But six months later, en route to Florida after shooting her “Rock the Boat” video in the Bahamas, she died in a plane crash. The R&B darling was 22 when production wrapped on the movie, and she was subsequently hoisted up by industry executives and producers as the perfect young face to sell many future films. Sparked back to life by Lestat’s music, she’s on the hunt for her conjurer, determined to make him her king. As the reanimated vampire monarch Akasha, she slinks through her scenes with commanding charisma, outfitted in an ornate headpiece and speaking in an eerie ADR-enhanced gravel voice. And yet Queen of the Damned developed a cult following, buoyed by Aaliyah’s passionate admirers and the plot’s goth-kitsch absurdity.Īaliyah is, after all, the highlight of Damned.
Fans of Anne Rice’s novel of the same name - the third in her series about a vampire named Lestat, first portrayed onscreen by Tom Cruise in 1994’s deliciously homoerotic Interview With the Vampire - were disappointed to see her text so heavily altered in movie form. When it opened in theaters on February 22, 2002, reviews were bloody, and the box-office numbers were only mildly better. To some, that’s exactly how the movie plays.
“It sounds like a bad Saturday Night Live skit,” says Richard Gibbs, who wrote the music for the film alongside Korn front man Jonathan Davis. Queen of the Damned is a movie about a vampire who awakens from a protracted slumber and becomes a rock star. Photo: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection Aaliyah and director Michael Rymer on the set of Queen of the Damned.
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