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A vampire comes out of hiding in order to front an up-and-coming band, which draws the anger of other vampires who fear he may expose them to humans.
With Queen of the Damned, I once again question whether I should assume a film with vampires in it automatically qualifies as horror by virtue of their presence. There is certainly something innately horrific about the concept of formerly-human beings who must survive by feeding on the blood of living creatures (especially people), but especially so when it turns out that the ones who last the longest and thrive the most do so by virtue of being supernatural serial killers. The real challenge sets in when you take one of these inherently cruel creatures and try to make them into sympathetic anti-heroes. It made sense for Anne Rice to centre her debut vampire novel Interview with the Vampire around Louis, a vampire who viewed his condition as a curse and refused to feed on humans out of moral convictions - a viewpoint that constantly put him at odds with Lestat, the much less morally-conflicted vampire who originally turned him into a vampire. Queen of the Damned, another story from Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" universe, opts to make Lestat the straight-up protagonist and attempts to repurpose him as a lovable rogue who would re-emerge after decades of obscurity simply to become a rock star. Of course, in order to turn him into even a vaguely sympathetic anti-hero it has to set up a conflict with someone even worse than him, which is where the titular queen Akasha (Aaliyah) comes in after being roused from her own long slumber with her own designs on Lestat. Throw in some stuff about vampires who want to kill Lestat for potentially exposing their world to humans through his vampire rockstar gimmick and a paranormal researcher who becomes intrigued by him and, well, that's where things go off the rails.
Even when allowing for the fact that Queen of the Damned may not always be aiming for straight-up horror (though it still makes time for plenty of graphic scenes involving vampires attacking humans or even each other), its attempts at being entertaining in any way are failures. It haphazardly jumps from set-up to set-up - from rockstar antics to vampire-watchers to old-timey flashbacks and back to rockstars - and doesn't do anything of worth with any of them. It gets to the point where attempts to bring the plot back around to focusing on the actual queen attempting to reign over Earth again (I guess) feel like unwelcome intrusions on the gleeful absurdity of Lestat's rockstar antics riling up the local vampires. I might've actually welcomed a film that leaned into the somewhat comical nature of Lestat having to fend off his fellow vampires in order to continue fronting a nu-metal band, but unfortunately this film is still committed to its apocalyptic tale of ancient curses. it even gets to the point where marvelling at the film's ostensibly campier aspects (such as the motion blur added to vampire speed and flight or the fact that Lestat's singing voice is provided by Korn's Jonathan Davis) does little to actually make this anything other than a dull and painful chore of a film. As such, I can't recommend Queen of the Damned in any capacity. At the absolute least, it looks like it should be goofy fun for alternative kids but it never makes good on that promise so all I can say in the end is that it sucks.
#24 - Queen of the Damned
Michael Rymer, 2002
Michael Rymer, 2002
A vampire comes out of hiding in order to front an up-and-coming band, which draws the anger of other vampires who fear he may expose them to humans.
With Queen of the Damned, I once again question whether I should assume a film with vampires in it automatically qualifies as horror by virtue of their presence. There is certainly something innately horrific about the concept of formerly-human beings who must survive by feeding on the blood of living creatures (especially people), but especially so when it turns out that the ones who last the longest and thrive the most do so by virtue of being supernatural serial killers. The real challenge sets in when you take one of these inherently cruel creatures and try to make them into sympathetic anti-heroes. It made sense for Anne Rice to centre her debut vampire novel Interview with the Vampire around Louis, a vampire who viewed his condition as a curse and refused to feed on humans out of moral convictions - a viewpoint that constantly put him at odds with Lestat, the much less morally-conflicted vampire who originally turned him into a vampire. Queen of the Damned, another story from Rice's "Vampire Chronicles" universe, opts to make Lestat the straight-up protagonist and attempts to repurpose him as a lovable rogue who would re-emerge after decades of obscurity simply to become a rock star. Of course, in order to turn him into even a vaguely sympathetic anti-hero it has to set up a conflict with someone even worse than him, which is where the titular queen Akasha (Aaliyah) comes in after being roused from her own long slumber with her own designs on Lestat. Throw in some stuff about vampires who want to kill Lestat for potentially exposing their world to humans through his vampire rockstar gimmick and a paranormal researcher who becomes intrigued by him and, well, that's where things go off the rails.
Even when allowing for the fact that Queen of the Damned may not always be aiming for straight-up horror (though it still makes time for plenty of graphic scenes involving vampires attacking humans or even each other), its attempts at being entertaining in any way are failures. It haphazardly jumps from set-up to set-up - from rockstar antics to vampire-watchers to old-timey flashbacks and back to rockstars - and doesn't do anything of worth with any of them. It gets to the point where attempts to bring the plot back around to focusing on the actual queen attempting to reign over Earth again (I guess) feel like unwelcome intrusions on the gleeful absurdity of Lestat's rockstar antics riling up the local vampires. I might've actually welcomed a film that leaned into the somewhat comical nature of Lestat having to fend off his fellow vampires in order to continue fronting a nu-metal band, but unfortunately this film is still committed to its apocalyptic tale of ancient curses. it even gets to the point where marvelling at the film's ostensibly campier aspects (such as the motion blur added to vampire speed and flight or the fact that Lestat's singing voice is provided by Korn's Jonathan Davis) does little to actually make this anything other than a dull and painful chore of a film. As such, I can't recommend Queen of the Damned in any capacity. At the absolute least, it looks like it should be goofy fun for alternative kids but it never makes good on that promise so all I can say in the end is that it sucks.