Now streaming on Tubi, Queen of the Damned is technically a sequel to 1994’s Interview With the Vampire film, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Instead of adapting the second novel in the series, The Vampire Lestat, the film jumped to the third — The Queen of the Damned — and pulled in elements from the second book to offer up the next chapter of the story. The film was directed by Michael Rymer and starred Stuart Townsend as Lestat (replacing Tom Cruise in the role) as well as Aaliyah as the ancient mother of vampires Akasha in what would be her final film role.
Queen of the Damned Was a Notorious Flop (Which Makes AMC’s The Vampire Lestat All the More Exciting)
Queen of the Damned functioned as something of a mashup of Rice’s second and third The Vampire Chronicles novels. We got Lestat awakening in the modern world and fronting a famous band (in this case, a nu metal band) and, in the process, awakening the powerful vampire Akasha who seeks him out. While it sounds like something that would work on paper, it didn’t work well at all on screen. The film was hit with mostly negative reviews from audiences and critics who criticized the film for being silly, campy, and weird with uneven performances complete with strange accents. Even Rice herself eventually encouraged fans to “simply forget” about the film, saying that her work had been “mutilated” and declaring that television might be the better home her vampires.
Now, 24 years later, television is exactly where Rice’s vampires are and while there are some criticisms of AMC’s Interview With the Vampire from die-hard fans of the books, the upcoming third season has audiences eagerly awaiting its debut. Not only is it a continuation of an already high quality, well-received series, but the third season appears to be shaping up as a proper adaptation of The Vampire Lestat, something that the Queen of the Damned movie never proved to be. If The Vampire Lestat is done right, we’ll also likely end up getting a proper adaptation of The Queen of the Damned novel as well in subsequent seasons which may finally correct what many have seen as a wrong to the world of Rice’s vampires for a long time with the 2022 movie. Of course, while we do have a few months to wait before AMC’s The Vampire Lestat arrives, even for its negative reception, Queen of the Damned is still worth a watch. Even though it’s campy and strange, it’s actually visually very appealing — and if nothing else, Aaliyah’s Akasha is pretty great.
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