With the end of the first season of The Night Vampire, we can already identify it as the best remake of the year.
The Douban score has not dropped but risen, the Rotten Tomatoes index is as high as 99%, and the production company AMC has already renewed for a second season.
"Night Interview with Vampires" is adapted from the original book of the same name by Anne Rice.
In 1975, "A Night Visit to the Vampire" became a bestseller, and Anne Rice developed it into a magnificent "Vampire Chronicles" series of 12 books.
Anne Rice is a landmark figure in the history of vampire literature, she directly resurrected the vampire genre novel, greatly enriched its literary character, and profoundly influenced the Gothic culture of the 20th century.
In 1994, the movie version starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt won numerous awards and was also a classic in the hearts of countless people.
When it bought the classic IP of Anne Rice, AMC was ambitious, and it tried to create an "immortal universe" that integrates vampires, witches, demons, elves, and werewolves through "Night Interview Vampire".
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AMC, which has produced American dramas such as the "Breaking Bad" series and the "The Walking Dead" series, is known for its solid script and full characters, and is very cleverly involved in handling "Night Visit Vampire", integrating current hot issues such as the epidemic, race, and sexuality, so that this retro IP has regained its vitality in the new era.
In fact, thanks to the current more inclusive creative environment in Europe and the United States than in the nineties, the drama version of "Night Visit to the Vampire" is much more daring to shoot.
The movie version of Pete and Tom Shengshi beauty is high, but the chemical reaction between the two is basically nothing, and the relationship is plausible and ambiguous.
The drama version directly defines the relationship between the two male protagonists as partners.
The sexual tension and interaction between the co-stars Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid are extremely impressive, and can even be said to be one of the important factors for the success of the show's remake.
In the original book, the story mainly takes place on an American plantation in the late 18th century, and the play version transplants it to New Orleans in the early 20th century.
The identity of the male protagonist Louis also changed from a white aristocratic slave owner to a mixed-race black pimp.
Despite his business acumen to break into the upper class, he was still discriminated against because of his skin color and race.
Coupled with hidden sexual orientation, parasitic family, and deep disapproval of his job, Louis's life is full of unsolvable bitterness, and the character has a strong sense of despair.
So when he meets Leicester, a handsome, mysterious and wanton French man, it's hard not to fall.
What's more, Leicester, who fell in love with Louis at first sight, was scheming step by step in order to have him.
Leicester first approached Louis in the name of doing business and gained trust.
In addition, the girl is used to guide Louis to participate in a three-person game together, taking the opportunity to have an intimate relationship and break Louis's mental defense.
Finally, the true face of the demon is revealed, destroying Louis's life, tempting him to break out of his current despair in a different way and smoothly transform him into a vampire.
Unfortunately, Lester is excellent as a hunter, but not a good companion.
Although Louis turned into a vampire, gained an ageless face and a long, eternal life, he never stopped thinking.
Most vampires rely on instinctive bloodthirsty for a living, and Louis has always hovered between instinct and humanity. He is no longer human in his own right, but the remnants of his humanity make it impossible for him to harm humans without scruples.
Leicester is different, he has lived for hundreds of years, has long adapted to the identity and survival rules of vampires, and has also formed his own values that are not bound by the world.
What's more, Leicester also maintains an open relationship with Louis. Simply put, the two of them don't delay hunting and messing around together.
The code of conduct is different, this is the biggest conflict between Lester and Louis in the early stage of the series, and it is also the most fundamental contradiction between the two.
Lester laughed at Louis's stubborn insistence, such as refusing to drink rat blood. However, as Louis lost control of his suppressed instincts, he still cleaned up the mess for Louis and transformed a younger sister Crodia.
In the original book, Claudia is only 5 years old. In the drama version, the screenwriters set it as a 14-year-old black girl.
The addition of Moe New Crodia eased the relationship between Lester and Louis to a certain extent. Louis teaches Crodia to read, Lester teaches Crodia to hunt, and the two spend a happy time raising children.
