“Queen of the Damned”: The Agony of Straight-Washed Vampire Cinema

Happy Halloween! It’s Hot Topic: The Movie!

I’ve got vahmpeers on the brain right now due to recapping AMC’s AMC+’s Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire for Queerty—and also fun—so obviously, I had to revisit 2002’s Queen of the Damned and inflict it upon you all! Happy Halloween, treasured subscribing friends! This movie is full of howling weens!

I wish I could tell you what happened in Hollyweird between Neil Jordan’s macabre-gorgeous Interview With the Vampire and…this. But I imagine it went something like: “AAAAACCKKKK! TOO GAY! UUUUUUUGGGHHHHH! WHAT NOOWWWW?!?”

Solution: KORN.

Seriously, imagine for a moment the game of movie development hell telephone that gets us from Anne Rice’s 1988 velvet-draped melodrama about a pansexual vampire who becomes a New Romantics era rock star to…Korn lead singer Jonathan Davis, a white man with dreadlocks, who did all the music for this movie.

I mean, do I wish there had been a more direct sequel to the first film starring Prince of Dianetics Tom Cruise prancing about in his blonde wig? …No? But…this aggressively straight-washed, nu metal drenched ode to mall goths? I mean…there are for sure more homophobic things that happened in the early 21st Century, so… IDK…

The film opens with Lestat, an immortal not blonde anymore 100% straight vampire, voiceovering about how hard it is being alive all the time, so he had to take a nap, which is how I feel by 1pm basically every day, so that’s very relatable. But then one night in 2002, he wakes up and decides to be in a nu metal band. Ugh! NO! Stay asleep through this, you hot green-faced dummy! Clearly, he didn’t see those documentaries about Woodstock ’99 due to being buried in a grave. Too bad he didn’t wake up in New York and join the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or The Strokes or something. ALL OF THIS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED!

Lestat: “MEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!”

Right away he convinces some Hot Topic goths that he is a for real vampire with his cold green skin and by moving around real fast. He also impresses them with his cat noise making and they decide to let him “sing” in their band instead of murdering them all.

Immediately, they are world famous and having a press conference to announce their big rock music recital in DEATH VALLEY—get it? Because they’re super freaky goths who are total rebel death freaks? For some reason, instead of showing up, Lestat decides to just Zoom the press conference, looking even more green than ever, and all the serious rock music journalists are like, “Aren’t you worried about all the other vampires being mad at you for putting all their biznass in your videos?”

(Do…all these people believe in vampires??? Unclear!)

But Lestat is like, “I just want all my murderer friends to come hang out with meeeeeee!” See, Lestat is very lonely. So…that’s his plan: annoy all the vampires with his terrible music until they are his friends again.

Later, Lestat’s doofus manager or whatever brings these two lady fans to Lestat’s house for him, our supposed romantic hero, to brutally murder. Does…the dumb manager realize he’s enabling a sadistic murderer? Also unclear, but I have a feeling Lestat would not do well post-#MeToo.

Cut to Jesse, a red head lady who is sensibly doing her post-graduate degree in Paranormal Vampire Investigating with a concentration in early 2000s goth fashion at Talamasca University or whatever. Also, she has these recurring dreams about how she grew up in a temple filled with creepy dolls and also vampires. One of them is her Aunt Maharet, also a red head, who one day realizes that a nocturnal vampire cult is no place to raise a child, so she sends baby Jesse away forever to who knows where. But not before crying blood tears which baby Jesse completely normally wants to lick. I mean, whom among us as little tots wasn’t like, “Let me lick up your tears, adult caregiver! Oh, they’re blood? Even better!”

So one night, adult Jesse is watching MTV News ice queen icon Serena Altschul on TV and realizes suddenly that Lestat really is a for real vampire. The next day, she tells all her Vampire Studies advisors that she’s found a vampire bar. But then David, the dean of the Talamasca’s College of Dracula Arts and Sciences, is like “No no no, don’t go to there!”

Instead, he gives her Lestat’s old diary to read. “Dear diary,” the diary says, “One time in 1788, I got kidnapped by this total gaybones named Marius who wanted to do gay vampire stuff on me, which he did and now I’m a vampire.”

But that’s not all! Marius also owned these two mint condition statues of the ancient king and queen of all vampires. Except they’re not really statues, they’re Aaliyah and some guy she was married to (not R. Kelly!) and they’re actually alive but too bored to ever move again. (Honestly, same.) One night, while Marius is out doing his painting on the beach, Lestat finds the statues and decides to play the violin that he recently stole from a Roma lady he murdered and knows how to play expertly all of a sudden. Aaliyah is like, “Hubba hubba, who is this random white boy green-faced gentleman???” So, she offers him her wrist, which he bites and suddenly sees all this bad music video B-roll footage for some reason.

I guess he ODs on Aaliyah-blood because then Marius finds him passed out and is super pissed and jealous, either because Aaliyah let Lestat blood-suck her or because Lestat, a straight vampire, is wildly horned-up for Aaliyah. Possibly both? Anyway, he chains Lestat up and then fully peaces out with his catatonic vampire monarchs never to be heard from again.

END OF DIARY NOTHING ELSE EVER HAPPENED TO LESTAT BETWEEN 1788 AND 2002 ESPECIALLY NOT A FULL-ON HOMO GAY RELATIONSHIP IN NEW ORLEANS WITH BRAD PITT!

