QUEEN OF THE DAMNED

With Stuart Townsend, Marguerite Moreau, Aaliyah, Vincent Perez, Lena Olin
Directed by Michael Rymer

Neil Jordan made the best of Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire, giving blood sucking movie fans a great screen debut of Lestat (played by Tom Cruise). With this further look at Lestat and his earth bound antics, it can be seen as both a sequel and prequel. This time round Lestat fronts a hard rock band and threatens to divulge too much of his kind, taunting them to come out of the shadows and get him. His main plot is to resurrect the Queen of the Damned. Ooh, not very scary, unfortunately. The prequel bit comes in where a woman (who is part of a secret vampire investigating society) reads through Lestat's journal, running us through the tale of how the mortal man became an immortal vampire several centuries ago. Even though this is Aaliyah's final role before her untimely death, she does very little to convince as the bad-ass title character - in fact often provoking a giggle at the artificially "sexy-evil" act. The attempt to make this a dark and sexy horror thriller failed. A lot of posing and prancing sometimes makes it look as though a fashion house composed the scenes for extras and bit part players. Great sets, sure, but in many ways the soundtrack far outstrips the movie when it comes to impact. No wonder the Jordan-Cruise director-acting team failed to turn up for this gig.

2 / C
- PB

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