'Queen of the Damned'

There's a stack of stuff I should be reviewing right now, but one of them is 'The Mist', the review for which will include a massive spoiler, and I know at least one of people who read this blog hasn't seen it. So I will hold off on that until we watch it at one of our film evenings :)

In the meantime...heavy, almost primal drumbeats echo, evoking memories of many, many hours spent listening to the surprisingly good soundtrack for a very bad but very stylish vampire film, long before 'Twilight' even existed. It's time for some Anne Rice, baby.

Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles were a staple of my teenage years. I didn't read anywhere near all of the books (like, two), but I loved the films made of them in the nineties/early millenium. The novel 'Interview With the Vampire', illicitly picked up in the horror section during my first tentative forays into the genre, was for me the first experience I'd had of vampires being sexy, not monstrous (well, 'Dracula', but he's mostly monstrous in the original novel), and a whole world opened up. I also read 'The Vampire Lestat', but I never got as far as 'Queen of the Damned' in book form as I realised the author had got a little precious about the sociopathic and gloriously snarky creep from the first book and had decided to make him a lot more likeable.

Basically, there was no particular reason for me to like any of the characters any more, as I find the 'sympathetic vampire' one of the most boring tropes of modern horror fiction when not balanced by a touch of monstrosity (even if Rice was one of the first to do it). I can't help but see it as paving the way for insipid characters like Edward Cullen. So, I stopped reading the books. By the point that I read 'The Vampire Lestat', I'd already seen the 'Interview With the Vampire' and 'Queen of the Damned' films, so I had a very definite mental picture of what the characters looked like, which was sadly not helpful. I like 'The Vampire Lestat' a lot - it's a highly enjoyable if rather overly-romanticised novel. The film 'Interview With the Vampire' was pretty much everything I wanted from a film adaptation, even with the changes they wrought (because, well, I'd always rather have Antonio Banderas as Armand than a teenager if I've got the choice, even if it's less close to the books). Anne Rice wrote the screenplay, so it's pretty close to the book.

Still, 'Queen of the Damned', with its stylish, silly goth-ness and genre soundtrack, was a film I watched over and over again, pretty much uncritically.Where 'Interview With the Vampire' follows Louis, a recently-turned vampire, 'Queen of the Damned' takes up the story of Louis' sire/maker/whatever, Lestat, who mostly functions as an antagonist in the first book and film, as well as an example of a vampire who just loves being a vampire. Where the first film (which is, frankly, quite a lot better), is a period piece full of floppy shirts and big dresses, with surprisingly good performances from Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and a very young Kirsten Dunst, 'Queen of the Damned' throws the previous continuity out of the window. Cruise's blonde, charming, unbalanced Lestat was a dead ringer for the book Lestat. Stewart Townsend's Lestat is a smug, self-satisfied goth kid who thinks he's God's gift to emo girls and rock music. Jesse Reeves (Marguerite Moreau) is an occult investigator with a past that's apparently a lot more complex in the books but is hardly delved into here except to assist with plot expediency. Most of the action takes place in [swinging] London for pretty much no reason, except that all ancient occult societies come from England, duh...despite the fact that Lestat is French, Marius is apparently a French Roman (he's a Roman in the books, but played by French actor Vincent Perez), and Marguerite Moreau is American (and her character is at least part American, though also seems slightly French given 'young Jesse's' accent).

So Lestat is woken from his centuries-long slumber by rock music (as in the book) and becomes a rock star who is openly a vampire. The first half of the plot is really quite like 'The Vampire Lestat', but as I've said before, I can't speak for 'Queen of the Damned' as I haven't read it. The world treats him with a kind of bemused admiration and he acts like a pretty princess who gets all the groupies he wants. Meanwhile, a member of the Talamascan occult group, Jesse, is delving into Lestat's history with the help of her mentor David (woo, Paul McGann!) who is a bit obsessed with Marius, Lestat's sire (I don't blame him). Through Lestat's journal, we flashback to his making/Embrace/hot man lovin' and how he was favoured by Akasha who, with her husband Enkil, is the originator of vampires. Akasha and Enkil turned to stone long ago: Marius had been keeping them in the basement for centuries but when Lestat drunk Akasha's blood (in an awesome bit with a lovely crunch of marble-flesh) he abandoned Lestat, taking Akasha and Enkil with him. In the present day, Marius turns up again because a) Lestat is annoying a lot of vampires by being so open and b) Akasha, the most powerful vampire in existence, ripped out Enkil's throat and is up and about, btw.

