INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

SANTIAGO
You can make no demands here! Buffoon! Bastard -

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
Louis...

SANTIAGO
Is he the one?

Lestat shakes his head.

LESTAT
No, the child. The child was the one...

SANTIAGO
All the murderers!!!

LOUIS
You are alive, Lestat! It can't be murder! Tell them how you treated us...

Lestat reaches out to Louis.

LESTAT
No... You come back to me Louis...

LOUIS
Are you mad????

ESTELLE
The sentence is death! To all of them!!!

LESTAT
Only the girl - it was the girl -

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

Lestat grips Santiago.

LESTAT
You promised me - I could take him back to New Orleans - Louis - there's something I must tell you - about that night - that night I met you -

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

LOUIS
You let her go, Lestat - you let her free - and I'll come back with you -

Santiago grabs Louis by the neck.

SANTIAGO
Death for the others. For you eternity in a box -

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

SANTIAGO
Walled in a dungeon. Your only company will be your screams... Perhaps it will take centuries...

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

LESTAT
He's coming home with me - you promised -

SANTIAGO (LAUGHING)
We promised nothing!

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

LOUIS
They've fooled you, Lestat! You must reach Armand! Armand has the power!

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

INT. COFFIN.

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

EXT. COFFIN.

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

INT. COFFIN.

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

EXT. COFFIN.

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

INT. COFFIN.

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

LOUIS
Claudia!!!!!

He loses consciousness.

BLACKNESS.

INT COFFIN.

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.

ARMAND
Hurry. Don't make a sound.

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

LOUIS
Where is she? Where's Claudia?

ARMAND
Follow me - that way - through my cell -

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

LOUIS
Not without Claudia. Where is she?

ARMAND
I can't save her.

LOUIS
You can't believe I'd leave without her. Armand! You must save her! You have no choice.

ARMAND
Louis, I can't save her. I will only risk losing you -

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.

LESTAT
You'll come home with me Louis? Fro a little while... until I am myself again.

LOUIS
CLAUDIA!!!

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 nearer and nearer and stairs at --

INT. BRICK AIRWELL

On the stones lie Claudia and Madeleine, burn 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 blond 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. Claudia's 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.

EXT. NOTRE DAME DOOR. NIGHT.

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

ARMAND
I couldn't prevent it.

LOUIS
I don't believe you. I do not have to read your soul to know that you lie.

ARMAND
Louis, they cannot be brought back. There are some things that are impossible, even for me.

LOUIS
You let them do it.

Louis climbs to his feet.

LOUIS
You held sway over them. They feared you. You wanted it to happen.

ARMAND
Louis, I swear I did not.

LOUIS
I understand you only too well. You let them do it, as I let Lestat turn a child into a demon. As I let her rip Lestat's heart to pieces! Well I am no longer that passive fool that has spun evil from evil till the web traps the one who made it. Your melancholy spirit of this century! I know what I must do. And i warn you - you saved me tonight, so I return the favour - do not go near your cell in the Theatre Des Vampires again.

EXT. THEATRE DES VAMPIRES. DAWN.

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

C/U CLOCK

Chiming five a.m.

CLOSE ON LOUIS

Lookin 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.

INT. CELL.

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.

INT. THEATRE

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

INT. STAIRS.

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 hear 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.

ESTELLE
Stop him. It's morning. The sunlight. Stop him.

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 door the 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.

EXT. THEATRE DES VAMPIRES. DAWN.

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.

EXT. THEATRE DES VAMPIRES. TWILIGHT.

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

INT. LOUVRE. NIGHTS LATER.

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.

LOUIS
You didn't even warm them, did you?