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Queen of the Damned, The
Warner Brothers

Queen of the Damned, The reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 30 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.2 out of 10
based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 117 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for vampire violence

Starring Stuart Townsend, Marguerite Moreau, Aaliyah, Vincent Perez, Paul McGann, Lena Olin, Christian Manon, and Claudia Black

Based on the third installment of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, the film follows the supernatural adventures of the legendary vampire Lestat, who has reinvented himself as an international rock star. His music awakes Akasha, the queen of all vampires, who is determined to make Lestat her king.


GENRE(S): Romance  
WRITTEN BY: Scott Abbott
Michael Petroni
Anne Rice (novels The Vampire Chronicles)
 
DIRECTED BY: Michael Rymer  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: August 27, 2002 
Video: August 27, 2002 
Theatrical: February 22, 2002 
RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

67
Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
Nothing near a modern vampire classic. Still, "Queen" is a great dose of vamp camp
Read Full Review
63
New York Post Lou Lumenick
Aaliyah rules as the undead Queen of the Damned, even if she has scarcely half an hour of screen time in this campy Anne Rice vampire tale.
Read Full Review
60
New Times (L.A.) Gregory Weinkauf
Since the movie arrives and succeeds as entertaining B-movie fare, we may as well appreciate all of its howls, beastly or unintentional.
Read Full Review
50
Boston Globe Jay Carr
Degenerates into a lot of dull declaiming and attitudinizing, despite a sly tongue-in-cheek quality brought by a preening Stuart Townsend to the Lestat role he inherited from the utterly humorless Tom Cruise.
50
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
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.
Read Full Review
50
Miami Herald Charles Savage
The original rock songs on the soundtrack, which are supposed to make Lestat ''bigger than Elvis,'' are terrible -- a common challenge for movies about fictional musicians.
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50
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is happy to be goofy.
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50
Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
Leaves us puzzled as to why the term "damned" applies at all, when vampirism is depicted as so cool, fashion-savvy and glamorous.
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50
USA Today Mike Clark
If you're going because you want to see an entertaining horror movie, good luck.
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50
Variety Scott Foundas
Handsomely mounted, this direly conventional bit of vampire business is enlivened by flashes of humor and game performances. It isn't great entertainment or camp, but pic sets its ambitions so low, it can't help partially delivering on them.
Read Full Review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
When Queen of the Damned knows it's ridiculous, it's moderately entertaining fun; when it tries to be serious, it's truly ridiculous.
Read Full Review
42
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
Is Queen of the Damned worthy of its hype or should it have a stake driven through its dark heart? The answer lies somewhere in between.
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42
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Maybe in a few years the incoherent gaudiness of this underperforming sequel to ''Interview With A Vampire'' -- will have transmuted into a kind of appreciable camp. Until that time, however, we're stuck with this damned production
Read Full Review
40
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
The whole film suffers from a serious case of overplotting, perhaps inevitable when trying to cram two largish novels into one smallish film.
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40
LA Weekly Chuck Wilson
Townsend and Aaliyah are sexy as hell, and clearly willing and able to explore the darker truths of villainy, but they can't compete against the unwieldy script.
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40
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Rymer's film doesn't revitalize vampire clichés in any significant way and, frankly, "Velvet Goldmine" is a more seductive movie about sex, death and rock and roll -- and it's not even about vampires.
Read Full Review
40
Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
The result is an exploitation movie that seems like it's about something -- though what exactly I couldn't say.
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38
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The main theme is the loneliness of the social outcast. That, plus a soundtrack to wake the undead, and the morbidly entombed presence of Aaliyah, will attract an audience despite the movie's intrinsic cheesiness.
38
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Like many genuinely awful movies, Queen of the Damned has the ingredients of a cult film.
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38
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Abbott, Petroni and director Michael Rymer do exploit the visual and aural cliches of vampire movies from the last 20 years: The creatures wear tattoos, shave their heads, listen to blistering rock and dress in black leather. For a band of societal outsiders, they're pathetically conformist.
Read Full Review
30
Village Voice Jane Dark
Aaliyah fans, as well as fans of charisma, sex, and violence, will be sorely disappointed.
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30
Salon.com Damien Cave
Just as the author's characters suffer through their immortality, as they crave closure and a death to their blood-sucking madness, so Queen of the Damned demands an end to its own misery.
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30
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Knows that it's junk and tries feebly to rejoice in its junkiness.
25
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This kind of fiasco turns movie critics into so many Night Stalkers.
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25
San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Self-serious, pointless and silly.
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20
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
What saddened me, however, wasn't the silliness but recognizing the great Swedish actress Lena Olin under a lot of "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" makeup. What a waste.
Read Full Review
20
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
A surreal piece of silliness.
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20
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Although the movie is set in the rock world and, therefore, should be a sort of extended music video, it's devoid of even MTV-caliber originality.
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20
The New York Times A.O. Scott
"Queen" is a movie that stoops to jokes like calling Lestat's CD "a monster hit"; the movie is just a plain old monster.
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10
Film Threat Gareth Von Kallenbach
Audiences should demand this film be buried never to see the light of day again.
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10
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Turns out to be a muddled limp biscuit of a movie, a vampire soap opera that doesn't make much sense even on its own terms.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 117 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Akane1412 gave it a1:
As a great Anne Rice fan, watching this movie made me so mad.... The first time I watched it, I hadn't yet read the book and I hated it. Thought it made no sense and that the lack of Louis and how Lestat acted and looked seemed to have nothing to do with the movie I had loved, "Interview with the vampire" made it hard for me to believe it was connected at all... Once I read the book and wanted to re-watch the movie ... big mistake. I hated it even more than ever before. I was shocked that apparently the one to make Lestat had been Marius, that Jesse or whatever seemed to have taken over Louis role, that Marius looked like an uggly 40 years old soldier or something. That hair... gah. Armand had like 2 minutes of screen play and one sentence without any reference at all ever to his name. It's like he never existed even... and worse of all, what really killed it for me... The violin had belonged to a gipsy girl? WTF? Were they just denning Lestat's love? Or is it just that Nicholas didn't deserve any mention at all? I was hurt. I love Nicholas and I was offended, it's like Queen of the damned and The vampire Lestat are all about straight vampires or something. Seriously, change the hair of characters, reduce their role... whatever, that happens with movies. But to act as if a certain character never existed and replace him? I hate that. It's not even like Nicholas was a small character on The vampire Lestat... Gah, worst movie I ever watched. Even refused to buy the DVD at damn cheap price months ago... I don't want anything to do with that thing.