Lestat and Jesse have a slightly weird relationship as she tries to get close to him and he wonders why she bothers, but then Akasha decides Lestat is about right to be her new king and grabs him when he's being attacked by the other vampires during a concert in Death Valley (if they want discretion, why would they attack him in such a public, filmed place? Bad vampires, no Masquerade for you). The other ancient vampires (Armand, Marius, Pandora, Maharet, Mael and Khayman) unite against Akasha. She commands Lestat to drink Jesse dry, but the Ancients all attack Akasha together and drink her blood. Maharet drinks the 'last drop' and turns to stone, Lestat turns Jesse into a vampire to save her life and they walk off into undeath together (blah). On the plus side, Marius does actually come and see David *fangirl*.

So basically, ignoring Jesse's role in the book version, the film is about Lestat being pulled between a hot all-powerful vampire chick and a boring human girl. And of course, this being written by a human girl, he chooses her. The film is tightly-made to a large extent - if you're invested in the love story or the overarching narrative, you'll probably enjoy it as it goes along at a fair clop. But the Death Valley fight feels like it should be the climax of the film - as a result, the ensuing bit where Lestat and Akasha bathe in rose petals, have kinky blood-play sex and kill people is (ironically) an anti-climax. The final fight with the Ancients is really cool, especially for fans of the novels (although I've only read the first two, I know the backstories of most of the characters) and has some lovely cameos (Lena Olin is Maharet, 'Farscape' veterans Claudia Black and Matthew Newton are Pandora and Armand, who does look much more like the book character in this version), but it feels tacked on, like they wanted to include the big narrative of 'The Vampire Chronicles', but had difficulty integrating it with the teen wish-fulfillment vampire lover plot.

Though admittedly, this is suprisingly self-conscious: Lestat is meant to be a bit of an arrogant prick, and when he wants to show Jesse that he's a monster, he rips a woman's throat out. And...well, Jesse's still keen, so you can't fault her on that one. Also, Jesse is the one who stalks Lestat, not the other way around, so she mostly just comes across as a groupie. I personally assume that Lestat will get bored of her at some point after the film has ended.

The whole Talamascan thing is weird, too. I mean, I'm all for ancient monster-hunting societies but there's no reason for them to exist beyond referencing the books and meaning Jesse and David aren't just crazy loners. The script is also cringingly terrible. Any film where what passes for sexy seduction talk between the two leads is "Boo back" is a bad, bad idea. I don't like Stuart Townsend as a rule and in this he either gives the most wonderful parody of a film vampire or a laughably bad performance. I think you have to buy into him being attractive before you can find Lestat at all engaging and he's only been attractive as Dorian Gray (and was therefore the only good bit about 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' film). The dark-haired sallow emo kid thing does not do it for me. Luckily, there is also Vincent Perez in a performance that includes a playful, almost whimsical side, but fails to convince as he struggles with dramatic vampire lines that are a) not in his first language and b) bad. He is extremely attractive and charming, though. A wonderfully cultured vampire, and his ye olde outfit from the flashbacks is delectable.

'Queen of the Damned' is silly and gothy and yet highly enjoyable. I suspect I've got rather a skewed view due to enjoying this film so much as a teenager, but it's genuinely not that bad. Just really, really trashy, and proud of it. It's laughable and loveable and if you can cope with the badness, at least it's got more of an edge than 'Twilight'.

Edit much after the fact to add: I realised upon re-reading this that I totally ignored Aaliyah, who played Akasha, a singer, actress and model who was tragically killed in a plane crash not long after this film was made. I'm afraid I don't know much of her music, though I am assured by my more R&B-savvy better half that her songs were good. I have seen 'Romeo Must Die', in which she plays Trish, the Juliet stand-in (her debut role and the film credited with bringing Jet Li to the attention of the American film industry). She was actually a good actress, and in 'Queen of the Damned', Akasha is really cool. I'd personally define her performance as 'lissome': she moves and dances with snakelike grace but manages to bring weight, power and (amazingly) credibility to the character. Because she never winks at the camera, even when she was given laughably clueless lines, Aaliyah managed to convince as an ancient vampire with a completely alien mindset. RIP.

Lestat: "Well, that makes you a very clever librarian..."