"INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE" (1994)

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.

A small bare room, illuminated only by the streetlight coming through the window.

A hand presses a cassette into a recorder and fiddles with a small microphone.

Malloy sits over a table fiddling with the tape. He is young, half-shaven, dressed in T shirt and jeans. He looks to --

LOUIS, who stands by the window, looking out on the street, with his back to Malloy. Louis is dressed in an old-fashioned suit.

Malloy laughs.

Still in shadow he turns from the window and approaches the table.

Malloy is uneasy as he studies the shadowy figure, fascinated but afraid.

Louis stands opposite, hand on the chair. Malloy is riveted.

Louis pulls the chord of the overhead naked light bulb.

LOUIS'S FACE

appears inhumanly white, eyes glittering. Inhuman or not alive. The efect is subtle, beautiful and ghastly.

He struggles to suppress fear and understand.

The light appears to go out by itself and suddenly Louis is in the chair, dimly lit by the street-light from the window. The cassette is turning.

Malloy is speechless, frightened yet enthralled.

A dishevelled Louis, hair in pigtail, in deep pocket frock coat, rides his horse through the fields of indigo, passing an overseer and slaves at work.

He passes slave quarters and the distant colonial mansion of Pointe du Lac.

He comes to a small parish church and a graveyard. He dismounts and walks through the tombs to an elaborate one in Greek style.

There is a marble angel above the tomb, feminine, with a tiny cherub angel in her arms. Louis looks from the angel, down to the inscriptions on the tomb:

DIANNE DE PONTE DU LAC 1763 - 1791 INFANT JEAN MARIE - 1791

Louis rips away the vines already covering the inscription, then drinks from a pocket-flask. His face is ashen.

Louis in ragged lace and dirty brocade sitting between two whores at a gaming table, drinking absinthe. All around him flatboat- men, whores, gamblers, black african freedman.

Louis displays a hand of four aces. A gambler at the table stands in fury, over turning money, cards, drinks.

The gambler pulls out a pearl-handled pistol and points it at Louis. The crowd hushes and draws back. Louis smiles drunkenly and stands. He rips open his lace shirt, exposing his chest.

The gambler's finger on the trigger. His hand shakes.

LESTAT, a hooded figure in the corner, smiles from beneath the shadow of his hood. Gleaming blue eyes.

The gambler lowers his gun, scowling. Louis pockets the fistfulls of coins he has won.

Loud, crowded riverfront taverns full of ruffians. Louis staggers down, an arm around a whore, drinking from a bottle. A pockmarked pimp follows behind.

Louis, quite insensible, being propped up against a wall by the whore in a dank wharf over the water. The pimp rifles his pockets, then pulls a knife. about to slice his throat, when a shadow falls over him. He turns, and we see the face of Lestat, who lifts him into the air by his throat, breaking his neck. The whore screams and Lestat's other hand clamps over her mouth. Lestat drags her towards him. Louis falls to the ground, supported no more, insensible. Close on his face, as we hear the last breaths of life of the whore, off.

IN THE WATER -

the bodies of the thief and whore float by. Above on the wharf, Louis, now awake, stares down at them. He turns, to see Lestat, towering above him.

Lestat floats down on top of him, then lifts him in the air, draws his head back by the hair and sinks his teeth in his neck.

ON LOUIS'S FACE - every muscle rigid, teeth clenched, as the blood is drained from him.

ON THEIR FEET - hovering above the ground, like two quivering dancers.

THE WIND - billows through the ghostly white sails and rigging of the boats around the wharf.

LESTAT - floats higher, with Louis in his arms, draining his blood. One hand reaches out and grips a rope, hanging from a shipmast. The other holds Louis. He withdraws his teeth, and looks into Louis' drained face.

Louis can barely get the words out.

Lestat smiles and lets him go. Louis falls and plummets into the water below.

LOUIS'S FACE - coming-to the surface, in the water lapping by the wharf. The bodies of the whore and thief float beside him. He looks up and sees Lestat way above him, dangling from the rope of the shipmast.

ON MALLOY'S FACE

captivated, terrified, enthralled.

Louis floating by mudflats, surrounded by dead fish, the carcases of animals, eighteenth century rubbish. He gets to his feet and walks weakly through the mudflats. The sun is coming up over the sea behind him.

Louis is delerious in a four-poster bed, shrouded with mosquito netting. A female slave, YVETTE, bathes his face with a rag. She is crying. Other slave women hover in the shadows. Yvette puts out all candles save one by the bed, and withdraws, with the others.

Candlelight flickers on the face of the bisque virgin.

Louis tosses and turns, dreaming, murmuring incoherently. Then he opens his eyes.

LESTAT, exquisitely dressed in French clothing, stands by the bed smiling. In the light of the candle we see that he is not human; skin too white; eyes too bright. Lestat looks amiable, even mishevious, but impossible - and angel or a monster.

Louis grabs his pistol from the table and cocks it.

Louis takes aim. Lestat puts his hand over the barrel. Louis fires. The bullet tears a hole in Lestat's hand. Lestat is unfazed. He takes the gun from Louis's hand and throws it away. His hand begins to heal.

Louis reaches for his sword, hanging by the bed, and points it. Lestat laughs indulgently. He draws closer.

He comes closer to Louis, right up to his face, so the sword passes through his waistcoat.

He reaches out with his now-healed hand and plucks out the sword.

Lestat sits down on the bed, drawing up one knee. Louis is becoming spellbound.

The Vampire theme rises, with the sound of a heartbeat. Dissolve to:

The camera drifts through the graveyard where Louis's wife is buried. Everything is lit with an eery glow, as if seen through some unearthly eye.

Louis and Lestat drifting, dreamlike, through the overhanging vines, come to the grave of his wife and child. Above the crypt, the statue of angel, mother and child.

The marble fingers of the child on the statue move. The angel raises her head and has the face of Louis wife, Diane. She raises her hand and touches Louis tear-streamed face. The child speaks.

Louis reaches out to embrace them and finds himself touching cold marble. He cries out in anguish-

Louis, thrashing on the bed in a delerium. Lestat places a hand on his forehead and soothes him.

Lestat bends close as if to drink Louis' blood. Louis does not shrink back, but stares into his eyes. Lestat draws back, then stands up and goes to the French doors.

He looks outside.

He leaves. Louis sits dazed, staring at the empty French window. The sun rises with unnatural beauty, over the swamplands and the plantation, filling the room, striking water-pitcher, glass, mirror, and the picture of his dead wife.

Lestat and Louis walk through the slave quarters, huddled groups around fires, music, singing. The sound of whipping is heard.

In the woods beyond the quarters, the white overseer is whipping a black slave, with horrifying savagery.

Louis calls.

The overseer turns and comes towards them, with the bloodied whip.

The overseer looks into his eyes, shivers with terror, drops the whip and runs for the trees. Lestat is on him in an instant. He sinks his teeth in his neck. Louis runs to him, tries to pull him off. But Lestat turns to Louis and smiles, with his bloodied mouth.

Louis pulls out a knife and slashes at Lestat but as the knife swings, Lestat, with extraordinary speed, whirls the body of the overseer towards him Louis finds he has cut the throat of the overseer. Lestat laughs.

He flees, as Lestat bends to finish off the overseer.

lOUIS running up the steps leading to the gallery. He is crazed with guilt. He looks up and sees -

LESTAT --

sitting collected at the head of the steps.

LOUIS

Backs away as Lestat rises and descends the steps so fluidly he hardly seems to move.

Louis takes out his flask and drinks. Drunkenly, he turns and head for a nearby swamp.

Louis stops again in front of the crypt. Drinks from the flask, leans his forehead against the stone.

Lestat appears beside him, radiant, beautiful.

