QUEEN OF THE DAMNED

Lestat wakes up after a century-long sleep and discovers that the new idols of the world are decadent rockstars who live the night as if it were day, practically the perfect life for any vampire. He decides to form his own band and come out in the open, abandoning anonymity and revealing his true nature to the world. This, however, goes against the first rule of vampires: never reveal your existence and therefore Lestat must be punished. The other vampires want to eliminate him but Akasha, the mother and queen of all night creatures, comes to his aid... Eight years after Neil Jordan's “Interview with the Vampire,” the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, born from the pen of Anne Rice, returns to the screen this time with the cold appearance of Stuart Townsend instead of Tom Cruise (who, by the way, was offered the part but refused). Director Michael Rymer decides to give his potential audience (teenagers) what they are looking for: a cast of young and beautiful actors (including the unfortunate singer Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash a few months after filming the movie), a heavily rock soundtrack composed specifically for the film, and excellent digital special effects. Unfortunately, the film's merits (if those just listed can be considered merits) stop there, making it a well-packaged but substance-less product: the motivations that drive Lestat to reveal himself to the world, which should be the thread running through the story, are only hinted at, the pace, especially in the middle part, is lacking, and the only truly interesting and original character in the film, Akasha the queen of the damned (the singer Aaliyah), appears on screen only for a few minutes. Another point, but not a minor one, is the lack of blood: with the exception of a few red-stained canines and a torn heart, not a single drop of blood is spilled throughout the film! And yet it's a film about “bloodsuckers”! This is a choice now common to most of the latest horror productions, distributors try to keep the films in the “R - Restricted” rating and thus avoid the American censorship blade. The absurd thing is that, despite this, the film is released in Italy with a ban on minors under 18! Unthinkable! Curiosity: in the film, clips from some music videos of Lestat's rock group are proposed, in these you can recognize at least a couple of tributes to classic horror cinema, with references to “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “Nosferatu the Vampire.”