I always kinda wanted to see QUEEN OF THE DAMNED and I think we can all be proud of me that I managed to get it in before it turned 25. Pretty much still a new release! If you’ve forgotten though, it’s basically a new cast, new filmmakers sequel to INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, with Tom Cruise’s vampire character Lestat now played by Stuart Townsend (SIMON MAGUS). He also narrates the movie and man does it make for a funny opening. He explains how he got sick of immortality “So I went to sleep, hoping that the sounds of the passing eras would fade out, and a sort of death might happen.” He’s Dracula-ing inside a coffin in a crypt with a cool skeleton sculpture on the lid.

“But as I lay there, the world didn’t sound like the place I had left, but something… different. Better.”

Cut to a series of close ups: a kick drum, guitars, tattoos, nipple rings, etc., as rocking out occurs. A band is jamming in his old mansion and the sound wakes him up. He slips into their jam session and appoints himself lead vocalist. You gotta just assert yourself, right? Fake it ’til you make it. When they ask him “Who the hell are you, man?” he says “I am the vampire Lestat.” They laugh and then realize he’s serious and then he turns them.

“From that moment on they were my friends, my children, my band. Giving the world a new god. Me.”

Yeah, I had heard that in Anne Rice’s popular Vampire Chronicles books Lestat becomes a rock star. But I still wasn’t prepared for the opening credits where he sings his angsty nu metal jamz in a CABINET-OF-DR._CALIGARI-homaging video. The music is credited to Richard Gibbs (BINGO, DIRTY WORK) and Jonathan Davis (the singer from Korn), and it’s Davis’ voice as Lestat (later apparently re-recorded by different singers for the soundtrack album, for contractual reasons).

Anyway, next thing we know Lestat is a superstar, and he’s really called “The Vampire Lestat,” and I think most people assume it’s a put-on, but choose to humor it as a fun novelty? I’m not totally sure. It definitely seems like most of the reporters take it as a joke (arguably excepting Serena Altschul, who reports about him with a straight face on MTV News). There’s a huge press conference where he only appears on a giant screen behind the band but he stills seems to be able to seduce the female reporters with his hypnotic sex eyes.

Though his lifestyle is no longer a secret he moves around from mansion to mansion, with a manager (Tiriel Mora, HAPPY FEET) who brings him groupies to bite. It does feel pretty believable that these women are more excited than scared when they’re told they can stay in his mansion if they let him suck on their necks. They think they’re gonna have sex with him and he starts crawling, then crawls up the wall and onto the ceiling. They don’t seem that surprised at first, but then they scream and do not move out of the way when he drops onto them to kill them. Funny shit.

Meanwhile there’s a young paranormal researcher named Jesse (Marguerite Moreau, THE MIGHTY DUCKS saga) who determines that his lyrics contain secret references that prove he really is a vampire. Her mentor David Talbot (Paul McGann, ALIEN 3) reveals that their organization Talamasca already knew about Lestat. He gives her Lestat’s journal, but tells her not to look into him any more. Can you guess what she does?

Well, first we get a whole flashback taken from the pages of his journal, where we see him get turned by a guy named Marius (Vincent Perez, whose look in THE CROW: CITY OF ANGELS Lestat seems to take inspiration from). Back in the day Lestat was a good violinist and one day he went into a secret vampire cave chamber thing and played in front of a statue of the first vampire, Akasha. This is the character played by R&B singer Aaliyah, who tragically died in a plane crash before the release of the movie. The sculpture really is a beautiful likeness of her, looks like wax, maybe supposed to be marble, and when he plays for it it starts to move a little.

He notices veins under her skin so he bites her wrists and becomes very powerful. He wasn’t supposed to do that.

In the present Jesse goes to a vampire club in London that was referenced in one of Lestat’s Korn songs. Some vampires figure out she’s a phony and are going to attack her but Lestat rescues her like some alley vigilante. They sorta become friends as she seems morbidly curious about becoming a vampire and he turns his nose up at the idea of turning her and tries to destroy her illusions by doing horrible vampire shit in front of her. She also has a whole thing where she dreams of sleeping in a mansion with a creepy doll collection belonging to her aunt Maharet (Lena Olin, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING, MYSTERY MEN), who later turns out to be an ancient vampire.

