Queen of the Damned (R)
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This came out in 2002, but I didn't see it until 2018. It's based on books by Anne Rice, including "The Vampire Lestat" and "The Queen of the Damned," neither of which I've read. It's the second movie to be based on Rice's books, after 1994's Interview with the Vampire, though I don't think it would be accurate to call this movie a sequel to that one. Anyway... it did not do well critically, and I suppose most fans of Rice's books disliked it (or hated it). Personally, I liked it. In fact I might say I found it slightly more entertaining than the previous movie, which was better received by critics (though I'm not sure about fans of her books). And by rating this movie slightly higher, I'm not saying I think it's better than "Interview." Oh my, no. It's certainly not. Just more entertaining, in my personal opinion.

It begins with narration by the vampire Lestat (played here by Stuart Townsend), who got tired of living in the shadows, always alone, so he decided to go to sleep. About a century later, he's awakened by the sound of a metal band, who are playing in his old house. He goes to them and basically decides to become their lead singer. After this, the rest of the band are of no particular importance to the plot, but Lestat himself becomes quite famous. (The human musicians are just backup, not really characters, or anything.) Meanwhile, there's a woman named Jesse Reeves, who is part of a paranormal research society called Talamasca (which kind of put me in mind of the Watchers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). She believes Lestat is a real vampire, and her mentor in the group, David Talbot (Paul McGann) tells her he already knows about Lestat. He tells her that Lestat was created by an ancient vampire named Marius. And he lets her read Lestat's journal, which he happens to possess. As she reads it, we see scenes of Lestat being sired by Marius, and learning from him about how to be a vampire. Also, Lestat discovers a hidden room in Marius's home, where there are two statues, of the very first vampires, Queen Akasha and King Enkil, from a land that would eventually be Egypt. But they're not actually statues, they're the real vampires, just... petrified, or whatever. And Lestat drinks some of Akasha's blood. This leads Marius to chain him up, and remove the "statues." And Lestat doesn't see him again.

Well, after learning all this, Jesse goes looking for Lestat, and finds him. That doesn't go so well. Later, Marius also finds Lestat, who reveals that Akasha has awakened. Lestat already knows that a lot of vampires will be angry that he has revealed their kind's existence to the world (even if most people think it's just a gimmick), and they'll try to kill him at his upcoming concert. Lestat is not worried about that, but Marius warns him that Akasha is not like the others. She is far more powerful than any vampire. Still, Lestat doesn't seem to care.

There's also a group of vampires, the main one of whom is a woman named Maharet (Lena Olin), who had been an aunt to Jesse, when she was a little girl. (I'm not entirely sure whether she was an actual relative, though I tend to doubt it.) But we saw in flashback that Maharet had sent Jesse away, to live among humans. Well, her group shows up at Lestat's concert to find Jesse, to keep her safe. And eventually, after Lestat and Marius fend off some of the vampires who showed up to kill Lestat, Akasha makes her grand entrance... and um, things don't exactly go as expected. I don't really want to say any more, except that there's later a standoff between Akasha, Lestat, and Maharet's group.

I should also mention that Akasha was played by singer and actress Aaliyah, who died the year before the movie was released, and the movie was dedicated to her memory. Other than that... I dunno. There's a lot of good music, if you like metal. And... I dunno, I just think it's all sort of fun, if you don't take any of it too seriously. Though I expect the books are probably much better. (I should probably read them someday. If I live long enough.)