How did Lestat survive the drinking of dead blood?
Lestat survived because drinking dead blood will not kill a vampire. ‘Less the death takes you down with it’ does not actually mean the vampire dies from drinking dead blood. It just makes them seriously ill. The blood is not circulating. The poison in the blood also added to how Lestat reacted. It won’t kill him but it will hurt him and weaken him for a time. As noted in the San Francisco version of the Lestat musical (which served as an actual sequel to this film) Lestat says ‘She’s poisoned me!’ Lestat recovered for multiple reasons. Nothing Claudia did is actually fatal to a vampire. Besides this he had the blood of two older vampires within him (confirmed in the novels and the Lestat musical). He fed on the aligator to aide in his recovery (as mentioned in the film itself).
