Queen of the Damned

Title: Queen of the Damned
Director: Michael Rymer
Release Date: February 22, 2002
Run Time: 101 minutes
Genres: Horror
Starring: Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Pérez, Lena Olin
Where to Find It: Website
Rating:

After a decades-long slumber, the vampire Lestat becomes a rock star whose music awakens the queen of all vampires, Akasha, who embarks on a mission to make Lestat her king.

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Review

The first and last time Queen of the Damned was in theaters on release day. I was an eager fourteen-year-old, Aaliyah was one of my favorite musicians, I was a fan of the Vampire Chronicles books, and I loved Interview with the Vampire film. I was in my teen goth era at the time, and this film seemed like it had all the ingredients to be my dream come true. I hadn’t read this specific book when I watched the movie, but even with no book to compare it to, I walked out of that theater confused and conflicted. Did I like the film? Why was Marius the comic relief? Why did they have to do my girl Pandora dirty like that? Here are characters I loved, but they’re nearly unrecognizable. I was not yet at the age where I could even fathom not liking an adaptation of a series that was essentially my entire personality at that point.

I read the book after and enjoyed it, and over time I wrote it off as simply a bad adaptation, despite the excellent soundtrack and Aaliyah’s stunning portrayal of Akasha. I didn’t think about the film again until 22 years later, my teenage daughter, now around the same age I was back then and fully in her edgy alt-girl era, asked me for more film recommendations, having spent the last year watching many of the horror classics that I grew up with. I recommended it and she came back to me later raving about it. So I thought what the heck, I rewatched it as well, and then again a few months later when my husband was home since he had never seen it.

What can I say other than that it’s a campy movie. On my first rewatch, I laughed quite a bit, remembering the story beats and shaking my head. On the second rewatch, it was a lot more fun in a “so bad it’s almost good” sort of way. Looking back on the movie now, it is like a time capsule of the early 2000s. The fashion, the nu metal soundtrack, the edgy romance and bad special effects; It was nostalgic.

This is the type of film that is best enjoyed as an entity entirely separate from the book that inspired it. Many of the most important characters are barely given any screen time, the few scenes where they were featured were largely cut from the final version. The massive back story about Akasha and the birth of vampires is reduced to just a few lines of dialogue to keep the the plot moving toward a hasty conclusion. It’s not the worst film I’ve ever watched by any means, and it is nice to see younger generations enjoying the movie and taking an interest in the actors and books that created it.

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Content Warnings