‘Interview With the Vampire’

Directed by Neil Jordan from Anne Rice’s best-selling book, this 1994 film is about how “the dark gift” of eternal life is passed on from the vampire Lestat (Tom Cruise, pictured with a victim) to the handsome Louisiana aristocrat Louis (Brad Pitt). Jordan has a feel for the supernatural and a gift for establishing a creepy mood and atmosphere that this film fully exploits. Whatever else it lacks, “Interview” does a gorgeous job of re-creating not only 18th-Century New Orleans and 19th-Century Paris, but also the book’s genuinely disturbing, almost unimaginable world of those who can never die. Supporting players Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderas bring a kind of delicately eroticized menace to their roles, and the film is better for it (HBO Saturday at 8 p.m.).