In a quiet rage, Lestat raises his fist and shatters the marble face stone, revealing a coffin below. His fist shatters that in turn, revealing the half-rotted body of a woman, holding an infant, no longer recognisable as individuals, a tangle of gruesome rotted hair, flesh, eaten away lace, insects and worms crawling over it.

Louis gasps.

Lestat stares at him, smiling, becoming a hazy dreamlike vision, then hyperclear. Louis again is spellbound. He drops the flask, which shatters on the stones.

Lestat appears angelic in his radiance.

Louis capitulates in one long sigh.

Lestat comes closer, smiling.

Lestat embraces Louis, obscuring his face. He drinks his blood. We hear two heartbeats, out of sync, coming together. We see Louis' face, growing paler, paler, as his blood is drained. His eyes stare upwards, losing their focus.

LOUIS POV --

The moon, through hanging vines. The marble statue of his wife and child smile at him, as if come alive. Her hair blows in the breeze, wonderful gold tresses, the child's fingers reach out...

BACK TO SCENE

Lestat lets Louis fall down beside the broken crypt. Louis looks from the rotting bodies to Lestat above him, radiant. Lestat speaks gently.

Lestat lifts his hand to his lips and blows Louis a kiss.

Lestat lifts his own right wrist to his teeth. Fangs slash his own flesh, blood falls.

Louis rises to accept the first drops with his open mouth. Lestat gathers him up, as louis clamps his hand on Lestat's arm and drinks from the wrist.

The VAMPIRE THEME swells.

Lestat watches him drink from his wrist with wry amusement. Louis finishes, staggers away from him as if drunk.

LOUIS' POV -

Vampire vision. The world is transformed, the swamp, the moon, the clouds, the cry of the night birds all come to him with unnatural clarity. He looks down with pity at the corpses of his wife and child who appear beautiful in death now rather than repulsive. He closes the lid of the coffin and replaces it in the ground, astonished at the ease of it.

He turns and stares at Lestat whom he sees now with vampire's vision. Lestat's eyes are brighter, his buttons are glimmering in the light. Everything is clearer, brighter, containing more facets of light and colour.

Lestat leads him into the swamp. Everything astonishes Louis, as if he@s never seen it before. Louis is suddenly racked by shudders of pain.

Louis dry-retches.

Lestat wipes Louis' brow.

Lestat laughs and his laughter echoes like bells in Louis' ears.

LOUIS' VAMPIRE POV - SWAMP

Small high ground. Camp of runaway slaves. Several share a bottle of rum around the fire. A male slave rises. a gorgeous hunk of flesh in the moonlight and goes into the swamp to relieve his bladder.

The slave walks towards them in the darkness. A crucifix gleams round his neck.

Louis hesitates.

The slave looks up and sees them. Two gleaming white beings standing before him with devil's eyes. Then he runs.

Louis can resist him no more. He swoops on him with a vampire's rapid movement, brings him to the ground and sinks his teeth in his neck.

Close on Louis feeding on the slave, the magnificent body shuddering in its death-throes. Lestat stands above, laughing.

The slave dies. Louis rises from him, drunkenly, engorged with blood.

Louis looks down at the body of the slave. Lestat's laughter echoes round him.

Lestat laughs harder. Louis runs from him, screaming in anguish.

lOUIS reaches his wife's grave. He falls to his knees, throws back his head and bares his new fangs to the moon.

Malloy stares at Louis, terrified and enthralled.

Louis walks up the steps to his mansion. He looks now like a fully-fledged vampire. Yvette, the slave girl stares at him from the open doorway. Cascades of harpsichord music come from the interior.

Louis enters the mansion, following the harpsichord music, as if in a dream. Yvette draws back as he approaches.

Louis wanders into the parlour, where Lestat is playing the harpsichord rapidly and exuberantly. Louis goes to a full-length mirror and sees his own reflection there - quite the perfect vampire.

Dawn spreading over the plantation.

A brick walled storage room. Two coffins stand on the floor. Lestat enters with a lantern, Louis behind. Lestat is apprehensive and protective of Louis. He pulls back one lid to reveal a satin interior.

Louis approaches the coffin, hands trembling as he peers into it.

Louis crawls into the coffin, fearful yet fascinated.

lESTAT smiles bitterly and nods.

He closes the lid.

Total darkness. Sounds of Louis' panicked breathing. Of his prayer again.

Louis and Lestat sitting at a sumptuous table, piled with uneaten food. Lestat is going through sheafs of documents.

Lestat, totting up figures on a piece of paper.

Louis just stares at him.

Lestat looks up at him and grins.

Yvette enters, stands behind him, staring at Lestat with loathing.

Lestat laughs loudly. Louis turns and looks at Yvette. Her beautiful forehead in the candlelight, the veigns pulsing on her neck and her hands.

Yvette returns his stare, troubled.

Yvette reaches for his uneaten plate. Louis stops her hand. Holds it for a beat too long, looking at the veigns in her wrist.

She turns and runs from the table. Lestat leans towards him.

His hand snakes out under the table. It comes up holding a large grey rat.

He bares his fangs and slices the rat's throat. He pours the blood into a crystal glass.

He hands the glass to Louis. Louis drinks the blood and stares at it in surprise, then at the dead rat on the fine lace tablecloth.

Lestat shrugs.

Lestat strokes the belly of the dead rat, studying it sadly.

He throws the rat away.

He rises. Louis follows.

A big, lavish drinking place with a raised stage.

Italian actors in buffoonish costumes act crude commedia dell'arte on the stage.

Plantation owners in soiled brocade, lace, crooked wigs watch the show as tavern wenches move about.

Louis and Lestat by a table, in the shadow of a tree. Teresa, a tavern wench, sits on Lestat's lap, pouring drinks for the two of them. She lifts a fresh glass to Lestat's lips as he flirts with her.

She kisses him. He lets his tongue play with hers, then runs it down her neck. She swoons with pleasure. Then he sinks his teeth gently in her neck, looking playfully behind at Louis, who if apalled and fascinated.

ANTICS ON THE STAGE

Laughter rocks the tavern.

LESTAT slips the pale and dead Teresa into a chair beside him and folds her hands on the table. No one notices. He lays gold coins on the table and touches Louis' knee.

Lestat rushes out, thrilled with himself.

A crowded street. Louis and Lestat emerge from the tavern. Louis looks up at the moon.

They walk down the crowded night street, full of ladies in their finery, freed slaves, whores, sailor's etc.

Small orchestra plays for colonial couples in fine wig and garb prancing to a French minuet. Young women sit in chairs along the walls with their chaperones. Young men stand opposite.

A youth of preternatural beauty, sillhoutted against French windows. He is talking to an elegant widow, seated, holding two manicured poodles. Lestat stares at the youth with longing.

He leads Louis closer to them.

He smiles at the young man, who smiles in return.

lESTAT walks the youth towards a copse of trees. He looks back at Louis, who holds both poodles on a delicate leash, walking with the widow. The minuet spills from the french windows.

She leans towards him concquettishly. Louis, crazed with hunger, sees her as beautiful in the moonlight. He allows her lips reach his. He takes her in his arms, gently, romantically, and sinks in his teeth. She swoons.

Louis draws his lips away. She is weak in his arms, but still alive. He can't do it. The poodles growl. He shoots out an arm and grabs one, then the other.

Lestat, bending over the body of the dead youth. A scream pierces the night.

The widow on the grass, her poodles dead beside her. Louis is trying to quieten her.

Lestat comes from nowhere, clamps a hand over her mouth and breaks her neck. He spits in fury at Louis.

Louis throws himself on Lestat with extraordinary force, pummelling him towards the trees.

Louis hurls him against tree after tree with a strength he never knew he had.

He drags him to the ground and throttles him. Lestat looks up at him, amazed and amused at the same time.

Lestat squirms from his grip, seemingly effortless.

He ruffles Louis' hair, with wry affection.

