Queen of the Damned (2002)

Directed by: Michael Rymer | 101 minutes | horror, music, fantasy | Actors: Aaliyah, Stuart Townsend, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez, Paul McGann, Lena Olin, Christian Manon, Claudia Black, Bruce Spence, Matthew Newton, Tiriel Mora, Megan Dorman, Johnathan Devoy, Robert Farnham, Conrad Standish, Richael Tanner

Why base a movie on a book if you just take over a few plot elements and do the rest as you please? As a genre film, ‘Queen of the Damned’ is quite fun. The story is a bit thin, but the atmosphere is good and the soundtrack is very successful. Unfortunately, the film is also based on the book of the same name from the Vampire Chronicles series by American writer Anne Rice. The first part of that series was previously filmed in ‘Interview with the Vampire’, in which Tom Cruise played the lead role of the vampire Lestat. That film kept relatively well to the original, which cannot exactly be said of ‘Queen of the Damned’.

What the filmmakers take from the book is the title, some characters, the basics of the plot, and also elements from the second book – because strangely enough, ‘Queen of the Damned’ is the third part of the series; the second part was never made into a movie for some reason, although it’s actually the most interesting of the three. The story is very simplified and modified, and as usual, that doesn’t bode well. In terms of characters, crucial individuals are left out, such as Lestat’s companion Louis, and the roles of others are updated a lot. So it is in the film Marius who makes Lestat into a vampire, although in the original this is a certain Magnus, who is not even in the film yet. Other vampire characters who play a major role in the books only appear in the film at the end (which is also quite different from the original), without being mentioned by name. Besides, it’s only Lestat (Stuart Townsend) and Akasha – played by pop star Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash not long after filming – who physically more or less resemble their characters in the books. Marius (Vincent Perez) has short, dark hair in the film, although the character is actually characterized by his long blond hair and blue eyes. The main human characters, Jesse and David, are fairly faithful to the original by comparison. However, Jesse is a lot younger and more naive in the film, and her fondness for Lestat continues as well. In the books, by the way, it’s not Lestat who makes her a vampire, and they’re never in a relationship, as suggested in the movie. Besides these kinds of “mistakes” that are certainly not appreciated by fans, the film mainly lacks the passion in the acting that was present in ‘Interview with the Vampire’. The characters are not very convincing. And that’s a shame, because as mentioned before, the atmosphere is good for the rest.

Perhaps the most memorable part of the film is the soundtrack, a collection of gothic rock and nu-metal songs written by some of the genre’s big names and sung for the film by Jonathan Davis, frontman of the band Korn. Davis also gets a cameo in the film, not as a singer but as an illegal ticket seller at the concert. The soundtrack works very well and fits both the atmosphere of the film and the idea of ​​“vampires” in general. But of course the songs have nothing to do with what Lestat writes for his band in the book.

If you like “gothic” or vampire movies, ‘Queen of the Damned’ is certainly fun to watch, but if you’re also a fan of Anne Rice’s books, the movie is not recommended. Unless, of course, you can easily dismiss such things and have no problem with the fact that it’s just a lame summary of two books in the series.