Michael Rymer stages high-tech sequences combining gore, romance, and gothy music, and he has enough conviction to make what could have been very silly strangely provocative.
The Queen of the Damned (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:31
Fresh:5
Rotten:26
Average Rating:3.9/10
Consensus: A muddled and campy MTV-styled vampire movie with lots of eye candy and bad accents.
Theatrical Release:Feb 22, 2002 Wide
Box Office: $30,257,994
Synopsis: A deep, dark, stylistic adaptation of the book by Anne Rice from her hugely popular series of vampire novels, THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED is like a Nine Inch Nails rock video. Undernourished goth club... A deep, dark, stylistic adaptation of the book by Anne Rice from her hugely popular series of vampire novels, THE QUEEN OF THE DAMNED is like a Nine Inch Nails rock video. Undernourished goth club kids are the focus of the film and they all look great with piercings, net t-shirts, tattoos, dyed hair, and dour facial expressions. The film follows the celebrity rock star Vampire Lestat (Stuart Townsend), who has emerged from 200 years of solitude to show his face--and his vampire powers--to the world. He has assembled a goth band, makes regular media appearances, and has enchanted the world with his otherworldly mystique. In addition, he has planned one of the most controversial publicity stunts of all eternity: he is holding a one-night rock concert in California's Death Valley, inviting all vampires young and old (along with his extensive fan-base of mortals) to join him. As a side bar to this activity, the mortal Jesse, a young woman who works for the Talamasca society studying paranormal occurrences, has found a secret portal to the vampire world: a London pub where vamps hang out. There she meets Lestat and is instantly smitten with him, insisting on travelling to Death Valley to see his concert. Also en route to the show is the sleek and sexy Egyptian mother of all vampires Queen Akasha (Aaliyah), who has recently arisen from a 2,000-year nap in order to unleash hell on earth. From a distance, a wise band of vampires watch telepathically as Akasha, Lestat, and Jesse converge in Death Valley. But what nobody knows is that the headstrong Lestat, who is the most impulsive and irresponsible of immortal beings but practically a god in the eyes of mortals, is the only one who can defeat Akasha and save the world. [More]
Starring: Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez
Starring: Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Perez, Lena Olin
Director: Michael Rymer
Director: Michael Rymer
Screenwriter: Scott Abbott, Giulio Petroni
Producer: Jorge Saralegui
Composer: Richard Gibbs
Studio: Warner Bros.
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Reviews for The Queen of the Damned
It isn't great entertainment or camp, but pic sets its ambitions so low, it can't help partially delivering on them.
Queen of the Damned leaves us puzzled as to why the term 'damned' applies at all, when vampirism is depicted as so cool, fashion-savvy and glamorous.
The performances are so leaden, Michael Rymer's direction is so bloodless and the dialogue is so corny that the audience laughs out loud.
... too gory to be a comedy and too silly to be an effective horror film.
Aaliyah fans, as well as fans of charisma, sex, and violence, will be sorely disappointed.
Rymer doesn't trust laughs -- and doesn't conjure proper respect for followers of the whole dead-undead genre, who deserve more from a vampire pic than a few shrieky special effects.
[S]o dull that you may be tempted to slip the projectionist 50 bucks to turn on the house lights and see what happens to the vampire cast.
[A] boldly stroked, luridly coloured, uni-dimensional nonsense machine that strokes the eyeballs while it evaporates like so much crypt mist in the brain.
Directed by Australian filmmaker Michael Rymer, who showed promise in the low-key Angel Baby, Queen of the Damned is self-serious, pointless and silly.
At its best, Queen is campy fun like the Vincent Price horror classics of the '60s. At its worst, it implodes in a series of very bad special effects.
When Queen of the Damned knows it's ridiculous, it's moderately entertaining fun; when it tries to be serious, it's truly ridiculous.
There's a bit of thematic meat on the bones of Queen of the Damned, as its origins in an Anne Rice novel dictate, but generally, it's a movie that emphasizes style over character and substance.
... a visually seductive, unrepentantly trashy take on Rice's second installment of her Vampire Chronicles.
None of it makes the least bit of sense, and it's all utterly ridiculous.
Latest News for The Queen of the Damned
December 18, 2008:
Twilight and History's Coolest Vampires - An RT Guide
With the teenage nice guy vampire of Twilight catching the hearts of 12-16-year-old girls all over the world, it's time to cast a backward glance at style-leading vampire... More...
February 27, 2008:
Anne Rice Says Her Vampire Chronicles Aren't Finished
In 2005, Anne Rice told the world she was finished writing about vampires -- but fans who lamented the end of her Vampire Chronicles may have something to celebrate. More...
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