Cast: Stuart Townsend, Marguerite Moreau, Aaliyah, Vincent Perez, Paul McGann, Lena Olin
Director: Michael Rymer
Producer: Jorge Saralegui
Screenplay: Scott Abbott and Michael Petroni, based on "The Vampire Chronicles" by Anne Rice
Cinematography: Ian Baker
Music: Jonathan H. Davis, Richard Gibbs
U.S. Distributor: Warner Brothers
There was a time when vampires were demonic horrors - soulless creatures of the night preying upon unsuspecting innocents. Nowadays, the trend is to humanize and de-mythologize these monsters, transforming them into the erotic anti-heroes of purple prose novels and cheesy B-movies. At the forefront of this movement is Anne Rice, whose bestselling "The Vampire Chronicles" have been read by millions of fans worldwide. Interview with the Vampire, the first movie to be culled from these novels, is an entertaining, if flawed, excursion into the tortured world of the undead. Queen of the Damned, which by all accounts butchers its source material, is the kind of mess that never should have made it to theaters. In fact, according to a well-publicized rumor, Warner Brothers was considering releasing it direct-to-video until Aaliyah's post-mortem visibility spike made this multiplex dump a viable possibility.
By turns incoherent, campy, and shamelessly self-indulgent, Queen of the Damned seems to have been assembled using the discarded pieces of music videos and other movies. It's 100 minutes of MTV-inspired filmmaking, with a metal soundtrack that would wake the dead and a video style that demands all sort of filters, odd angles, quick cuts, and other, assorted trickery. Believing the director to be an uninspired hack fresh from cutting his teeth on music videos and commercials, I was surprised to learn that director Michael Rymer helmed the low-budget, insightful drama Angel Baby. But that was seven years ago, and nothing of the promise he showed then is evident here.
The plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It will confuse those who haven't read "The Vampire Chronicles" and will infuriate those who have because of the number of omissions and changes. The vampire Lestat (Stuart Townsend), bored with hanging around in a coffin, decides to re-invent himself as a modern-day rock star. So he comes out of the crypt, so to speak, and admits that, yes, he drinks blood and he's proud of it. He becomes an instant media sensation, and the other vampires aren't pleased. Meanwhile, Jesse (Marguerite Moreau), a young student of all things dark and dangerous, becomes obsessed with meeting Lestat after reading his secret diary. So she arranges an assignation, which results in a spark of mutual attraction. But Jesse has a rival for Lestat's affections - the evil and powerful Queen Akasha (Aaliyah), who has recently risen from her slumber and intends for the rock star vampire to be her consort.
When Interview with the Vampire was adapted into a movie, many Rice fans objected to the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat. However, compared to Stuart Townsend's version, Cruise's is definitive. Townsend creates an absurd Lestat - a whining, effeminate rocker who is more laughable than dangerous. It's a horrible performance, but hardly the worst of the movie. Aaliyah, who was credible in her motion picture debut (Romeo Must Die) is so over-the-top that she's fun to watch: shimmying and shaking, flashing her teeth, and rolling her eyes. Respected British actor Paul McGann manages something truly amazing in the midst of all this excess - he underplays his role as the scholarly David Talbot, and actually manages to keep a straight face through every scene he's in.
The film's erotic subtext has been devoured by silliness. There's plenty of titillation, but no payoff (the R-rating is strictly because of gore; Queen of the Damned's sexual elements are strictly PG-13). There are no characters to care about or despise. The only reason the movie can occasionally be considered watchable is because individual scenes are so outrageously dumb that they are hilarious. That's not a reason to see the movie - at least not sober - but if you are blackmailed into the experience, at least there's a silver lining. Or, to put it another way, watching the film doesn't turn into a voyage of the damned - at least not entirely. The potential is there for a biting comedy, but the filmmakers were apparently oblivious to how funny this movie sometimes is. Like many genuinely awful movies, Queen of the Damned has the ingredients of a cult film. However, the qualities that will endear it to a twisted few are the aspects that will cause the mainstream movie-goer to avoid this production like the plague.
© 2002 James Berardinelli