He smiles. A sly, pleasurable secret secret smile.

Their carriage draws up to the mansion as the first fingers of light spread across the sky.

In a tiny cabin, a slave family. Kids sleeping on the floor, in cribs and cots. The parents sleep on the bed, young, beautiful, naked. Beside them is Lestat, who is drinking the husband's blood, his hand playing across the breast of the wife as he does so. She murmurs in her sleep.

She grabs his fingers and kisses them, thinking him to be her husband. Lestat gently disengages himself and leaves.

The woman's scream pierces the sky, as Lestat walks into the night.

Every chicken is dead, bloodied necks hanging down from the cribs. Louis emerges from the entrance, blood on his lips. He hears the scream.

The sound of drumming is heard, african, primal. The woman runs through the quarters, screaming grief. Others gather at doorways, restrain and console her.

A beautiful, elaborate eighteenth century dove-cote. Every dove inside is dead, pierced at the neck. A black hand throws in a flaming torch and it bursts into flame.

A doll, made in the image of Lestat, is pierced with needles.

Bodies of slaves floating in the swamp, with the bodies of goats. Slaves at the edge throw ropes around the bodies, pull them towards the shore. The drumming grows louder.

Louis walking through. The slaves hush as he approaches, gather in doorways and whisper. He turns and looks at them, sorrowfully. He looks truly like a ghost. Their eyes turn away when they meet his. He walks on.

Lestat and Louis sit at table, the untouched food betwen them.

Lestat spits out in anger.

The drumming grows outside.

Louis stares. Lestat turns childishly, petulantly.

He walks out, humming a French aria. Louis stares at his plate.

The slaves, gathered on mass around fires. Frenzied drumming, dancing. Lestat rides through, scattering the flames. The drumming stops. The slaves look towards the house. Slowly, they begin to move towards it.

Louis, sitting in despair by the table. Yvette, the slave girl enters.

Louis laughs harshly.

Yvette draws closer? Light reveals her beauty.

Louis watches her sadly. he's getting hungry. Her throat is long and slender, her breats are gorgeous.

She comes closer, and he can hear her beating heart. She touches his hair. He takes her hand and brings it to his lips.

He kisses her wrist. She suddenly gasps, sharply, withdraws her hand. She sees her wrist is red with blood. She sees the blood on his lips. She screams.

Louis stands.

She screams even louder. Louis clamps his hand over her mouth. Her hand grips the table-cloth, pulls, bringing the empty glasses and crockery to the floor.

In horror, Louis realises he has broken her neck. He brings her cut wrist to his lips, then drops it, revolted. He carries her body outside, grief-stricken.

The drumming grows louder.

Fires burning in the distance, round the slave-cabins. The slaves are gathered at the foot of the mansion steps. They see Louis come out, holding the body of Yvette. He is deranged with grief.

He places the body of Yvette in a rocking chair on the veranda.

They don't move. They stare at him blankly.

He turns behind him, and looks at the mansion, all candelabra and chandeliers lighted, all windows open.

He rushes up the stairs, snatches up the candleabra and sets fire to the drapes. He goes from window to window, lighting drapes, lace curtains, everything.

SLAVES POV -- MASTER

setting fire to the house.

They rush up the stairs with shouts of "STOP HIM, HE'S MAD". A wall of flame gushes out from the interior, blocking their way.

Louis, wandering from room to room of the burning mansion. He sees paintings of his wife consumed by the flames. He is weakening with the fumes, the heat. We can see this in his face, the texture of his skin.

Suddnely a large french window cascades inwards and Lestat stands there, whip in hand. Behind him we can see the morning sky.

Louis stands there, weakened, then collapses onto the floor. Lestat darts forwards and catches him before he drops. He runs out the shattered window, carrying him on his shoulder.

With many crypts. Louis, unconscious, carried over Lestat's shoulder.

Darkness. Louis lying on the floor of a large crypt. He slowly comes to.

Louis laughs softly.

The vampire sits in silence, as if tired by his story. Malloy speaks, hesitantly.

He looks directly at Malloy, shocking him with his gaze.

From the sea, at evening, shrouded in mist.

A lavish little supper chamber with coffered bed, fancy french furniture. Open to rooftops of colonial city. Louis sits by an open window looiking out over the city. Behind, we can hear the laughter of Lestat and two female voices. Louis turns and sees -

Lestat, in the main chamber with two drugged or drunken whores. One runs her finger down his chest. The other seems out of it.

He presses his thumb on her neck and holds her tight, sinking his teeth in her neck. After a time she falls to the bed, dead. He turns to the other.

He rubs her breast.

He bites her in turn, drinks her blood. She does into the swoon.

Louis looks on in disgust. He stands.

Lestat pulls away from the whore.

The girl moans.

The girl moans again, opens her eyes.

He slashes her wrist with his teeth, and lets the blood drip into a glass.

The girl moans again. Lestat drains the glass.

The girl begins to scream. Lestat picks her up.

He walks to his coffin, puts her inside and sits on the lid. We hear muffled screaming and banging from inside.

He stands up. The girl pushes the lid off, hysterical. She looks at Louis.

Louis screams at Lestat.

The girl grabs Louis and pleads.

He picks her up again. He turns to Louis laughing.

The girl screams. Louis puts his hands to his ears. Then Lestat, in a fit of pique puts his teeth to her neck. She dies at last.

A terrible silence descends. Lestat looks at Louis.

Louis leaves without a word.

A rat scurried down a gutter, then another and another. Louis' hand grasps the rat. We see him from behind, walking down the street, gripping one, then another.

A smaller side street, in which every house is marked with an X. The street is crawling with rats, and Louis is following them. A man passes with a lantern.

Louis smiles bitterly at these words, repeating them to himself.

He walks on, following the rats.

A house, the door slightly open, marked with an X. The sound of a child crying from inside. Louis walks towards it.

A little girl, pulling at a figure in a rocking chair.

As Louis enters, he sees the woman is dead. Her eyes are being eaten away by ants.

Louis gasps in horror. Claudia turns. She is a radiant doll or angel as she stretches out her hand to Louis.

She runs to him. Instinctively, he gathers her in his arms. He looks down pitying on her beautiful face.

She snuggles into him, suddenly utterly secure. She tugs at his hair, brings his head down towards her. And we see Louis shiver, as his lips go to her neck.

Her breathing becomes calm as she goes into the swoon. Gradually another sound replaces it.

LESTAT'S LAUGHTER, GROWING LOUDER AND LOUDER.

Suddenly Louis backs away, caught redhanded, the child in his arms. he sees Lestat slapping his knee and laughing in the doorway.

Louis stares at the unconscious Claudia in horror, then lets her slip gently into a chair. Shamefully he wipes his mouth, sees the tiny wounds on her throat.

Lestat snatches up the dead mother from the chair and begins to dance with her in great circles, humming and talking. her head falls back. Black water flows from her mouth.

Louis flees into the street.

Louis running through an assortment of streets. All the night life of New Orleans flows by him.

Fingers of light in the sky. Louis, pale and shivering, walks splashing through the water. He comes to a huge sewer-pipe, crowded with rats. He crawls inside.

The same sewer-pipe. Now the bodies of dead rats lie all around. A pire of fine leather boots splash through the water - LESTAT'S.

Louis huddled there, so pale and shivering he seems close to death. Lestat comes through.

He bends down to him, surprisingly gentle and puts his own coat around him.

They emerge from the sewer and walk along the waterfront.

He puts his arm around Louis, to stop his shivering.

Louis is baffled. He follows.

Lestat enters.

Lestat holds up a candle and walks towards a large four-poster bed. Claudia lies there, angelic, under the coverlet, two marks on her neck.

Lestat shakes her gently.

Louis runs at him, but Lestat brushes him aside effortlessly, so he falls to the floor. Lestat bites his wrist and presses the bleeding wound to the child's mouth.. He winces in pain.

