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Movies / On DVD / The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned

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The Queen of the Damned (2002)

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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.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for vampire violence

Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins

Genre: Action/Adventure

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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Release:

Aug 27, 2002

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Reviews for The Queen of the Damned

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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.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
10/20/09
Lisa Alspector
Lisa Alspector
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It isn't great entertainment or camp, but pic sets its ambitions so low, it can't help partially delivering on them.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
09/15/08
Scott Foundas
Scott Foundas
Variety
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The film is vampire roadkill.

Full Review Source: Rolling Stone | comment Comment
08/14/07
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
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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.

Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | comment Comment
07/20/02
Robert K. Elder
Robert K. Elder
Chicago Tribune
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The performances are so leaden, Michael Rymer's direction is so bloodless and the dialogue is so corny that the audience laughs out loud.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
03/13/02
Rex Reed
Rex Reed
New York Observer
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... too gory to be a comedy and too silly to be an effective horror film.

Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | comment Comment
03/04/02
Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
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Aaliyah fans, as well as fans of charisma, sex, and violence, will be sorely disappointed.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
02/26/02
Jane Dark
Jane Dark
Village Voice
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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.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
02/26/02
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
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Devoid of even MTV-caliber originality.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
02/22/02
Desson Thomson
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
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Plays out rather drearily.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
02/22/02
Stephen Hunter
Stephen Hunter
Washington Post
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[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.

Full Review Source: USA Today | comment Comment
02/22/02
Mike Clark
Mike Clark
USA Today
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[A] boldly stroked, luridly coloured, uni-dimensional nonsense machine that strokes the eyeballs while it evaporates like so much crypt mist in the brain.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
02/22/02
Geoff Pevere
Geoff Pevere
Toronto Star
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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.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
02/22/02
Edward Guthmann
Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle
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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.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | comment Comment
02/22/02
Carrie Rickey
Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
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Queen of the Damned wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so boring.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
02/22/02
John Anderson
John Anderson
Newsday
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... the kind of mess that never should have made it to theaters.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
02/22/02
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
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When Queen of the Damned knows it's ridiculous, it's moderately entertaining fun; when it tries to be serious, it's truly ridiculous.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
02/22/02
Liam Lacey
Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
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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.

Full Review Source: Detroit News | comment Comment
02/22/02
Susan Stark
Susan Stark
Detroit News
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... a visually seductive, unrepentantly trashy take on Rice's second installment of her Vampire Chronicles.

Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | comment Comment
02/22/02
John Monaghan
John Monaghan
Detroit Free Press
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None of it makes the least bit of sense, and it's all utterly ridiculous.

Full Review Source: CNN.com | comment Comment
02/22/02
Paul Clinton (CNN.com)
Paul Clinton (CNN.com)
CNN.com
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