he vampire Lestat (Townsend), an 18th-century French nobleman damned to eternal life, has slumbered for a century in a mossy New Orleans cemetery, heartsick at the loneliness of his existence. But he is stirred to consciousness by something new: the power chords of rock and roll.
The music imbues him with new life, and he sees in rock an opportunity to fulfill his deepest longing, to dwell openly with mortal humans. Styling himself as a rock star, Lestat finds new fame in a 21st-century lifestyle of "sex, blood and rock and roll." At a London press conference, he challenges his shadow-dwelling brethren to join him in the open at a massive concert scheduled for California's Death Valley: "Come out, come out, wherever you are."
Lonely, orphaned Jesse (Moreau), meanwhile, has troubling dreams of a family long lost and an aunt who weeps tears of blood (Lena Olin). A researcher for the London-based Talamascans, an order of paranormal investigators, Jesse finds herself drawn to this new rock star, Lestat, and sees in his lyrics intimations of the hidden world of vampires.
But when she presents her findings to the Talamascan council, they warn her: "Observe the dark realm, but be not part of it." Undeterred, she takes a risk and seeks out a private London club that she believes to be a vampire coven. Only too late does she realize how dangerous is her flirtation with the darkness. Lestat takes an interest in her and saves her at the last minute.
Later, she discovers Lestat's private journal and reads of his creation at the teeth of the ancient vampire Marius (Vincent Perez) and Lestat's 18th-century encounter with an even more ancient evil, Akasha (Aaliyah), an Egyptian queen and the mother of all vampires.
Now, in the high-tech present—and unbeknownst to both Jesse and Lestat—the rock star bloodsucker's increasing profile has raised the ire of his brethren of the night and roused Akasha from her millennial repose. Should Akasha rise, the fate of both the living and the undead will be sealed.
Sadly,
this Queen really does suck
Based on Anne Rice's best-selling Vampire Chronicles books, Queen of the Damned is a sequel of sorts to 1994's Interview with the Vampire, for which Rice wrote the screenplay. The film is also notable for marking the last performance of Aaliyah, the popstar and actress who died tragically in a plane crash last summer at the age of 22, shortly after she finished shooting her role.
Alas, Queen of the Damned does not live up to expectations. Though it attempts to replicate Rice's richly evocative mythology, it is too self-conscious and humorless to transcend the essential silliness of its concept, and the movie ultimately collapses into a laughable unintentional parody of the Goth genre.
One of the principal attractions of her Vampire Chronicles novels is the vivid way they breathe life into the most fervid adolescent fantasies of alienation and gothic romance. Vampires, as it has been pointed out, are the ultimate teenagers—they're misunderstood outsiders, they exude sexuality, they get to stay up all night and sleep all day, and they never have to grow old.
While that may work on paper, it is as ridiculous as it sounds when transferred to cinema. The rock scenario doesn't work—Townsend's Lestat is like a low-rent Marilyn Manson who looks like a reject from The Crow. The broody vampires are Eurotrash layabouts who lounge about decaying mansions. The dialogue and portentous voice-overs are leaden and obvious. The actors don't perform; they pose. KoRn stands in for Lestat's rock band, but its music is more headache-inducing metal than genre-appropriate Goth. And the film is curiously parsimonious in its deployment of special effects sequences: the final battle is anticlimactic.
Notwithstanding the film's title and advertising, the film also disappoints by relegating Aaliyah's character to less than 15 minutes of the total story. Which may be just as well, as the otherwise talented and appealing actress seems woefully miscast. Akasha is supposed to be terrifying, but the game actress is nevertheless unable to appear anything more than waiflike and fragile in her skimpy Egyptian costume. Her attempts at an Egyptian accent wind up sounding like an unfortunate echo of Bela Lugosi.
