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Published Apr 18, 2026, 5:47 PM EDT
Keeley Brooks is a TV Features author at Collider. A lover of film and television since 19-none-of-your-business, she's a voracious consumer who spends the majority of her time watching, exploring, and dissecting content to bring a uniquely voiced, in-depth perspective to her work.
In her 10+ years' experience as an entertainment journalist and film and television critic, she has penned thousands of articles in an eclectic mix of alt-weeklies, local, regional, and national entertainment publications, and on multiple digital platforms.
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AMC's thirsty new series Interview with the Vampire is one of the best shows on television, thanks to its transformative reimagining of a classic Gothic horror tale as a modern drama rooted in trauma, psychology, sexuality, and vampirism. While the series is adapted from Anne Rice's hit novel of the same name, it takes creative liberties, such as changing Louis de Pointe du Lac's (Jacob Anderson) race and placing Louis and Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) in an explicit romance that spans centuries and is unmatched in depth and intensity. After two seasons revolving around Louis' side of the story, which only gets better with each episode, Season 3 is on the way with a completely different perspective, and you can bank on it being littered with bitterness, emotional intensity, and in-your-face horror that will only serve to cement Interview with the Vampire's status as the greatest fantasy-horror series on television.
‘Interview with the Vampire’ Is a Horror Television Standout
Recent Stephen King adaptations such as IT: Welcome to Derry and The Institute come to mind as horror television standouts, as do Alien: Earth and From, to name a few. There are even several upcoming horror series that look to be just as great. Still, among them all, even the iconic teen vampire shows, Interview with the Vampire is an unforgettable standout. Not only does the show boldly shift the source material to a modernized narrative, but it also elevates the horror television genre by avoiding subtext in favor of deepening its characters' emotional dynamics.
Where other shows often depend on simple jump scares, Interview with the Vampire places great emphasis on the emotional and psychological horrors of immortality and trauma, which further elevate the genre, as do the show's complex, manipulative, and much more engaging emotional portrayals of Louis and Lestat. Additionally, its unreliable narration and lavish, high-production storytelling valiantly stand out above other monster-of-the-week series, which likely contributes to its super-high critical acclaim, evidenced by Season 1’s 98% approval rating and Season 2’s 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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'Interview with the Vampire' Will Only Continue to Get Better with Season 3
As Interview with the Vampire Season 3 approaches, the most important thing to know is that everything is changing for the better. Not only is the series shifting its focus to Lestat’s side of the story, but the new season’s extended first-look indicates it will all be told through the power of rock music. In honor of this change in perspective, the show has officially been rebranded as The Vampire Lestat. Season 3’s narrative shift is pretty momentous as far as chronicling the brooding vampire’s life and rise to rock stardom go, so the name change makes sense. It’s also titled after Rice’s 1985 novel of the same name, the second in her Vampire Chronicles series.
The rebranding is crucial because, up until now, we’ve only seen Lestat as he exists in other people’s minds (except for the Season 2 finale, during his reunion with Louis). Where Louis was unpacking his trauma in Seasons 1 and 2, Lestat will be exposing it in Season 3, meaning we’ll get to see Louis through his eyes. As his band’s popularity and his star power rise, so does Lestat’s influence over vampires and humans alike, leaving others to contend with his power in the face of the Great Conversion, an unnatural surge in the vampire population, casting a new spin on both the classic Gothic tale and Lestat’s righteous character arc. The music is carefully crafted, performed, and placed, as Reid worked closely with composer Daniel Hart on laying out his character’s arcs through the music, most of which are originals that Reid performs himself.
In addition to Reid and Anderson, Assad Zaman also returns as Armand, an ancient vampire and Louis’ former lover who was exposed at the end of Season 2 for his role in that jaw-dropping production that culminated in the death of Louis and Lestat’s surrogate daughter, Claudia (Delainey Hayles). Eric Bogosian will also return as journalist-turned-vampire Daniel Molloy, and, though her character died in the Season 2 finale, Hayles is set to reprise her role as Claudia. Plenty of newcomers are on board as well, such as Noah Reid (Schitt’s Creek), Sarah Swire (The Boys), Sheila Atim (The Woman King), Jennifer Ehle (Lioness), and Christopher Heyerdahl (Hell on Wheels).
While Season 1 of Interview with the Vampire laid the series' initial groundwork and saw key creative changes, Season 2 spiced that up with mouthwatering drama of epic proportions, allowing each new installment to maintain the show's overall streak of narrative perfection. With Season 3's drastic shift in perspective, the famed horror series is now poised to make the overall story even more dimensional, with new layers of character depth and emotion.
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