However, this rare queer family, like the secular family, also encountered common problems when raising children: irritability, poor communication, running away from home, etc.
But a vampire's rebellious adolescence could be about killing 56 people and then tearing off their different body parts for collection.
As Crodia became more rebellious and brought more and more trouble, the relationship between Lester and Louis became more and more tense.
Because, for Louis, Claudia is an important sustenance in the life of a vampire. For Leicester, Claudia is more like a gift he gave to Louis to please his lover.
Lester couldn't accept that he wasn't Louis's only focus.
To overcome the loneliness that comes with eternal life, he needs a partner who can stand the test of time and in any form.
In fact, in order to cater to Louis, Lester has also been restraining his twisted and crazy nature.
His way of receiving love and reciprocating love is extremely violent and abusive, extremely controlling, affectionate and ugly towards his lover.
Crodia is clearly more aware of Lester's nature, and as her knowledge deepens, she believes that Lester has deprived her of the ability to explore the world and grow.
So she always wanted to escape Leicester and also wanted to take Louis away from this mad demon.
In the original book and movie version, the character of Claudia is completely tragic, she looks like a beautiful doll, but the maturing soul and passion are forever imprisoned in the 5-year-old shell.
She is not like Lester who can play freely in the adult world. Reading and playing the piano is one of Crodia's rare ways to broaden her limited world.
The character adaptation made by the drama version dissolved Crodia's sense of tragedy to a certain extent, but also inherited the characters' own contradictory feelings of respect and hatred for Leicester.
In general, "Night Visit to the Vampire" is in the main plot line, which tells the love and hate of a weird family formed by three night vampires.
But the theme is much deeper than the movie version, which uses the surreal species of vampires to discuss propositions such as existence and loneliness, art, philosophy and beauty.
For example, Leicester's way of distinguishing food is based on the artistic talent of this person, and a singer who sings like a singer is cruelly made into a "blood drinking machine" by him.
As an audience, if you insist on judging these characters and plots by secular morality, it can only be said that you are not the audience of this theme.
Elements such as mystery, blood, doom, decadence, madness, the supernatural, and family curses are the charms of Gothic.
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The original work of Anne Rice, which opens dusty memories in the mode of dialogue between the reporter and Louis, has no clear plot and a complete story. But she managed to sketch a beautiful, elegant, grim world in the night.
There is no normal love and hate here, perhaps under the premise of immortality and immortality, all love and hate lose their meaning, and everyone is just struggling to survive in hopeless eternity.
The drama version of "Night Visit to the Vampire" has quite the essence of the original book, at least in terms of visual senses, we can feel that weird, illusory sense of atmosphere.
The compositional tones of the play clearly borrow from the work of the surrealist painter Paul Delvo.
Delvo's paintings are detached from reality and surreal, and the time is often set at the junction of night and day, sunset and dawn, which is very suitable for the night world infested by vampires.
The lines are also very literary, not as popular as most American dramas, and many parts are like poems, which can be compared to the domestic drama "Daming Palace Words".
For example, "I used pride as a blanket for warmth", "You swam across the Mississippi River to find me", "It was cold that winter, and Leicester was the charcoal fire that warmed me", and so on.
The wonderful thing about the drama version of "Night Visit to the Vampire" is that after watching it, you can't help but feel that the works of the same theme that you have seen before are still pale and boring.
Even if it is benchmarked against popular film and television dramas such as "400 Years of Horror", "Twilight" and "The Vampire Diaries", it still does not fall behind.
There are also many unique character legends throughout the vampire chronicle, such as Agatha, the vampire queen from ancient Egypt, Amand, a beautiful boy in Kiev in the 15th century, and Mares, a thousand-year-old vampire from the Roman Empire to the medieval Renaissance.
And the first season is just the beginning, if the sequel does not collapse, all the stories will continue to play out in the future.
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