Claudia sucks on the wound, reviving, making little noises like a person waking from sleep.

Louis rises to his feet as Claudia clutches Lestat's arm, sucking the blood fiercely. Lestat moans.

He pulls her loose and she growls and stares at him with big clear astonished eyes.

Lestat puts her down on the bed and sits beside her, holding his wrist, obviously in pain.

Still suffering, Lestat pulls the bell-rope.

CLOSE ON CLAUDIA

Being transformed. Becoming white yet robust, bright-eyed yet crazed. She shakes her beautiful curls and the dust falls from them. They are shining in the candlelight.

Louis cannot stop looking at her. he does not notice as --

The MAID enters.

The maid comes near the bed, kneels in front of Claudia. Lestat lays his hand on the maid's throat and Claudia watches keenly.

Claudia lunges for the throbbing vein in the neck, locking on to the flowing blood.

The Maid is transfixed.

Close on Louis, his anguish, his fascinated horror.

He lets the dead maid onto the floor. Claudia looks at the corpse.

Lestat and Claudia sit on the Louis XVI settee. Claudia is a vision, a doll made out of pearl. Animated, voice crisp.

The words echo in louis' head, as he puts his hands to his ears.

Lestat takes out his comb and begins to comb her hair.

Claudia runs over to him. She smiles at him.

Louis is conflicted. He cannot leave her. He touches her cheeks, her hair. Same as his. Vampire skin and hair. He draws in his breath, shocked by her beauty, then he embraces her as a father might a daughter. He looks over her shoulder to Lestat.

Lestat smiles.

Malloy is open mouthed.

He sees the tape has run out. He rapidly and climsily sticks in another.

Two husky movers bring in furniture through the back courtyard, past the fountain and the banana trees, up the back stairs and into --

Striped wallpaper gives way to flowers in the bedrooms. Huge four-poster beds in the bedrooms, and large chests, as big as coffins standing against the wall. Everywhere there are candles and pretty Louis XVI furniture. Lestat gives instructions to the movers.

WE MOVE INTO --

A DIMLY LIT PARLOUR

We see Claudia draped in lace standing on a petit point chair as a DRESSMAKER measures out a garment.

Louis can be seen, in an inner room.

She has pricked her hand. A spot of blood appears on her finger. Claudia takes her hand.

Claudia brings the hand to her lips. The dressmaker abruptly pulls her finger away, in pain again.

CU her finger - two holes showing.

Lestat walks through - sees the dressmaker lying dead at Claudia's feet, Claudia still on the chair in the half-finished dress.

Claudia and Louis, sleeping in a coffin together, Claudia's fingers curling his hair.

Claudia playing with dolls, each as perfect and beautifully dressed as she is.

Claudia tinkling with her child's hands on the piano, picking out a hesitant tune.

The tinkling of Claudia's piano is heard, over -

A well-dressed lady, walking through a square lit by gaslight. The lady hears a child's sobbing and stops, turns.

POV --

Claudia, the picture of lost innocence, sitting on a bench and crying.

The woman, all solicitude, goes to Claudia.

The woman takes Claudia in her arms. Claudia nestles her head in her shoulder, her teeth near her neck.

A stern, stiff piano-teacher (male) beating time with a ruler as Claudia picks out scales on the piano. He raps her on the knuckles.

Claudia glares at him, then returns to playing, improving rapidly.

Piano music over. Mozart, now well played.

Claudia staring at a glass case, inside of which are an array of eighteenth century dolls. An old doll-maker looks down on her.

Claudia walking along, clutching the doll.

The dollmaker lying dead, two puncture marks in his throat, his dolls scattered all around him.

Claudia and Louis looking through the window at a display of coffins. Claudia points at the smallest one.

The child's coffin on the floor. The lid lifts. Claudia emerges, yawning, wanders through the flat into -

LOUIS' BEDROOM

Where his coffin sits. She slides the lid off, and curls in beside him.

Claudia playing the piano, now with remarkable dexterity. The piano-teacher sits mute beside her. As she plays, he topples over and falls to the ground. We see the puncture-marks in his neck. Lestat, hearing the noise, comes in.

Claudia smiles to herself, keeps playing.

Claudia walking along, clutching the doll.

The dollmaker lying dead, two puncture marks in his throat, his dolls scattered all around him.

Claudia playing the piano, now with remarkable dexterity. The piano-teacher sits mute beside her. As she plays, he topples over and falls to the ground. We see the puncture-marks in his neck. Lestat, hearing the noise, comes in.

Claudia smiles to herself, keeps playing.

CANARIES sing in a cage, above a child's coffin

Claudia is writing at a seceretaire. She is writing in a diary with a quill pen in an adult hand. She murmurs the date as she writes.

She looks up and sees Louis in the doorway, watching her.

She closes the diary.

She opens it. Inside, there is a beautiful pen and ink portrait of Louis.

She begins to fill in the sketch.

Street lamps are oil at this period. Houses are now tall two- story Spanish style. Streets are flagstone. Passing carriages are black.

Claudia walks with Louis and Lestat on either side of her. All are dressed in newer fashions. Claudia in an empire dress, the two males in trousers and bright frock coats, hair untied. They pass through the crowded streets, past bourgeois families, all with a child, or children, dressed to the nines like Claudia.

Claudia, Louis and Lestat, dressed in the same clothes walking through a racuous carnival with sideshows. Crowd milling around, sailors, whores, children, thieves, freed slaves, Indians. They pass a Wild West display, jugglers, fire-eaters, three-card tricksters...

They come to a raised platform where a troupe of perfectly-formed midgets do a burleque show.

Claudia stops. She stares, at these small, perfect creatures like herself, intrigued and troubled.

Louis and Lestat walk on, not noticing as --

CLAUDIA

circles the troupe. She comes to a small tent, behind it. At the entrance stands a midget youth.

CLUDIA walks up to him.

Claudia shakes her head. He kisses her. Claudia allows her to be kissed, then bites his tongue. The youth struggles, as Claudia holds him and drains him. She lets him go as Louis appears behind her.

Louis hurriedly draws her away.

Claudia playing the piano, now like a demonic Liszt. Louis writing.

Lestat appears in the doorway. He has a big box in his arms.

FOCUS ON early 19th Century French dolls -- wood, glass, wax, bisque -- all around the bedroom, on chairs, on the bed. Some newish, some tattered and old.

He hands her the box. It is a fine Parisian Jumeau doll. She likes it and strokes its face.

He examines the other dolls.

Lestat doesn't answer. Claudia stands up quickly, and strides out into the -

PARLOUR, where Louis is reading by the window. She walks to a mirrored cabinet, takes out a scissors and begins cutting her hair.

She continues cutting. She sees Lestat emerge from her bedroom in the mirror behind her then turns to him, an angelic little boy's face now with soft curls around her face.

She walks past him, back into her bedroom and slams the door.

A beat. Louis looks from the mass of blonde hair on the floor to Lestat. Then a HORRID SCREAM pierces the silence. More screams, which become roars.

She stands before the dressing-table, all her long hair grown back over her shoulders. She holds it with both hands, screaming and screaming. Lestat and Louis come through the door.

She turns on Lestat.

She runs at him with the scissors, scoring his face. The cut heals. She scores it again. It heals again. She stares at him in horror.

He storms out. Louis goes to Claudia and picks her up in his arms

Louis carries her outside, onto the porch. There is an old flower-seller going by.

She clutches Louis desperately.

Louis strokes her beautiful face, her hair.

Louis walking, holding Claudia as if he was about to lose her.

Louis back in the same street, outside the same house. He stands with Claudia at the window. There is a family inside, a picture of domestic tranquillity.

Claudia stares at him, suddenly very cold, very alert.

He can't go on. Claudia's eyes are remorseless.

