A belated sequel to 1994’s hit Interview with the Vampire, the flop follow-up Queen of the Damned is, to me, the more enjoyable work, because it doesn’t try to be an important, arty film like Neil Jordan’s laborious adaptation. Recognizing the source novels of Anne Rice as purely B-level material — Jane Austen she ain’t — Queen sets out to be nothing more than a B movie.
Stuart Townsend (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen‘s Dorian Gray) takes over for Tom Cruise in the role of Lestat, the ancient vampire who has now become a rock star, singing terrible death-metal songs (penned by Jonathan Davis, the guy behind the terrible nu-metal band Korn). By informing his fans of his bloodsucking status, Lestat has raised the ire of the vampire nation, which seeks to silence him permanently. In making his evil music, he’s also raised the titular queen (R&B singer Aaliyah, who eerily perished in a plane crash before the film’s release) from the dead, and she wants to extinguish the human race.
Queen is more campy than anything, especially with the majority of vampire action given silly ghost-trail effects that cheapen the film. The direction by Michael Rymer (In Too Deep) is flashy and showy, befitting of the piffling material, which grows confusing as it heads toward Act 3. But with bloody bosoms and combustible corpses, who’s expecting Shakespeare?
The end seems to be a direct setup for another sequel, unlikely to surface given this chapter’s tepid reception. —Rod Lott