I haven't read the Anne Rice novel that this movie was based on, but who knows, maybe reading the book is cheaper than renting QUEEN OF THE DAMNED and is probably better for your health. It isn't that this movie is necessarily bad for your health, but a book can be very relaxing and certainly exercises the active part of your brain more so than this movie. You can count the number of pages by Anne Rice that I've read on one hand, but after seeing this movie and Interview with a Vampire, I get the feeling that she writes really good novels. The plots for both movies hint at a whole sea of deep and interwoven vampire history.<br /><br />Still, Stuart Townsend's voice-over narration gets a heck of a lot more annoying than Brad Pitt's vampire narrative ever did, and you can tell that QUEEN OF THE DAMNED's limited production resources barely give enough flesh to the Anne Rice storyline. While Interview decided to go with lace and elegance, QUEEN relies on low budget special effects that try really hard to be taken seriously. One can see that the original novel had potential as a movie and that the production team focused its attention in the wrong places. The costumes and rock & roll stage could have been replaced with more blood and an eerier soundtrack.<br /><br />However, I'll give credit where credit is due. The soundtrack is excellent. Korn and Disturbed had me down with the sickness bobbing my noggin like Butthead.<br /><br />The film opens with a very cool Goth-rock zoom & splice montage, but after the first ten minutes or so, the directing degenerates quickly. It's as if the movie was so long that the director realized that there wasn't enough time and enough money to do an Anne Rice novel justice. What results are some mediocre vampire scenes and plenty of cheesy special effects. Unfortunately, QUEEN OF THE DAMNED fails to do the genre justice just as its John Carpenter counterparts fail to impress. Where are the yellow contacts? Where's the pale blue make-up? Scene after scene, I shook my head reminiscing about the days of Salem's Lot and Fright Night when low budget was done right.<br /><br />There are redeeming qualities though that save this movie from being garbage. Props to Aaliyah, and may her soul forever rest in peace. She might have become a renowned actress, had her life not been taken from us so prematurely, for she did give this movie a decent performance with plenty of nice belly dancing. Did I mention that the soundtrack was good? Let's see, what else can I say? It wasn't too long. The Anne Rice novel could have easily been a three hour movie if an ambitious director like Francis Ford Coppola got his hands on it. There are a few twists and turns here and there in the plot. But all in all it was a legitimate rock and roll addition to the slew of second-rate vampire movies out there. The director of this movie went on to direct a new Battlestar Galactica mini series if that tells you anything.<br /><br />JY<br /><br />Jimboduck-dot-com