Claudia speaks through indrawn breath.

She runs.

Malloy and Louis.

Louis, walking the streets, shivering.

A cathedral rising out of the mist, the doors open.

Louis walks towards the doors, inside.

Louis enters. The dim lights of candles. A sacristan tending the altar, an old woman praying -- otherwise empty.

Louis walking down the nave of the church. He stops by the altar.

Louis sits in a pew.

Louis' POV - the cross, the statues, the tabernacle.

Suddenly a hand is laid on his shoulder. Louis almost jumps. He turns and sees the face of a grey-haired priest.

Louis stares at him, tears in his eyes.

The priest gestures to the confessional. Louis rises, slowly.

Louis, kneeling in the darkness. The hatch slides back.

The hatch slams down. Louis rises, confused, and the door is flung open, the priest stands there.

Louis rises. Walks out.

His face comes into the light. The priest steps back, open- mouthed.

He bares his fangs. The priest runs, screaming. Gets to the bell- rope, begins to ring the bell. Louis swoops on him.

Louis takes him, lifting him from the floor, till his feet stop kicking.

Louis enters, silently, like a corpse. He hears a voice behind him.

He turns, sees her sitting in the darkness. She is wearing a tiny nightgown of stitched lace and pearls, wierdly adult and seductive. She comes towards him.

She sprays perfume over her body as she comes nearer.

She whispers.

She kisses his cheek.

She takes his face in her hands

Claudia smiles.

A sailing ship, by the docks. Louis and Claudia talking to a shipping-clerk.

Lestat playing the piano. Louis reading. Claudia enters, wearing a cape and hat. She walks to the piano, sits at the end of the piano and stares at him as he plays.

Louis perks up, puzzled.

Claudia stares at him for a moment.

She takes his hand and leads him into an inner room. Louis follows behind.

Two beautiful youths, lying asleep on a couch, by a table full with a half-eaten meal. Lestat sighs.

Claudia stares at him, sitting. She nods.

Lestat bites into the neck of one of the youths, sucks greedily and horribly. Claudia watches him without expression. he finishes one, is about to take the other when he staggers. He looks at Claudia.

Lestat stares wildly at her; tries to move towards her, then slips to the floor.

Lestat tries to rise.

Louis watches, apalled. He goes to move.

She pulls a knife out from under her shawl, walks rapidly to him and slashes his throat. Blood explodes from it.

Claudia lacerates his face. Blood pours from everywhere. She plunges the knife in his chest. He falls back, fangs bared, clutching the knife. Claudia leaps on him then, bites deep into his neck as he dies. Louis screams, runs forwards, pulls her away.

He drags her off Lestat, tries to pull her out of the room. She hisses at him.

Louis looks. The floor is a sea of blood. Lestat has begun to shrivel, as if he'd been a bag of blood. His skin is shrivelling against his bones like parchment, his eyes are slipping back into his skull-like face. His lush, beautiful hair remains unchanged. But his clothes are virtually being emptied of the body. It is no no more than bones, wrapped in paper and he pupils of theeyes suddenly roll up into the papered skull.

She stares at the shrivelled skeleton in its skin wrapping. She is fascinated. She sees the vampiric blood flow all over the floor. She touches it and brings her finger to her lips.

Louis walks forward, touches the skeleton, the blonde hair.

She stands up, all business suddenly.

She drags the coverlet from the table, knocking the crockery over the dead youths, and wraps Lestat's skeleton in it. She takes a bunch of chrysanthemums and places them in his skeleton hands.

Louis whipping the horses. Claudia beside him. Lestat's skeleton in the back, with the bodies of the two dead youths.

The carriage pulls up by a swamp. Mist everywhere. Overhanging creepers.

Louis drags out the bodies of the boys. He slides them into the waters of the swamp. We see ripples in the water and the churning of alligators, as they attack the corpses. Louis takes Lestat's skeleton in his arms. He slides it into the waters. The alligators speed towards it.

He stands there, saying nothing.

Claudia is shocked to her core. She steps back. Louis stares at the rippling waters. Gradually the movement of alligators stops. Then he hears a sound-he hasn't heard in years. Soft, choking. He turns, sees Claudia sitting by a cypress tree, like a little girl for the first time in years. She is weeping copiously.

We see her face, tears of blood running down it. She is heartbroken, lost.

Louis gathers her in his arms.

Louis walks her towards the carriage.

He lifts her into the carriage and drives off, leaving the silent waters of the swamp.

Sturdy mullato workmen lifting cases and trunks out of the apartment. All the furniture is covered in white sheets. Claudia dressed in a cap and hat, is playing the piano by the light of one remaining oil-lamp.

Louis comes from her room with the cage of canaries.

He opens the cage, and the canaries flie around the room.

There is a knocking on the door. Claudia falters.

He goes downstairs. Claudia plays a moment, then stops, perturbed. She goes to the window. Then sees something out there that makes her face go white. She screams.

THE STAIRWAY --

Louis walking to the door. The knocking gets louder.

THE PARLOUR --

Claudia runs for the stairs, after Louis.

THE HALLWAY --

Louis reaches the door. The knocking gets louder. He opens the door as -

CLAUDIA --

Reaches the stairs. She screams -

But Louis has opened the door. Nothing there. He looks back at Claudia, puzzled, the at the door again when, swooping into his vision comes the nightmare image of --

LESTAT -- In filthy swamp-soaked rags, robust again, but his flesh shrivelled, covered in scars, his eyes riddled, bloodshot. He roars.

Louis throws his body against the door, slamming it on Lestat's reaching hand. The hand withdraws, as Lestat roars. Louis bolts the door.

Louis runs up the stairs, sweeps Claudia in his arms, watching apalled as the door shudders with the force of Lestat's body.

IN THE PARLOUR --

Louis runs through with Claudia in his arms.

Suddenly Lestat crashes through the casement window, scattering blood everywhere, reefing himself on the shattered glass. He tumbles to the floor and gets unsteadily to his feet.

Louis throws Claudia behind him and hurls himself on Lestat, who fights like a ravening animal, bits of his broken body coming off in the process. Then with a terrifying effort, Lestat hurls Louis off, goes for Claudia, who grabs the poker from the fireplace, scatters burning coals over him. He falls back, then comes at her again, as the drapes catch fire. Louis grabs the lamp.

Lestat lunges again at Claudia. Louis hurls the lamp, which explodes him in flame.

Lestat screams in agony, whirls around the room, then comes on Claudia again. She hurls another lamp. Louis throws the flaming sheets around him, wrapping him further in fire. Lestat falls to his knees, choking, hands up over his face in the smoke. The whole parlour is afire. Louis gathers up Claudia, smothering the flames of her skirt with his hands. He runs out through the burning house, carries her down the back stairs, through the carriage way and through the gathering crowds of mortals into the street.

Louis running, with Claudia in his arms. He looks back at the flames of the house. Sound of a ship's horn.

Holding her tightly, Louis runs.

Louis stands at the railings in the morning mist as the ship moves down the river. He sees...

CITY OF NEW ORLEANS

With flame lighting up the sky.

Louis and Malloy.

The ship, shrouded in mist.

A body is slipped into the sea. A priest reads last rites to a mourning family.

Trunks and cases, creaking with the ship's movement. Dead rats everywhere.

Passing through the straits of Gibralter.

Claudia, sitting with an easel and sketch-pad, sketching the bay of Naples. A beautifully realised drawing, all in shades of grey and black. Louis observes.

The sketch changes to a sketch of -

THE ACROPOLIS --

In the moonlight.

The sketch changes to a sketch of --

TRANSYLVANIA --

and the traditional shapes of the vampire landscape.

A montage of sketches now - A TRANSYLVANIAN VILLAGE, A GRAVEYARD, RUINED CASTLE AFTER CASTLE, LOOMING INTO THE SKIES...