Tina R B gave it a2:
I'm trying to think about anyhing good about this movie. But I can't come up with anything. maybe the violin scene. The film is quite pathetic, far far aways from the book. Like a You tube spoof version of the book.

German B gave it a2:
The movie by itself was not bad, yet it was an insult to Anne Rice's vampire chronicles. The storyline was messed up, the main character story was almost completely changed, and as a final shallow comment, the vampire Lestat has thick blond hair and not brownish as the actor on the film. I liked it as a film, but I hated it, and still hate it.

Robin R gave it an8:
wonderfully acted ~ thrilling plot ~ and straying from the book just makes the movie a piece of art in itself. it has its own beauty that should be judged on its own and not compared.

Harley D gave it a2:
If you've read the book, which judging from your comments i'm assuming most of you haven't, you'll understand why this movie was an utter disgrace, not only to the Vampire Chronicles, but to vampire movies in general. Especially considering they completely cut Maharet's sister from the movie when she had the key role in the end. The writers completely messed up the story, and strayed from the book itself. Sure there may have been parts in the movie that were similar to the book, but in the long run, it was pathetic. and not to mention the characters in the end that ended up killing Akasha were strangers to the movie and made no sense what so ever. leaving out so much of what i feel the need to say, this movie was CRAP.

Lyan H. gave it a9:
The movie is okay but the only reason it rake in money is due to Aaliyah's loyal fans.

Samantha gave it a10:
This movie is AMAZING! its my favourite. Stupid critics, they dont have any respect for good movies. All they want is "normal" looking people with lost of sex, right? That's lame. This movie is a 10+.

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