Vampires and rock music never seem to marry well but fans of "Queen of the Damned" will enjoy what the DVD release offers in terms of audio pleasure.
TECHNICAL FEATURES
Picture Another film where London appears to be fog-bound. That's no matter for this quality transfer which keeps detail high, even in the darkest and murkiest of scenes.
Sound Get your slave speakers to submit to the 5.1 assault of sound that this DVD comes packed with. The music score gets free rein to devastate your subwoofer to startling effect.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Audio Commentary Director Michael Rymer is joined by producer Jorge Saralegui and composers Jonathan Davis and Richard Gibbs for the audio commentary. Most of the chat comes from Michael and Jorge, who provide a blow-by-blow analysis of the differences between the books and the film. A lot of story compression had to be worked out and Anne Rice fans may be interested to hear the reasons behind the many changes. Rymer also touches upon complaints made by people that Lestat should be blond, when Stuart Townsend has brown hair. Rymer felt that, "it was more important to get the right guy for the part", which says something in itself about the final outcome of this movie.
Additional Scenes Thirteen deleted scenes, running at over half an hour in length and all come with introductory notes as to why they were removed, with most common reason being pacing. It's probably safe to say though that the garlic joke scene was removed purely because it was crap.
Behind the Scenes For a 'making of' featurette of a commercial movie, this 12-minute effort isn't too cheesy. There's the usual mix of cast and crew interview clips as to what the film is about, but you can also learn an interesting trick about flesh make-up. Aaliyah needed to have scars applied and apparently the secret to making them look good is to ensure that the rubber is darker in colour than the person's skin. If you try and match the colours, the rubber just looks yellow when caught on camera.
Aaliyah Remembered While we're all supposedly promised our very own 15 minutes of fame in life, Aaliyah scrapes about three minutes on this featurette. Most of the interview contributions remembering her are skewed to defending the release of the film.
Interviews Billed simply as 'Interviews', this 11-minute featurette takes a look at the rock music featured in the movie. There's also some extraordinary footage of 3000 goths walking across the Australian desert towards the rock concert set.
Music Videos There are four music videos here. Sadly the sound is only in 2.0, which seems like a missed opportunity. These tracks demand the 5.1 effect if your ears are ever to bleed listening to them.
Club Reels Two extended scenes of the concert footage, although again, the sound is in 2.0.
Gag Reel No, it's not footage of critics reacting to the film, but rather the zany japes our crazy cast got up to.
Additional Extra Features Also on the DVD is a trailer, a cast and crew list, and a stills gallery with behind-the-scenes shots.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
Region: 2
Chapters: 27
Ratio: 1.85:1 (anamorphic)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Audio Tracks: Multiple Languages
Subtitles: Multiple Languages
Captions: English and Italian
Menus: Static with music
Special Features Subtitles: All the special features come with subtitles apart from the trailer.
This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-S57 DVD player.
