10 Vampire Romances That Rival Lestat and Louis
Toxic, romantic, iconic — the love story of Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac contains multitudes. While Interview with the Vampire‘s central couple may be one of the best vampire romances in media history, other bloodsucking love affairs challenge it for the number-one slot. Since its Bram Stoker beginnings, the vampire genre has seen some time-tested trysts, love as eternal as a night creature’s body and equally soaked in blood. These are 10 vampire romances that rival Lestat and Louis in sex appeal, cultural impact, and, of course, emotional messiness.
Adam and Eve – Only Lovers Left Alive
The central couple in Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, the appropriately named Adam and Eve are the blueprint for ancient, undying love. Unlike Lestat and Louis, Adam and Eve aren’t emotionally toxic; they worked out their baggage long ago. What makes this pair great is their commitment to each other through the mundane realities of eternity. How do you keep a centuries-old relationship fresh for millennia to come? You spend a lot of time apart. Stable enough in their love to pursue their own individual interests in Detroit and Tangiers, Adam and Eve are the roadmap for healthy vampire relationships. And during the countless hours they’ve spent in each other’s company, their love has only grown. If Lestat and Louis spent less time trying to kill each other and more time sucking on blood popsicles while cuddling on the couch like Adam and Eve do, maybe their relationship would be in a better place.
Astarion and Tav – Baldur’s Gate 3
The beloved evil vampire twink of Baldur’s Gate 3, Astarion is prime romance material for the player character. While his personality is as prickly as his canines at the story’s beginning, Astarion soon softens into one of the sweetest romantic partners in the entire game. Granted, you have to be a little bit grey in your moral choices to attract him, but for a love story like this, it’s worth the ethical compromise. Like most vampires, Astarion is a product of abuse – brought into the world by his seriously screwed-up former master Cazador. While the bent-over-a-headstone graveyard hook-up you can have with him is incredible enough, the greatest relationship milestone you can experience is killing Cazador together. Unlike Lestat and Louis, Astarion’s toxicity really can be fixed by love — and a dagger through his former master’s heart.
Oskar and Eli – Let The Right One In
Perhaps the sweetest romance in all of vampire media, Oskar and Eli’s coming-of-age love puts Lestat and Louis’ devotion to shame. Since the release of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the vampire narrative has served as a parable for abuse — bloodsucking night creatures prey upon the innocent and the corruptible. Both victims of profound neglect, Eli and Oskar turn the vampire narrative on its bat-like ear. Lestat and Louis are each other’s trauma, but Eli and Oskar shield each other from harm in an uncaring, adult world. Their relationship isn’t adversarial; it’s based on mutual care and support. How do they show it? Well, Oskar gives Eli little gifts and emotional warmth, and Eli decapitates his enemies in return. Sure sounds like a healthy relationship! Lestat and Louis could learn a thing or two.
Dracula and Mina – Bram Stoker’s Dracula
“I have crossed oceans of time to find you.” Dracula’s internet-famous quote is one of the most celebrated expressions of love in the entire vampire genre. While Lestat’s “it is a thin veil” letter to Louis in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire may be swoon-worthy, Bram Stoker’s Dracula could make a vampire bat sigh with yearning. One of cinema’s biggest romantics, Dracula has spent his eternal life waiting for his beloved Mina to be reincarnated, so that he can be reunited with her once more in a new era. Lestat and Louis’ love was time-tested to a point, but quickly began to decay as the decades passed. Dracula and Mina’s romance? It aged like fine wine.
The Girl and Arash – A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
While Interview With the Vampire has a plethora of heavy-breathing inducing moments, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Midnight wins the award for most romantic tension squeezed into a single scene. After finding Arash walking home from a Halloween party high on drugs and dressed as Dracula, the film’s unnamed vampire heroine takes him back to her home — unsure whether to kiss or exsanguinate him. Watching these two stare at one another while listening to the banger “Death” by White Lies is heart-pounding enough to get any night creature going. He’s falling in love. She’s deciding his fate. The audience is sweating — out of fear or arousal, no one knows for sure. Never has there been a scene so sweet, scary, and sexy in all of vampire cinema. Lestat and Louis need to up their game.