Back in 2002, Jesse gets all dressed up like Inuit Björk and sneaks into that vampire bar. Some mean goth vampires who are all into rubber are like, “Get out of here NERD!” But Lestat happens to also be there and saves her from getting gang murdered by them.

Jesse: “Hey I read your lonely diary. Want to be best friends now?”

Lestat: “No thank you please I have to go do music that will be reviled by history bye,” and flies away.

Back in L.A., Lestat voiceovers that no one was noticing how much murders he was doing due to how much murdering was already happening in the “city of lost angels.” Two things: 1) That’s not what “Los Angeles” translates to, is it? 2) Crime stats for L.A. in 2002???

Then Marius shows up like, “Hiiiiiiii, old friend! I hear you’re rich (???) and famous now!” So, probably Lestat has to put him on payroll as his “spiritual adviser” or whatever. Marius is like, “I slept through 1950s due to how gay I always look and missed out on Elvis.” Because ELVIS PRESLEY is 100% a thing nu metal mall goth vampires care about. Then later when they are sitting on some scaffolding in front of a huge billboard of Lestat’s crotch, Marius is like, “Oh BTW, Aaliyah is up and she murdered that guy she sat next to for a billion years, soooooo WATCH OUT!”

Cut to Aaliyah torching that vampire bar because all the rubber goth vampires want to kill her crush, Lestat.

Meanwhile, Jesse has raided a Hot Topic to disguise herself as a groupie and gets that dumb manager guy to take her to be murdered at Lestat’s house. But instead Lestat just takes her out on a date? Turns out Jesse also has a big crush on Lestat and wants him to make her his straight vampire girlfriend. But Lestat thinks she’s too precious as an alive person, so then he kills some random not precious at all lady (what is the criteria for “precious” exactly?) in front of her and she’s like, “YIKES! NEVER MIND!” and Lestat flies away again.

The next night, it is Vampire Burning Man, and everyone is there! Every mall goth in the world, Marius, Jesse, Talamasca provost David giving big “I brought my daughter to this concert” energy, some vampire thugs who want to murder Lestat, plus Aunt Maharet with a bunch of “ancient” vampires who are supposed to be Armand, Pandora, Mael, and Khayman from the book—but none of them get to do much of anything so they might as well be called Debbie, Mark, Stan, and Hugh.

While Lestat is lip-syncing for his life to some Korn songs, the vampire thugs attack him, so he and Marius…do some vampire kung fu on them? (Do all vampires know kung fu?) But then Aaliyah spontaneously combusts all of them and flies away with Lestat.

She takes him to some island where she tells him that he has to be her king now, because he lives his life OUT AND PROUD as a straight nu metal rock star. LOL this movie is like STRAIGHT PRIDE! Then they have a bath and do lots of straight blood drinking sex. (Also, why does Aaliyah sound like she’s talking through a metal pipe in this movie?)

Somewhere else, Jesse wakes up in that vampire doll temple, but this time it’s not a dream. Aunt Maharet is like, “Guess what, Aaliyah made me a vampire billions of years ago, but first I had a daughter and I’ve been stalking her descendants ever since and you, Jesse, are one of them.” Cool cool cool. No follow-up Qs. Then it’s sunrise and Maharet is like, “Let’s put a pin in all that, bye!”

Back on that island, Lestat wakes up and discovers that 1) there are no more shirts left on earth and 2) he can be in the daytime now because of drinking Aaliyah’s blood. But also, she’s been busy murdering everyone on that island, so maybe she’s not so cowabunga after all?

Meanwhile, all the ancient vampires are like, “Sooooooo, what now?” And Aunt Maharet is like, “I guess we just wait around for Aaliyah to come over and then we suck out all her blood so she dies.” Which is actually a great plan because literally the next thing that happens is Aaliyah and Lestat (still shirtless + jewelry) show up.

Aaliyah is like, “We have to kill all the humans because THEY ARE THE WOOOOOORST!” Which like, yeah, good point, Aaliyah! But also, then what would you eat???

Then she tells Lestat to murder Jesse to prove that he loves her (Aaliyah), which he…does? So much for her preciousness! As a reward Aaliyah lets him have a little slurp on her wrist blood. But TWIST! Lestat makes gay-bait murder eyes at Marius and all the ancient vampires start biting Aaliyah too! Some of them blow up in flames, but also some of them don’t I guess because Aaliyah is dying? Then Aunt Maharet sucks the last of Aaliyah’s magic blood, which makes Aaliyah get suddenly airbrushed black and her hair disappears and then she disintegrates and…that’s the end of her, the most powerful vampire ever.

Also, now Maharet is a statue because she is the new Queen of the Damned which is too exhausting to stay awake. Lo! The unbearable ennui of being a vampire strikes again!  

Lestat saves Jesse by making her a vampire (how precious is she now, one wonders?), and later the two of them go visit DumbleDavid at the Talamasca School of Vampires and Spookery to return Lestat’s diary and also to freak him out with Jesse’s new vampire attitude. You can tell she’s a vampire now because she only looks at people smirking like this:

They’re like, “Hey, want to be a vampire too?” But, David, who is maybe 45, is like “No, I’m too decrepit and old!” So, Lestat (unfortunately beshirted once again) and Jesse leave. But then Marius gayly sneaks in after them to I guess maybe make David his new gay vampire husbone? Unclear!

The movie ends with Lestat and Jesse straightly walking away into straight vampire eternity or whatever. Rock on, precious mall goths! Never let anyone like me stop you from loving the terrible stuff what you love! Also, R.I.P. Aaliyah!