Malloy and Louis.

Crowds and gaslight everywhere. Carriages, horses, OPERA coming from the opera house.

The high walls of the Louvre, dark figures walking in pairs through the shadowy tulieries.

Claudia, in furtrimmed muff and bonnet, peers through the glass at a display of dolls. Each doll in there seems to resemble her, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She peers deep into the shop and sees -

MADELEINE, a young woman bent over a workbench painting a doll's face, oblivious to being watched.

Louis and Claudia hurrying hand and hand with a crowd of mortals towards the sound ofan ORCHESTRA TUNING beyond.

Claudia and Louis standing in the deep shadows, looking at the branching arches. Louis is overcome with sadness, Claudia is fascinated.

Louis and Claudia walk among a series of mythological nudes by Poussin.

Claudia, surrounded by discarded dresses and outfits, being attended by cautouriers. All the clothes are tiny, to fit her frame, but have an adult cut and shape.

Full of late 19th century furniture, lots of Empire style, Regency, gilt, velvet and brocade.

CLOSE ON A HUGE BLACK EBONY CHEST

Against a wall, solemn among all the light and glitter.

CLAUDIA

By a large gilt mirror, in her new clothes. She is covered with jewelry, fixing earrings to her ears.

Louis walks over, helps her with the earrings.

Claudia laughs.

He turns away.

She twirls, looking at herself in the mirror, then stops, stares at herself.

Louis is stunned. He blushes.

She stares at him through the mirror.

Louis and Claudia walk along a boulevard like father and daughter. All around them are bourgeois Parisian families on their evening stroll. Claudia points at the children that pass.

She points to a beautiful French child walking by with her mother.

We see Madeleine, inside, painting a doll's face. Louis and Claudia arrive outside.

POV --

Claudia's face, with the dolls in the background. The resemblance is uncanny.

Madeleine sees Claudia from inside. She waves.

He takes her arm. But Claudia shakes him off, and moves into the shop.

Louis walks briskly, head bowed.

CU LOUIS' FEET -

Walking. A step echoes his.

Louis stops. Turns, sees nothing. Then walks again. The echoing steps begin again.

Louis again. Sees a shadow, flitting.

Nothing. He walks again, hears the same effect. The he stops. He stares at a gaslamp opposite.

Santiago, a tall vampire, materialises under the gaslight. And Louis gradually realises that this vampire has assumed the same attitude, posture, clothes and hair-style as Louis.

Louis gives an involuntary shake of the head. Santiago mimics. Louis takes a step forwards. Santiago mimics. Louis folds his arms. Santiago mimics.

Louis calculates.

Santiago echoes the first word, but not the second. Louis has broken his composure. He turns his back on Santiago, only to come face to face with Santiago right in front of him.

Again Louis turns his back to find Santiago facing him.

Louis turns, glowers, refusing to look at him.

Slowly he looks up. Santiago draws close, breaking the mirror trick and suddnly slams Louis back against the wall.

Louis is furious. He regains his balance, strikes out at Santiago and when Santiago vanishes, to reapear behind him, Louis slams back his elbow ito his midriff. Santiago staggers, amazed and then rushes at Louis, throwing him down.

Louis rolls back to his feet, then to his amazement sees two vampires, one in front, one behind. He looks both ways, then sees one has vanished. He stares, awestruck, at this new one:

ARMAND

He looks like an angel.

He reaches into his waistcoat, takes an engraved invitation out of his pocket and thrusts it at Louis.

Louis reads aloud, as we see:

THEATRE DES VAMPIRES By Special Invitation Friday, 9 p.m..

Armand bows and vanishes.

Louis listens to the silence.

Louis formally dressed with Claudia in rich attire on his arm. They pass people buying tickets for the theatre and go inside.

They draw close to:

HUGE POSTERS, reading --

THEATRE DES VAMPIRES PRESENTS THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH By Edgar Allen Poe

The posters are illustrated with cliched images of vampires overcoming damsels in distress.

ANOTHER ANGLE

Warily, they show their invitations to the mortal ticket taker at the door. He glances away indifferently.

Claudia and Louis look at the crowd as the lights go down.

Stage: curtain rises.

An elaborate painted set of an Italianate castle. Death standing before it, the traditional image of the Grim Reaper, complete with magnificent scythe.

A version of the Poe story undolds before them. All of the participants are vampires. All beautiful gleaming white, aged 20 or 30.

A spotlight uncovers a mortal woman suddenly forced out upon the stage.

The audience laughs uneasily, then stops as the Mortal Woman comes into the footlights. She is too beautiful, too confused. Santiago, as Death, advances on her. She backs away, terrified, then sees the other vampires, in a phalanx, advancing from behind, in a half-circle.

She looks around in panic. Santiago swoons, arms over his breast as if he is hopelessly in love.

The Mortal Woman steps to the footlights.

Louis whispers to Claudia.

ON THE STAGE --

Santiago gestures to the audience

AUDIENCE

Rapt faces.

ON STAGE

Santiago

approaches her and tears the drawstring out of her peasnt blouse. It opens completely and starts to slip. She tries to catch it, but gently stops her wrists. The blouse falls, exposing her young breasts.

LOUIS AND CLAUDIA

ON STAGE

She shakes her head, confused. He catches her wrists behind her back.

AUDIENCE

is awestruck by her beauty, her suffering.

SANTIAGO

draws near her cheek.

AUDIENCE

A young girl cries out in jest.

Audience roars with laughter.

ONSTAGE

The AUDIENCE laughs again.

The Mortal Woman shakes her head in panic.

CLOSE ON CLAUDIA

Even she is repelled by the cruelty. She shakes her head.

MORTAL WOMAN

Shakes her head. She is helpless.

MORTAL WOMAN

looks up on the verge of hysteria or fainting. But then her eyes mist over. She is being entranced.

FROM HER POV

we realise she is looking past Santiago at the divinely beautiful Armand, who has just stepped out of the wings. Armand has entranced her. he passes Santiago. Santiago stiffens, but yields the stage.

ARMAND

takes her by the naked shoulders.

ON STAGE

Armand gestures to the others who slowly, gracefully close in.

He pulls the drawstring from her skirt and it falls revealing her nakedness. But she is spellbound.

Armand embraces her, drinks, her naked body stark against her black clothes, then he passes her to the other vampires one by one.

CLOSE ON LOUIS

who battles desire and hunger with anger.

ON STAGE

The naked Mortal Woman lies dead on the floor. The vampires seem to vanish one by one. As the curtain draws across, the AUDIENCE LOUDLY APPLAUDS what they presume are theatrical tricks.

ANOTHER ANGLE

The AUDIENCE, milling towards the exits. They talk in vacuous terms about the beauty of the show, the symbolism of it, the daring of it as they leave.

Gradually LOUIS AND CLAUDIA are left alone in the empty theatre. Louis seems anxious to leave. Claudia whispers in his ear.

He looks around the empty theatre, more eery now than when the play was on. The red curtain shifts slightly in a hidden breeze, a candle sputters and dies in a box. Then the candle flares again, and we see Armand in the box, looking down on them. He stares with a dreamy expression, saying nothing.

His voice echoes eerily. Armand gestures for them to follow him.

Armand leading, Louis and Claudia following. It opens into a -- HUGE UNDERGROUND BALLROOM

Walls are painted with famous copies of Durer, Brueghel, Goya and Bosch depictions of death. Fine wooden coffins line the walls. Candles burn in sconces, casting alternate shadows and pools of light. Armand walks through, gesturing Louis and Claudia to follow him.

As they walk through, vampire men and women appears out of the shadows like wraiths, startling them, drifting around them, stroking them, touching Claudia as if she were a doll. Shrieks of preternatural laughter.

Armand gestures to the vampires to back off.

All obey but ESTELLE.

