17. Queen of the Damned (2002)

I cannot express enough how sad I am that this movie exists. The fact that this was made at all makes me want to track down the people who were responsible for it, grab them by the shoulders, and shake them all while yelling, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!"

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Most of you who read my post Setting the Bar know that Interview with the Vampire is my favorite vampire film. It's classy and epic and fun. Everything has a slight sepia look and the sets, costumes, and acting are all top notch. The ending  (video linked, spoiler alert) of that movie makes me grin like an idiot every time, and that's mostly because of how well Tom Cruise captured the character of Lestat. He just owned it, making the character believable and unique. He was dark and violent, with a sick sense of humor, but also charming and funny. Class describes Lestat's vampire in one word. Lestat is classy, as was the film as a whole. It was a memorable movie and a great performance.

Therefore, anyone who ever plays this specific character again is going to have a high bar to clear, as will the whole movie. Making a sequel to Interview with the Vampire takes real chutzpah. I remember being tentatively excited in 2001 when I heard such a sequel, Queen of the Damned, was in production. Queen of the Damned wasn't my favorite Rice book, but early reports indicated that it would actually be a blending of Queen of the Damned and Rice's previous novel, The Vampire Lestat. When it was announced that Stuart Townsend was cast in the role, I was sad that Cruise couldn't reprise, but at least Townsend mostly looked right in production photos:

I could deal with this on one condition: it had to work.

And wow. It just doesn't. Just... not at all.

I guess you could argue that the film was never supposed to be a "sequel" given that it's coming from a completely different director and cast, but when you 're adapting a film from a book SERIES and this film covers (supposedly) books two and three and there was already a movie made about the first one, well, how does that not seem like a sequel? If we presume that people coming to see this movie are fans of Anne Rice, the first film, or vampires, then all of those are good reasons to try and make the movie link to the iconic Interview film.

However, it's pretty clear that this film team went in the opposite direction. In fact, any detail from the novel which would have tied the stories together was cut and changed for the film. The character Louis (who is the main character from Interview and who played a significant role in the Queen of the Damned book as well) has been erased, as have other familiar characters like Armand and Daniel (the interviewer). The aesthetic is painfully different as well. If the original film was all class and ruffles and velvet, this film is all neon and plastic and pleather. Like this:

Townsend's Lestat... in a black mesh shirt. Okay, so that's what kind of vampire movie this is.

The movie takes place half in flashback and half in modern times. The flashbacks are by far more painful. The elegance and authenticity of Interview are long gone. Everyone looks like they raided the PBS Masterpiece Theater closet, but no one looks even remotely comfortable in the clothes. TV's Buffy, True Blood, and Being Human have all done better and more believable flashback scenes with better looking costumes. Also, Townsend's acting is the worst in these scenes; he looks constantly confused by the puffiness of his sleeves or the fake-stone of his surroundings.

In the modern scenes, which are slightly more tolerable, Lestat has woken up from what is supposedly a 100 year sleep (though later he makes reference to being around for the music of the 1950s, so I'm not sure how that works) and joined a rock band. This allows us many, many, many, many shots of the band's music video; so many that you start to feel like the movie is just one large excuse and the music video is what is important. It's like the film just wanted to be MTV...

Because it is 2002, Lestat's rock band sounds like someone threw 'Korn' and 'Stabbing Westward' in a blender and then made their music much, much more terrible. However, in this film's universe, Lestat's band is more popular than Elvis and The Beatles combined ever could have been. They draw huge mobs of people, allowing Lestat to kill groupies whenever he wants (even in a vampire movie, however, this breaks my suspension of disbelief; no matter how popular you are, someone is going to notice a string of dead bodies following your tour).

But regardless, the main "plot" centers around:

1) Other vampires are angry that Lestat is giving away vampire secrets in his songs
2) A girl named Jesse, who is a student from an occult school, has been following Lestat and seemingly trying to get him to turn her into a vampire
3) The oldest vampire of all time wakes up from her sleep because Lestat's music is just so "rebellious" and awesome.

The whole thing plays out like a Disney kids' show plot: "When Lestat's loud music wakes up a magical vampire queen, hijinks ensue! Can Lestat appease the vampire queen and still go on a date with Jesse? And, more importantly, will he have to cancel the concert???"

The actual "conflict" is just so, so boring in this film and no one of significance actually seems to do anything. The Queen is finally defeated by a group of random vampires who we don't really meet until the end, and Lestat just sort of stands around not doing much. The vampires-are-mad plotline is never really resolved, and so when Lestat has his "walk into the sunset" moment, it's quite possible that a bunch of vampires still want to kill him.

Which brings us to the Jesse plotline. The occult student who wants to be turned into a vampire. The one interesting thing about Jesse is that she is basically seems like a Twilight-girl before there was Twilight. But what is so maddening about her is that, in any situation in the film, if you asked yourself, "What would be the stupidest decision I could make here if I wanted to stay alive?" whatever you come up with is what Jesse does. Nothing she does makes sense if she wants to keep living.

"I think it's a great idea to stalk a vampire I have never met and who
can easily kill me in a dark alley where no one can hear me scream.

Her arc seems to be: student learning about vampires wants to become a vampire --> asks Lestat to make her a vampire --> Lestat kills someone in front of her and asks if she still really wants to be a vampire --> Jesse decided she doesn't want to be a vampire --> Jesse is almost killed by a the evil Queen vampire so Lestat makes her into a vampire --> Jesse is totally fine with being a vampire. There is no character growth, no change. Just "what she originally wanted happened and everything is fine."

This film has no character progression, a confusing and yet also boring plot, and nothing ever seems to be at stake (which is almost impressive given that the story involves the resurrection of a dead vampire god). My only recommendation for this film is that if you miss rock music and bad goth fashion from the early 2000s, this movie will give you a lot to gawk at. If you want to see the very small amount of the film with R&B singer Aaliyah as the Vampire Queen, well, she's pretty good.

But if you want believable characters, decent costumes, story or character development, or any connection to the far superior first film... then you're sadly out of luck.

Rating: 2 out of 5 bites

~ LK