Eric and Bill and Sookie – True Blood
A love triangle that rivals Lestat, Louis, and Armand, the trio at the heart of True Blood is one of vampire media’s steamiest. The sexual tension oozing from Bill, Eric, and Sookie could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool — and that’s before the werewolf Alcide doggie-paddles into the mix. While the trio never officially blossomed into a true ménage à trois, the almost-throuple was headcanon in the minds of fans. The internet is littered with Bill x Eric x Sookie fan-fiction, egged on by the trio’s belligerent attraction to each other. While Lestat’s romantic overtures to Louis certainly raise the blood pressure, nothing quite gets a vampire-lover’s heart going like a snarled “Sookie is mine” from Bill — except for the sight of Eric sitting on his Fangtasia throne, that is.
Carmilla and Laura – Carmilla
While Bram Stoker gets all the credit for popularizing the vampire genre, Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu put out an iconic vampire romance decades before Dracula. A tale of dark desire between a young woman and a vampire, Carmilla is a gothic, sapphic romance that desperately deserves a modern-day remake. While Lestat and Louis are the contemporary face of queer vampire love, Carmilla and Laura were falling for one another before Interview with the Vampire was even a glint in Anne Rice’s eye. The blueprint for emotionally manipulative vampires everywhere, Carmilla walked through the shadows so Lestat could (quite literally) fly. And while Interview with the Vampire is a thoughtful exploration of repressed sexual desire, Carmilla explored similar themes at a time when queer storytelling was nearly non-existent. When it comes to early influence upon the genre, Carmilla‘s importance cannot be overstated.
Mina and John and Sarah – The Hunger
The love triangle at the center of Tony Scott’s The Hunger, this trio rivals Lestat and Louis in terms of pure toxicity. Alive since the days of ancient Egypt, Miriam Blaylock begins the film in a relationship with a vampire played by David Bowie — not even Lestat can compete with that. After Bowie’s character, John, starts aging rapidly due to unintended vampire side effects, Miriam begins hooking up with Sarah, the same doctor John hired to heal him. It’s an Interview with the Vampire level of messy, and it only gets worse from there. While it starts as an erotic thriller, The Hunger soon devolves into downright operatic levels of melodrama. Sarah spites Miriam by fatally stabbing herself in the neck, and Miriam is eventually killed by her mummified ex-lovers. Lestat and Louis have their problems, but things never quite get that bad.
Striga and Morana – Castlevania
While the love between Dracula and Lisa Tepes may incited Castlevania‘s central plot, their short-lived romance eventually takes a back seat to an even more iconic pair. Two of the four all-female rulers of Styria, Striga and Morana are one of the show’s most well-adjusted couples — even though they’re also mass murderers. When the Council of Sisters falls apart under Carmilla’s paranoia and bloodlust, Striga and Morana remain steadfast and supportive partners. In a genre defined by toxic relationships, it’s sweet to see a love story break free from the mould. Morana and Striga’s love survives the breakdown of an entire nation; Lestat and Louis’s relationship couldn’t even withstand local New Orleans politics.
Edward and Bella – Twilight
Love them or hate them, the cultural impact of Twilight‘s Edward and Bella is undeniable — not even Lestat and Louis can compete. The central couple in one of the best-selling series ever, this infamous pair is responsible for one of the most over-the-top romances in all of vampire media. Edward’s jazz-hands “this is the skin of a killer” pose while glittering in the sun, the “hold on tight, spidermonkey” race through the trees, the thunderstorm vampire baseball sequence set to Muse — Twilight rewired Tumblr-era brain chemistries across the globe. A Hot Topic goth opera, this franchise left deep fang marks on the neck of pop culture, and the wound still hasn’t closed. Lestat and Louis may be iconic, but Edward and Bella’s unhinged love story is the stuff of modern-day vampire legend.
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