Queen of the Damned, The

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Nothing near a modern vampire classic. Still, "Queen" is a great dose of vamp camp

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is happy to be goofy.

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.

USA Today Mike Clark

If you're going because you want to see an entertaining horror movie, good luck.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

The result is an exploitation movie that seems like it's about something -- though what exactly I couldn't say.

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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Like many genuinely awful movies, Queen of the Damned has the ingredients of a cult film.

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.

Village Voice Jane Dark

Aaliyah fans, as well as fans of charisma, sex, and violence, will be sorely disappointed.

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.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Knows that it's junk and tries feebly to rejoice in its junkiness.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

This kind of fiasco turns movie critics into so many Night Stalkers.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Self-serious, pointless and silly.

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.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

A surreal piece of silliness.

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.

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.

Film Threat Gareth Von Kallenbach

Audiences should demand this film be buried never to see the light of day again.

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.