better. Sorry Rice's fans, but I prefer a story where two grown men are fully aware of their relationship, over all the love and sexual feelings between a grown man and a woman in a 5 year old girl's body. At least the 90's movie had Claudia as an older girl, still too young, but they skipped the romantic and sexual relationship she had with Louis in the book. I much prefer this series' story, and I fully appreciate the way they adapted it to our present, Covid and all. I deeply appreciate that they made Claudia a teenager. And her love interests are usually age appropriate.
The writing is beautiful. I actually do not like gore nor stressful sexual scenarios. But the relationships in this show have been very well written and better yet, believable. The dialogue is very elegant even when they speak of horrible things like violent death and describe the terrible things that happen in the scenes. Every line has an intent and it's neither long and boring nor too short.
I loved Lestat. Sam Reid is exquisite as Lestat. OMG. His French accent is such a beautiful and important piece we missed in the movie. I always heard him with a French accent when I read the books and I appreciate the effort they put on making him more genuine. His acting is flawless. You really fall in love with his character. Bravo.
The rest of the cast is amazing. Even though they switch Claudia's actress in the second season, both Bailey and Delainey are brilliant at their work. Jacob as Louis was very good. His acting was superb. Eric as Daniel was pretty genuine. Assad was good but I always pictured Armand more like Antonio Bandera's version in my head. But the books do say he was pretty "boyish" so Assad actually fits the role very well. Ben as Santiago was perfect.
I think the only mistake has been naming it "Anne Rice's" IWTV. It's definitely not really the original Anne Rice's work. It's better. Her work, as beloved as it was, if you read it, it's sick and disgusting. I'll never be on board with her sadistic women sexual humiliation and pedophilia. But I get why they did it. It might've not grabbed our attention otherwise after so many vampire stories. The subject had become a bit exhausted and naming it IWTV grabbed our attention. Well played. I'm impressed.
