Queen of the Damned

This One Bites

Main Cast: Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez

Director: Michael Rymer

‘We shall rule the world,’ the Queen proclaims. Vampires proclaim a lot in this movie. They also pose, toss back their heads dramatically, and fill a simple walk across the room with a thousand portents and alarums. It got so much I really wanted to tell them okay, just chill out already.

This is the story of Anne Rice’s vampire Lestat, who feels that vampires should come out into the light. He was created a long time ago by the vampire Marius (Perez), who had the statue of the Queen (Aaliyah) down in a hidden basement. When Lestat played a fiddle for her and drank some of her blood, Marius got jealous and, I think, released her. Or not: this part isn’t really clear. What is clear is he left Lestat pretty much on his own, which is his driving force. And maybe he’d like to become human again.

This is what a researcher in London (Moreau) thinks. She also may just have the hots for Lestat. Anyway, she follows him around as he tours the world as a rock god, in our time. He has angered the other vampires for telling the humans the truth about vampires, although from what I could see nobody believed him, thinking it was another publicity stunt. And a pretty good one, too, considering his home up in the CA hills.

Queen of the Damned is pretty goofy, as the vampires fight each other and some try to destroy the Queen, who wants to rule the world. I think the problem is that they wanted to treat the subject seriously, like the earlier Interview with a Vampire. But this movie lacks a certain gloominess, a certain dark undertone that the previous movie successfully pulled off. I’m not sure exactly why… that is the eternal mystery of the silver screen. Why do some movies work and others do not?

I’d like to recommend this one, but in the end I suggest that you find the previous Interview and rent that one if you wish to see a good vampire movie.