The voiceover (Guy Maddin) says we are “listening to The Failures, Album 22, Side A.” Lestat (Sam Reid) describes the Toronto skyline as having “vainglorious homogeny.”
At their request, Lestat snaps a photo of a newlywed couple. Then he and his mother/fledgling/lover Gabriella (Jennifer Ehle) kill the couple and take the bodies for a ride along Lake Ontario.
Vampire journalist Daniel (Eric Bogosian, human band manager Christine (Jeanine Serralles), and a camera crew are waiting on Lestat in the studio.
Lestat tells us he doesn’t know much about Daniel’s mortal life – vampires don’t ask each other about that, it’s considered rude. Daniel was born on April 16, 1953, then murdered and reborn in 2022 by “the gremlin” Armand (Assad Zaman). Daniel “led a brief and incidental life as a vampire … I have regrets when it comes to Daniel.” Wait, we lose Daniel? Well, shit.
At the studio, Daniel wants to talk about Lestat’s song lyrics, though he doesn’t think all of them are that profound, citing “Longface.” “Ooh, ooh, ooh, wa-ah … What’s that about?” (Sounds like Richard Cheese’s intro to his cover of “Down with the Sickness,” as heard in 2004’s Dawn of the Dead.”)
Lestat says, “’Longface’ is an agreement between myself and the audience, permission disguised as anthem.” Gabriella laughs silently, finding the whole Q&A hilarious.
Daniel asks Lestat whether he stuttered as a child. When Lestat remains mute, Daniel says they can come back to that and inquires about Lestat attempting to fight a whole coven of Detroit vampires single-handedly. Does Lestat have a death wish? Was the brawl his attempt at “hope I die before I get old”?
Lestat pretends to cry, then starts to laugh, says he’s the vampire Louis (Jacob Anderson), who told Daniel the story recounted in Daniel’s Interview with the Vampire, “undone by your relentless questioning, Mr. Molloy.”
The real Louis goes to the Detroit vampire coven house to get revenge on Killer/Bruce (Damon Daunno) for his long-ago torture, rape and demoralization of Claudia. Louis easily decapitates the vampire guard outside and asks about the tattoo on the dying vampire’s head: “Is that Jar-Jar Binks dunking a basketball?”
Louis floats up to the second story and keeps asking calmly, “Where’s Killer?” as he demolishes the coven. We see some of the fights in silhouette from outside through windows. Louis finds human prisoners in the basement and frees them, telling them to run. He’s called an Uber for them.
In the studio, Lestat finally admits to Daniel that he stuttered from age 9 to 29. At age 9, Lestat’s mother took him to see four young witches being burned at the stake. Lestat still remembers their names.
Daniel wants to know what finally cured Lestat’s stutter. Lestat replies, “I heard music.” Still human (so we see Reid’s real eyes). Lestat hears a fiddler in the streets of Paris. This is Nicholas de Lenfent (Joseph Potter), described by Lestat as “my first love.” Lestat says he would think the playing pedestrian now, but at the time, “It sounded like a God machine, being played by an angel.”
Nicky’s father was the de Lioncourt family tailor. Lestat and Nicky wind up having sex. Lestat’s voice cuts into the flashback: “That goes where you think it does.”
Lestat wants to skip ahead to being a vampire, but Daniel still wants to find out how he stopped stuttering. Lestat says it was vocal exercises for two years while he emptied chamber pots and performed on stage at a theatre where Nicky played with the orchestra.
When Lestat again insists that Nicky wasn’t a great love, Daniel challenges him: “You bury yourself in the ground for a century … the only thing you carry with you to New Orleans is a music box reminder of a not-great love.”
Lestat counters, “I carried the box because I destroyed him … to remind me what I was capable of.”
Daniel asks why Lestat sings about his abuser/sire Magnus (Damien Atkins). Lestat asserts Magnus was his emancipator.
Daniel quotes what Louis said Lestat had told him: Magnus took Lestat from his room, kicking and screaming, and threw him in a room for a week with corpses that all looked like Lestat. Lestat was sure he’d be killed, but instead, Magnus turned him. Lestat says he wasn’t in Dubai to correct Louis’ faulty recounting of what had happened.
Flashback to human Lestat as a theatre star in Paris, signing stage-door autographs. Magnus is at the back of the throng, intimidated and starstruck, smiling nervously around his fangs.
Lestat imagines Magnus lip-synching Lestat’s song, “I want to give you everything I got.” In flashback, Magnus grabs Lestat out of his bed with Nicholas and dumps him on the floor in a room. Lestat smiles as Magnus drinks from him.
In the present, Lestat says he understands his maker – he thinks Magnus was driven to extremes by seeing Lestat onstage for 19 consecutive performances. As for Magnus’ suicide, “It gave me a lightness I would not have known.” Since we don’t see Magnus kill himself (or die any other way), it’s possible Lestat is lying about this.
Daniel says he’s sure this much is correct from the narrative he was given: Armand confronted Lestat on the street, kidnapped Nicky, fed Nicky to Armand’s coven but didn’t kill him, and Lestat still hid his own vampirism from Nicky.
In flashback, a feverish Nicky, with bite marks all over his body, is furious that Lestat keeps lying to him. He can see the change in Lestat’s eyes, and when Gabriella enters, Nicky demands to know how she’s still alive.