She menaces Claudia, her breasts enormous, her fangs bared. Armand throws her a look, and she is flung against the wall.

Louis stares around. The vampires faces drift towards him and away, always disclosing the face of Armand, who seems some distance away, but strangely close, staring at Louis with a constantly calm, hypnotic gaze. Then a young mortal boy comes form the shadows aitha candleabra, which he hands to Armand.

Armand and the boy come towards them, leading them along the walls, his candleabra illuminating the ghastly murals, his face gleaming like an angel above the cadleflame.

The boy is watching Louis. Armand's hand beckons and the boy draws up to Louis in the candlelight. He places his arms on Louis' shoulders. Louis glances at Armand, who smiles. Louis sees the puncture marks on the boy's neck.

Louis is utterly confused. Can't resists. Drinks his blood.

The boy's body presses against him, sensual, willing. The other vampires appear all around Louis, who suddenly senses it and draws away, ashamed.

Claudia watches warily, from a distance. Armand beckons at her and Louis and opens a door in the wall which reveals a stone staircase.

Medieval chairs, table, an old coffin,a bed in one corner, a blazing fire. A medieval painting of Satan, being banished from Heaven, above the fire. Armand places the boy on the bed, settling him so he sleeps.

He glances at Louis, then at Claudia, who averts her eyes.

Cluadia stares at him constantly, guarded.

He stares from Claudia to Louis. He seems to be reading their souls.

Claudia appears suddenly at Louis' shoulder, interrupting.

She stares hard at Armand. Armand looks from her to Louis.

He seems genuinely regretful. But Claudia pulls Louis out.

Louis and Claudia feel their way through darkened corridors, trying to find their way out.

Suddenly a light comes on. They see they are in the empty theatre. Santiago stands on the stage, under a candle.

Louis is stunned.

Other vampires appear behind him.

He looks at Claudia.

Claudia laughs.

Claudia and Louis enter the lobby.

She marches up the stairs.

They come to their room, enter.

Louis closes the door behind him. Claudia paces.

She smiles at him. A strange, sad, adult smile.

She touches his face.

There are tears in her eyes. Louis lifts her up in his arms.

Claudia, staring at the dolls. We see Madeleine inside, painting a doll. She sees Claudia and smiles and waves.

Louis, sitting alone in the box, as the curtains draw back, to show Santiago as death, as before. Louis takes advantage of the darkness to slip away.

Armand opens the door to Louis' knock.

He follows Armand into the room.

Armand smiles.

Armand suddenly grips Louis close to him.

Louis laughs bitterly.

Armand smiles.

Louis is stunned.

Louis is speechless.

Armand stands. He takes Louis by the arm, leads him towards the back wall.

He opens a hidden door in the wall.

Louis, in the street outside, as the door closes behind him.

Louis enters. There is unfamiliar scent in the air, a doll sitting by the mirror. Louis looks in the mirror and sees --

MADELEINE, the doll-maker, resplendent in green taffeta, sitting like a Madonna with Claudia on her lap. Claudia's arms are wound round her neck. The contrast between mortal woman and immortal child is plain.

Madeleine rises and comes towards Louis. She draws back the lace fringes round her throat, so he can see the two marks there. She says softly, dreamily:

Louis turns away. Claudia speaks, icy, from the bed.

Louis turns to Madeleine.

Louis pushes her away. Claudia screams.

Louis grips Madeleine and shakes her.

She points to Madeleine.

She begins to weep, sobbing like a child.

Louis looks at Madeleine.

She wraps her arms around Claudia.

Her finger clutch a locket round her neck. Louis touches it, opens it.

THE LOCKET --

A picture of a young girl, Claudia's age, wistful, beautiful.

Louis takes her chin in his hand, gently.

Louis pulls her to him and starts to drink her blood.

Louis on the balcony, weakened terribly. A breeze blows on the gauze curtains behind him, through which we see --

SILHOUETTES --

of Madeleine and Claudia. Madeleine her arms outstretched, now a vampire, a long moan of pain coming from her. Claudia comes through the curtains, alarmed.

Louis speaks without turning.

He turns to look at Claudia.

She takes his hand.

He bends down and kisses her. He looks up, at the wafting curtains. he sees --

MANY VAMPIRE SHADOWS

Silhouetted, coming closer.

CLAUDIA

looks up and screams.

THE CURTAINS

Are ripped aside. The vampires of the Theatre surge through

The Vampired close on them as Louis struggles, Claudia's scream pierces the night air.

In a press of vampires, Louis, Claudia and Madeleine are forced down the dark corridor. Into -

THE BALLROOM Vampire chaos, as they are dragged through. Louis struggling like a demon.

Santiago strikes Louis to the ground. As he struggles to his feet, he sees the vampires part around a figure coming through. He gasps at the sight of --

LESTAT

Dressed beautifully, but horribly scarred now, from the fire as well as the earlier stabbing. Lestat is confused, ancient, teetering, reaching for Santiago's shoulder to steady himself.

Lestat shakes his head.

Lestat reaches out to Louis.

the sound of something being dragged through the crowd. Horrible, echoing, scraping -

Lestat grips Santiago.

He stares around him, confused. The scraping gets louder.

Santiago grabs Louis by the neck.

We see now what caused the scraping. A huge metal coffin being dragged through the vampires. Claudia screams.

The vampires grab Louis. They force him towards the coffin. Lestat struggles with them.

Louis struggles fiercely as he is forced into the coffin. Claudia weeps.

Louis, struggling in the coffin. Then the lid is forced down, huge locks closed over it.

Louis, in the smallest imaginable space. Beating his forehead against the metal.

Claudia, throwing herself on the coffin, crying. She is dragged away. Vampire hands drag the coffin across the stone floor.

Louis, forehead pouring with blood, being thrown this way and that. The coffin is lifted, upside down, Louis' head crashes off the floor.

Is thrust into a niche in the wall. Bricks being placed over, mortar trowelled on.

Louis upside down. Sounds of bricks and mortar. Then a terrifying, unearthly scream pierces the coffin, striking to his very soul.

He loses consciousness.

BLACKNESS.

Louis sleeps, upside down. Sound of bricks being broken, thrown aside. Then of locks breaking..

Louis opens his eyes. The lid opens. He sees -

ARMAND

above him, reaching down to take his hand.

Louis gets out, into a vast long catacomb. Louis runs to the end of it, steps through a broken brick wall.

He points to his cell at the end of the passage, the foot of the steps. Sound of rain beyond the door.

Louis runs up the stone stairs. It leads to the ballroom. he enters.

Estelle stands far off, looking at him coolly. She lifts the stage skull mask and laughs softly behind it. A male vampire slumps in a chair staring softly at Louis.

Silence. Indifference.

Louis sees Lestat sitting in a far corner. He rushes up to Lestat, who looks up at him, confused. He's holding something crumpled, made of cloth.

Louis turns round and round in rage. Passive still faces. A door bangs open and shut.

Louis looks again at Lestat. He snatches the cloth from Lestat's hand. We see it is a small torn bloodstained dress. Claudia's dress.

The door bangs again. Estelle laughs. Rain gusts into the ballroom.

Louis goes to the door, holding the dress. Armand approaches, trying to pull him away, but Louis shrugs him off.He draws hearer and nearer and stairs at --

On the stones lie Claudia and Madeleine, burnt to ashes, in each other's arms, like the corpses of his wife and daughter in the New Orleans graveyard, embracing each other.

Only Claudia's blonde hair and Madeleine's red hair remain unburnt.

Louis looks up at the walls of this airwell, many stories to the sky. He cries out in agony.

Santiago appears behind him, staring. Louis roars in horror and attacks Santiago, scattering the ashes into the rainy wind. Claudias golden locks fly up into the wind, they whirl around the warring figure.

