George A. Romero arguably invented the modern zombie genre with the 1968 classic “Night of the Living Dead” but, fittingly enough, zombies turned out to be a Frankenstein monster, tromping uncontrollably across the pop culture landscape. There are so many zombie movies, TV shows, video games, comic books and novels now that it seems like everything has already been done. And maybe it has.
Tina Romero’s “Queens of the Dead” is a queer take on flesh-eating ghouls, set in the world of drag. And heck, even that idea is at least 30 years old. Did you ever see Kelly Hughes’s 1995 horror comedy “La cage aux zombies?” No? Well, I can’t blame you. It’s hard to find. But it’s real, I promise.
Tina Romero’s “Queens of the Dead” may not have the most original idea ever, but it does feel fresh — or as fresh as a rotting corpse can be. The elder Romero’s films were harsh metaphors for the things that divide us, like racism (“Night of the Living Dead”), consumerism (“Dawn of the Dead”), militarism (“Day of the Dead”), classism (“Land of the Dead”), and whatever the heck “Diary of the Dead” was about. Romero the Younger uses the same genre to bring people together. It’s a celebration of queer pride that brings a smile to your face, even while your face is covered in blood. And glitter.
“Queens of the Dead” stars Katy O’Brian (“Love Lies Bleeding”) as Dre, the owner of a struggling New York City drag club called Yum. Dre’s trendy competitor, Glitter Bitch, just stole Yum’s biggest headliner, and so it’s up to retired drag legend Samoncé (Jaquel Spivey, “Mean Girls”) to save the day, even though they’ve got bad history together.
And because the zombies have to eat somebody, there’s a big ensemble supporting them, including Yum’s hapless intern Kelsey (Jack Haven, “I Saw the TV Glow”), Dre’s pregnant wife Lizzy (Riki Lindhome), hospitalized trans loner Jane (Eve Lindley, “After Yang”), drug dealing drama queen Scrumptious (Tomas Matos, “Fire Island”), and what the heck, let’s throw in Margaret Cho as a badass lawyer riding an electric scooter who likes to kill zombies with a power drill.
The best horror movies are usually ones where the heroes could carry their own film if nothing horrible happened, and Romero’s script — co-written by Erin Judge — delivers. These are all distinct individuals, and they’re prone to melodrama and camp, but they’re sincere about what really matters. They’re divided by self-doubt, economic distress and petty backstage jealousies, not hatred or revenge. Even the film’s token straight, Barry (Quincy Dunn-Baker), isn’t a hateful bigot. He listens to hateful, bigoted podcasts, which is a problem, but it only takes one night out with the gals, with or without zombies, to set him on the path to enlightenment.
It’s fascinating that Tina Romero made a queer horror movie in the mid-2020s, in a genre about mindless hordes, and didn’t make a film where the zombies are stand-ins for homophobes and transphobes. It would be, let’s face it, the most obvious take on this premise. It might even be an effective one. But “Queens of the Dead” is about finding a place for queer community within this pre-existing zombie movie framework, not about using the genre to amplify an “us vs. them” narrative. Tina Romero’s film imagines queer community, at least in microcosm, as being beyond those simplistic binaries. When straight people get trapped in the middle of a zombie siege, they try to kill each other. Queer people just snipe a little and then get to work fixing their problems, and themselves.
It’s a message of togetherness that’s undercut, to a somewhat unnecessary degree, by the zombie violence. Everyone loves killing zombies. (Along with Nazis, they’re one of the few movie monsters that evokes zero sympathy.) But the zombies in “Queen of the Dead” still have human urges. They get distracted by social media alerts. They love dancing to house music. Maybe these are hardwired behaviors, like the ghouls in “Dawn of the Dead,” subconsciously drawn to a shopping mall. But for a while it looks like Tina Romero’s film might take another path, and either cure or redeem these poor creatures, instead of mass murdering them for fun.
Look, I can appreciate giving queer heroes an opportunity to cut loose in a genre where they rarely get their own zombie-decapitating hero shots. And hey, everyone loves a drag queen strapping extra spikes to her spiked heels and stabbing a zombie’s eye out with a fabulous high kick. But when your movie is about the beauty of queer community and it culminates with the queer heroes eviscerating dozens of mindless queer monsters, the message gets a little bit mixed.
“Queens of the Dead” is on the cheap side, and sometimes it looks it, but the biggest spectacle is the cast. Everyone in this movie is having a glorious time. Jack Haven spends half the film on the floor making silly noises and whining about their literal axe wound. That’s top notch whimsy. Eve Lindley is magnetic in her too-few scenes, as a trans woman unable to afford medical care. Jaquel Spivey aims for real pathos and hits the mark. And of course Katy O’Brian carries much of the film as the grounded, de facto leader trying to save a struggling business, preserve friendships, save her wife, and save everyone’s lives. Not a scene goes by unstolen, often by the whole crew.
It’s tempting to judge Tina Romero’s “Queens of the Dead” by her father’s many, similar films, but she’s clearly aware of her family’s legacy and she’s putting her own stamp on it. “Queens of the Dead” may not be a timeless classic and it might not be a game changer for the genre, but more than any other recent zombie flick, it’s likely to play the midnight circuit for years. Not because of the camp. Not because of the unlimited cosplay opportunities. But because it fosters genuine good will from the audience. We love these characters, and we want them to stick around. Zomb-ay, you stay.