This is news to Daniel, who thought Lestat’s mother died of consumption. Lestat calmly says she was his first fledgling. When Daniel asks where she is now. Gabriella shoots her son a warning look. Lestat places his hand over his heart and says, “Right here.” He then says she died as a “toddler” vampire.
At Gabriella’s telepathic suggestion, Daniel wants to know what Lestat thinks about the Great Conversion. Lestat: “Vampires taking over the world, collaborating? F***ing stupid.” Then Lestat snaps at a technician to get out of his eyeline. Remember this moment, folks.
In flashback, Lestat acknowledges that he turned Gabriella because she was moments from death. Nicky yells, “I want you to love me enough to give it to me!” Despite Gabriella’s certainty that this will be disastrous, Lestat feels he’s driven Nicky mad and owes it to him to turn him.
Later, Nicky is playing with the orchestra at the Théâtre des Vampires. Lestat and theatre impresario Armand (Assad Zaman) are watching the performance. Gabriella joins them, asks if there are covens like Armand’s in Rome, and if there is an evil older than Armand. Armand replies that his maker, Marius, is dead.
Gabriella and Armand are united in their distaste for vampirized Nicky, who stops mid-performance and shouts to the audience, “Welcome to the Théâtre des Vampires!”
Back at the apartment, with Lestat, Armand and Gabriella present, we see that Nicky and reality have wholly parted company. Nicky is tearfully searching for his letter opener because he thinks he has promised something to the object. When Lestat tries to comfort him, Nicky chops off one of his own hands, throws it into the flaming fireplace, and begs Lestat’s forgiveness. Lestat beseeches Armand for help.
We don’t see what happens next and have to take Lestat’s word for it. Per Lestat’s report to Daniel, Gabriella left. Lestat told Nicky that he, Lestat, loves him, which Lestat believes was true in the moment. Lestat couldn’t do it but watched as Armand pushed Nicky into the fire and kept him there with a poker.
Daniel is ecstatic that Lestat has opened up so completely to the revelation; Gabriella looks concerned for her son; Lestat seems on the verge of weeping. He’s also upset that the band couldn’t fill an 8,000-seat venue. “Unlike your last vampire, there are no delusions here … Never say I didn’t give you anything.”
After Lestat leaves the studio, Daniel discovers that, once Lestat told the technician to clear his eyeline, the interview recording has no sound, with Lestat and Daniel appearing motionless to onlookers and the cameras. Lestat was communicating with him telepathically. Daniel is livid.
Lestat, in narration, calls this a mean-spirited telepathic prank and notes that Daniel began to hate him then.
Voiceover: “You are listening to The Failures, Volume 28, Side B.”
Killer/Bruce brings his newlywed bride into the oddly quiet Detroit coven house. Louis, bloodied and surrounded by vampire corpses, waits for them in the basement, where lots of Lestat photos are up on the walls.
When Killer/Bruce and his wife come downstairs, Louis acknowledges having killed the other vampires and freed the humans. In one move, Louis rips Bruce’s heart out, then, while Bruce is dying, reads to him from Claudia’s diary about how “I hope one day he feels like this – small and cornered and crushed like a can.” When he finishes reading, Louis sets fire to the pages, then to Bruce himself.
This is intercut with Lestat driving, way too fast, imagining Magnus in the car with him. Magnus says Lestat left out a few details while talking to Daniel. Magnus talks about eating Lestat’s soul and asks when he’ll make an album. “When I’m ready!” Lestat screams.
Lestat remembers being horrified, not pleased, while Magnus was raping him while feeding, and when Magnus opened his own throat to bleed into Lestat’s mouth.
Lestat flips his car, which catches on fire. He emerges from the wreck. He tells us he couldn’t pretend anymore that he wasn’t having a nervous breakdown and kind of enjoying it, but he loves the music. He believes it will first make him worse, then better.
While Daniel follows a drunk down an alleyway and drains him, Lestat is performing onstage, imagining a happy Nicky in the audience; Magnus and Gabriella may or may not really be there. Lestat floats above the stage, to the delight of his bandmates and the crowd.
Louis returns to the New York diner where Claudia’s lookalike, Regina (Delainey Hayles, who also played Claudia) is a waitress. They speak briefly and amiably.
Former Vampire Lestat human band member Alex (Seamus Patterson) shares at his AA group how upset he still is by vampires killing people. If the people at the meeting haven’t heard about the band yet, they will soon. It makes Alex want a drink, but he’s here to maintain his sobriety.
Uh-oh. Armand, giving his name as Arun, is also at the meeting. He shares that he’s an addict.
Poor Alex. And even more, poor Nicholas. That section alone starts to explain why Lestat calls his autobiography The Failures.
Atkins as Magnus is excellent, mixing abashed adoration with genuine menace. With his unkempt hair and big dark circles around his eyes, he looks a bit like Lon Chaney’s character in 1927’s London After Midnight.
The Vampire Lestat airs on AMC Sunday at 9 p.m. EST and PST. New episodes are available on AMC’s streaming app at 3:00 a.m. EST/12:00 a.m. PST on Sunday mornings, with new episodes released weekly.
