For those of us who have heard the bone chilling stories of Dracula and still cross ourselves when we hear footsteps behind us, who still chew garlic, and lock our windows firmly before we sleep, it is easy to confuse vampires with demons. Many authors and their descriptions have told us that vampires are evil and wicked because any creature that feeds off the death of another isn’t meant to exist in our kind conscience pricking world. But in 1976, an English writer Anne Rice, decided to disprove these insulting stereotypes by leaking to us a secret exclusive coverage in a novel she titled “Interview with The Vampire”.

The novel is widely praised as one of her best works and the scariest too, as it begins with a 200 year old vampire we would come to know as Louis de Pointe du Lac, asking a very young human boy “But how much tape do you have with you?… Enough for the story?” The story referred to here is the one told throughout the novel. The story is about the then 25 year old mortal Louis who had just lost his brother and was desperate to die also. He didn’t care who would do it so it seemed fortunate at first that his murderer would be a creature so willful in killing.

Dying comes at a cost because Louis opens his eyes hours after as an undead bloodsucker, cursed to walk the night. Being a vampire comes so unnatural to Louis that he swears never to feed on humans like the vampire that turned him, Lestat, who feeds on slaves in the plantation fields. The novel is set in 1791 France, a time when Africans were transported to Europe as slaves for plantation farms and other hard labors. As superstitious as those African slaves were, it wasn’t too difficult for them to arrive at the conclusion that a monster was kidnapping and killing them one by one.

They became vigilant enough to find out Louis and Lestat were the perpetrators. They had a secret room they never came out from in the daytime, looked pale, and were never seen eating food – but just before the slaves could kill them both vampires escape to New Orleans. Away from the smaller animals on the farm and the forest in France, Louis is forced to feed off street dwellers in back alleys but refuses to kill them. His blood lust soon makes him feed off a five year old girl who is lying beside her mother’s corpse.