There’s no denying where Tina Romero’s cinematic sensibilities came from. Her debut feature film, Queens of the Dead, is an entertaining and politically alert zombie movie. She’s walking in the groundbreaking footsteps of her father, Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero, who defined the zombie sub-genre for generations. However, centering her story in a queer community with LGBTQ+ performers, Tina Romero leans into comedy more than her dad did in his movies and creates a branch of zombie horror that brings new growth to the sub-genre.
Following a group of queer people and drag performers as they try to escape a zombie invasion in the Brooklyn club scene, Queens of the Dead is unlike any horror movie you’ve seen before. Like John Waters, Tina embraces camp and queerness without hesitation. The combination of classic zombies — with gray skin and shuffling steps — and drag queen-led humor gives Queens of the Dead an exciting clash of influences that makes for a uniquely thrilling movie. It’s one that also happens to be studded with star power, boasting appearances from Love Lies Bleeding‘s Katy O’Brian, Mean Girls‘ Jaquel Spivey, Fire Island‘s Tomás Matos, I Saw the TV Glow‘s Jack Haven, National Anthem‘s Eve Lindley, RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Nina West, and Margaret Cho.
Is Queens of the Dead set in the same world as Night of the Living Dead?
Credit: Shannon Madden / Independent Film Company / Shudder
The answer is sort of! It’s not that Tina’s movie is in the same fictional world as her dad’s frightening franchise. But it is set in a world where his movies exist. So, there’s plenty of references. For instance, when an inexplicable plague hits New York City, the inept mayor (famed horror makeup artist and Dawn of the Dead star Tom Savini) is quick to insist that what’s happening on the streets is not a George A. Romero scenario. Except it totally is.
This cheeky reference allows Tina to diverge sharply from the path her father laid down while also paying tribute and setting up her heroes as people who’ve grown up in a world with zombies as part of their pop-cultural awareness. However, Queens of the Dead isn’t going Scream-level meta, where this awareness will be a huge help to its heroes as they try to out-strategize their attackers. Queens of the Dead’s motley crew of aspiring survivors are club kids, go-go dancers, drag queens, and party promoters, more equipped for an all-night rager than a horde of raging zombies. Even when they get what’s going on, their array of props, costumes, and bartending supplies isn’t really what you’d want to take on an army of the dead.
However, Queens of the Dead has a slasher-flick quality of fun because it’s easy to look at this chaotic circle of friends and see a reflection of your own, wondering how your besties might fare if a night out dancing and drinking turned into fleeing a zombie horde. Tina invites us into the cool crowd and into the frightful entertainment.
Queens of the Dead is for queer people by queer people.
Credit: Shannon Madden / Independent Film Company / Shudder
Katy O’Brian stars as Dre, a promoter whose make-or-break party at a gay bar in Brooklyn is thrown into peril when their headliner (Dominique Jackson) abruptly bails for a better gig. While at work at a hospital, Dre’s wife, Lizzy (Riki Lindhome), urges her fellow nurse Sam (Jaquel Spivey) to resurrect his drag persona, Samyonce, to save the night. Turns out, stage fright will be the least of Sam’s worries about returning to the club scene when a zombie-bit reveler wanders onto the dance floor.
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Inside the club, drag queens (Nina West), dancers (Tomás Matos), bar staff (Cheyenne Jackson, Jack Haven), Dre, and her lunkheaded brother-in-law Barry (Quincy Dunn-Baker) must overcome their differences to survive. Thankfully, reinforcements are on the way, including Dre’s wife, a scrappy trans girl (Eve Lindley), and an activism team led by a drill-wielding Margaret Cho (making a Day of the Dead callback kill).
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Like a classic Romero movie, the approach by Tina Romero and her co-writer Erin Judge offers a cross-section of people, creating a captivating and rich portrait of American life — in this case, queer American life. The scribes play with archetypes within the LGBTQ+ community, offering take-charge lesbians, freaked-out twinks, and drag queens whose bravery is practically superhero-level as they rise to the occasion, whatever the occasion. And there are deeper-cut jokes — like one about a femme lesbian complaining about her literal ax wound — that will have queer audiences absolutely howling. Even the zombies’ appearances lean to queer comedy, as their skin may be sickening, but all that hollowed gray flesh with glitter in the mix creates a killer contour.
Queens of the Dead is wild fun.
Credit: Shannon Madden / Independent Film Company / Shudder
From the film’s clever opening, Tina Romero is setting audiences up for a gleefully shocking and sensationally iconoclastic experience. Queens of the Dead begins with a shimmery drag queen (Julie J.) coming home so late from her night out that it’s morning. So, she’s in full body-suited sequens and glam as she’s rolling into church for a moment of peace and prayer. (Michael Jackson’s Thriller could never.) Then her hookup app chimes, alerting her that a potential beau is very close. She probes the rectory in search of a man of the cloth looking to get freaky. Unfortunately, this abs-rippling priest (Ahmad Maksoud) has already been bit. So our frisky, faithful queen will get a make-under, then return to the clubs she loves to haunt to become a true menace.
Out of the gate, Tina displays that drag queens are part of their communities, that the religious right is not so chaste as their preached politics might suggest, and that zombies can be undead and uncomfortably hot. If any of this sounds like too much for you to swallow, then Queens of the Dead is not for you. But if you’re intrigued, then welcome in, and go with the flow.
Drenched in neon, steeped in attitude, and radiant with queer joy, this movie is beyond fine; it’s fierce, funny, and fabulous.
Queens of the Dead opens in theaters on Oct. 24.