Armand appears, drags Louis free, pulls him screaming from the airwell, into the ballroom, towards the exit.

Claudia's hair is sucked up by the wind through the airwell, towards the night sky.

Louis is slumped against the stone wall. Armand stands beside him like a guardian angel.

Louis climbs to his feet.

Wet and deserted, the streets around the theatre are quiet.

C/U CLOCK

Chiming five a.m.

CLOSE ON LOUIS

looking at the paling sky. He is in an alleyway, outside of Armand's cell. He has a huge keg with him. He finds the door unlocked. He enters.

empty. The hearth is cold. The old coffin is gone. Louis silently closes the door to the passage and blocks it with an immense bar. He goes in the other door.

Louis hurls kerosene all over the sstage, the curtain, the sets, the seats below. He grabs the scythe from the playlet. He walks out, dribbling a trail of kerosene behind him.

Louis walking rapidly down, leaving the trail of kerosene. He creeps quietly into the --

BALLROOM

leaking kerosene from the cask. He splashes over the coffins that gleam in the dimness.

Then he strikes a match and heaves it into the kerosene. Everything bursts into flame. The trail of kerosene roars into fire through the ballroom over the coffins and up the stairs. We hears EXPLOSIONS of fire from above.

LOUIS

shudders all over, fighting the morning weakness. he readies the scythe, like the Grim Reaper.

ESTELLE rises from her burning coffin, screams and tries to run through the fire but Louis slashes her down with the scythe and she goes down screaming, her dress in flames

Others rise, choking in the smoke. Screams from everywhere. They are burning.

Louis backs up the stairs to the --

DUNGEON

He can see there a thin pale light under Armand's bolted door. Suddenly --

SANTIAGO

comes at him from behind. Louis turns. Santiago rushes him in a blur. Louis swings the scythe, too fast to see what he himself is doing. Santiago's head streaming blood flies through the air.

The body drops, flapping its arms.

SCREAMS come from everywhere.

Another vampire rushes burning towards Louis. He decapitates him in turn. Then he staggers into Armand's cell, and bars the dor that connects it to the ballroom behind him. He staggers to the outer door. There is a thin strip of daylight, beneath the door, blinding him. He throws it open, and staggers into the daylight.

Louis staggers out of the burning theatre, into the thin daylight. Great gusts of smoke cover the street. He staggers through the daylight, weakening, about to fall, when through the clouds of smoke comes -

A MAGNIFICENT HEARSE -

as in a dream, driven by Armand's human boy. The door of the hearse opens. Through the curtains enclosing the interior, we see Armand. He reaches a hand out to Louis and pulls him inside.

The hearse vanishes through the smoke, leaving the spectacle of the burning theatre.

The gutted Theatre and ballroom, the roof collapsed, exposed to the evening sky. The life of Paris goes on around it, oblivious.

It is already a museum by this time and Louis and Armand, fancily dressed and composed, walk through it. They stop by a Gericault - The Wreck Of The Medusa.

He looks at Louis affectionately.

Armand and Louis walk slowly through the Louvre together. Camera follows them for a while, then comes to rest on a sunrise by Turner.

A deco cinema of the twenties. Louis and Armand, dressed in the style of the period walk down the aisle through the crowded seats.

On the screen, Murnau's SUNRISE, in black and white. We see a montage of sunrises, from a whole range of movies, in black and white.

The SUNRISES continue, in colour now, and the backgrounds in them change to the fifties.

The lights come up in a different theatre. Louis sitting there, alone, in a half empty theatre, dressed in the clothes of the fifties. He rises, exits with the others.

Cars rushing by, twentieth-century madness. Louis emerges from the theatre, walks through the streets.

Louis walks past the many Greek Revival Mansions.

CAMERA PANS OVER white-walled Lafayette cemetry and its surrounding mansions.

Louis sees rats darting across the street. They rush into a great overgrown garden surrounding a ruined mansion. No lights.

Louis stops at a rusted gate. He forces it open and enters --

A VERITABLE JUNGLE

of overgrown rose and oak tree and wisteria. He sees a faint glimmer of light coming from a distant glassless window of a huge Greek Revival house. He approaches then he sees --

OLD SHRIVELLED CORPSE

of a man, long dead and dried up, snagged in the thorny rose- vines.

LOUIS

looks around. Walks on. Sees another corpse, almost nothing but bones, sinking into the wet earth, the roots of an oak overgrowing it.

He looks up at the distant light.

He passes a third corpse, caught in wisteria and rose vine, only bones and clothes.

Louis sees dead rats lying near the steps.

Louis treads carefully on the rotted steps. He moves along the porch. More dead rats. He sees through the floor-length window into rooms lined with stacked books. Virtually walled with them. Water seeps down from the ceiling, gleaming as it streaks over the books. The floors of the splendid rooms are bare, except for a rotted French chair by a dead fireplace. A single mirror reflecting the moon.

Dead rats.

He moves along the porch to the parlous windows. The candle flickers inside. He sees --

HIS POV

Lestat lying on the floor. He is guant to near starvation. All his scars are gone, but he is almost a skeleton and his eyes are emormous in their sockets. His clothes are rags. Blond hair beautiful, as always.

MALLOY'S ENTRANCED FACE SUPERIMPOSED OVER

BACK TO --

Lestat. One tiny candle stands beside him. He reads an early comic, from the turn of the century. Without turning his head, he speaks.

He turns and looks at Louis. old, fearful, broken.

Louis shakes his head. A series of police sirens go by, piercing the night sky. A helicopter goes overhead. Red flashes illuminate his face. Lestat shivers, covers his ears. He's terrified. Louis touches him, calming him, untill the lights pass over.

Louis shivers. He releases him.

Lestat shivers.

Louis walks slowly away from him. Lestat turns back to his candle, his magazine.

A bluebottle buzzes by him. His hand shoots out and grabs it, squeezes the blood.

ON LOUIS

as he walks through the decayed house. His eyes are expressionless.

Malloy, staring at Louis.

Louis looks at the cassettes on the table.

Malloy rises.

Louis is slowly horrified, then outraged and angry.

He stares at Louis.

Louis turns away.

he looks at the boy. Then suddenly grabs him, lifts him off the floor, bares his terrifying fangs and brings them to his throat. Malloy screams, in involuntary terror.

Malloy, now terrified, whispers.

Louis drops him.

Malloy, falls on the floor, terrified. When he looks up, Louis has vanished.

He looks up at the tape. It is still turning.

he shakes his head. He gets up, and with shaking fingers gathers his tapes. He runs out of the room.

Malloy running for his car, a convertible. He leaps in and screeches off through the night.

Malloy whips the car through the tiny streets, in sheer, unfocussed terror.

Malloy driving with streams of traffic over the bridge. He breathes deeply, to calm himself. He takes a tape from his pocket, and with still shaking hands, sticks it in the deck.

Suddenly a bony hand shoots out from the back seat, pulls his neck backwards --

LESTAT

sinks his teeth in his neck.

MALLOY'S HANDS ON THE WHEEL

Shaking, shuddering, losing their grip.

MALLOY'S EYES

bulging, as the life drains out of him. Lestat sucking him like a rat.

THE WHEEL

swinging free of Malloy's dying hands

THE CAR

veers wildly into oncoming traffic

LESTAT

drinks regardless

A TRUCK

coming towards us, about to crush the car

LESTAT'S BONY HAND

grabs the wheel, jerks it as he drinks.

THE CAR

misses the truck by inches

LESTAT

Throws Malloy to one side, climbs into the front seat.

THE TAPE

playing.

ON LESTAT

at the wheel, the corpse of Malloy in the passenger seat. He smiles. We can see the blood renewing him.

Lestat drives on, the car a tiny speck against the bridge, the sea, the sky beyond, with the first fingers of light spreading through it.

THE END. 10TH FEBRUARY, 1993.