Lestat’s powerful rock and roll jamz have resurrected Akasha, so she comes looking for him, burns down a vampire night club, etc. Lestat has announced a huge outdoor concert in Death Valley, which has attracted the leaders of various vampire clans, who want to kill him for outing the existence of vampires. The shots of the vampires standing in the crowd not even pretending to be fans are really funny.

I’m not sure what the real fans are supposed to be thinking when all the vampires come on stage and fight Lestat, doing weird flying and super-speed maneuvers. I think it’s the same as KPOP DEMON HUNTERS where they assume it’s all stagecraft? One of them he slashes on the throat and then kicks him and the head falls off. Everybody claps. There’s alot of stuff in here that seems BLADE-adjacent but never done as well as BLADE, and that makes it sort of entertaining in a different way. Then the vamps start catching on fire, there’s an explosion, and Akasha rises out of the stage. (“Oh shit, it’s Aaliyah!,” some of the crowd must’ve thought.)

Aaliyah’s untimely passing obviously brings the character a certain mystique that might not have been there otherwise, but I never heard of anyone that worships this movie like people worship THE CROW. Which makes sense, because it’s just not as good. Still, her and her character are clearly the best thing about the movie. It’s extra sad to watch at this age and see how very, very young she was. But she really emanates this otherworldly aura that works for the ultimate vampire, intimidating even to the other vampires, writhing like a snake, moving almost in slow motion. There’s a great part where she acts like she’s gonna kiss a hipster vampire, and you figure “oh, she’s gonna bite him,” and she does, but not on his neck. She rips out his heart and takes a bite out of that.

I thought it was odd that the movie is about music and the actual singer in the cast doesn’t sing at all, but of course, duh, they had intended to have her on the soundtrack (a duet with Jonathan Davis) but she hadn’t recorded it yet. I wonder what the hell that would’ve been like, though?

Akasha is absent for enough of the movie that I thought it was gonna be basically a cameo like The Rock in THE MUMMY RETURNS. But she gets some real scenes near the end. The heavy lifting, though, goes to Townsend, who I have to admit I thought of as juice-less due to only knowing him as Dorian Gray in THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and as the director of BATTLE IN SEATTLE. I went to the premiere of that at SIFF, he was there with Charlize Theron, Andre 3000 and Michelle Rodriguez. It was uncomfortable because the movie was terrible and mostly filmed in Vancouver, but people in the Q&A were acting like they just saved the world with it. I’m surprised to be saying that he’s pretty good as this stupid character. He really throws himself into the seductive rock star bullshit. I haven’t seen INTERVIEW since the ‘90s so I don’t really remember how Cruise did it, but I don’t think he wore leather pants either, so it’s a different set of skills needed here.

QUEEN OF THE DAMNED was directed by Michael Rymer (IN TOO DEEP), with a script by Scott Abbott (INTRODUCING DOROTHY DANDRDIGE) and Michael Petroni (THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS), based on Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles book #3 but also parts of #2 (The Vampire Lestat).

I agree with the people of 2002 – this is not a good movie. And it’s got some pretty dull stretches. But I’m glad I finally watched it. I’m sure I would’ve gotten a chuckle out of it back then, but it’s probly a little funnier now that it’s representative of that time, which doesn’t seem that different from now except there are TVs with built in DVD players and the music all sounds like Marilyn Manson. In fact there’s a song by the actual Marilyn Manson, plus Papa Roach, Godhead, Disturbed, Static-X, Dry Cell, and a Tricky song (featuring Alanis Morissette!) for good measure.

I personally don’t like most of that music, but it makes me smile in a movie like this because it feels like the movie nudging me saying “Isn’t this fucking COOL??” And it might be nostalgic if you listened to that type of stuff as a teenager. I haven’t seen the recent TV show version so I don’t know what musical style they came up with for that incarnation. I hope he’s a rapper. But someone should do a new Lestat movie in the style of a rock biopic. You know, Freddie Mercury had Live Aid, Bob Dylan had going electric, Lestat had the show in Death Valley where he killed all the vampires and Akasha came out of the stage and they flew away. We need the youth to know.