  cover art  Queen of the Damned  Director: Michael Rymer
(Warner Bros.; US theatrical: 22 Feb 2002; 2002)  Scores to
settle  Late in Queen of the Damned, Aaliyah makes her grand
entrance. As Akasha, the “queen of all who are damned” to
eternal night and grueling solitude and such, she enters a
nightclub. Here she’s confronted by a group of underground,
pasty white, goth-rocker vampire kids are hanging out, avoiding
the daylight, and watching a loud, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari-
looking music video by one of their own, the Vampire Lestat
(Stuart Townsend). But while the kids like Lestat’s music, they
hate that he’s a star, because it puts a crimp in their super-
secret, underground, pasty white, goth-rocker vampire lifestyle.
The majestic Akasha, by contrast, likes Lestat because he’s like
her. She likes his nerve, celebrity, and excessiveness (he
consumes two female groupies per night and even appears
regularly on tv, though I’m not quite sure how that works
because I thought that vampires couldn’t be photograph