Tina Romero’s Queens of the Dead is a sparkly, queer extravaganza with enough camp and scares to already be heralded as a new classic. I don’t think that I have ever seen a zombie flick that declares its identity as much as it pays homage to the genre it is born from. Romero’s film is as much a celebration of queer and trans resilience as it is a rad, bloody good time.
Queens of the Dead follows a group of drag performers, club promoters, and the people who love them who find themselves trapped in a gay club, Yum, when a zombie apocalypse breaks out. When the invasion begins, you might notice that they look much more gorgeous than your run-of-the-mill undead. Sure, they shuffle and lunge, but just because they are looking for big, juicy brain doesn’t mean they can’t look fierce doing it. Romero explains how designing Queens‘ zombies had to have a lot of fabulous flair.
“It was important to me to find a way to make our zombies feel fabulous,” Romero says. “I knew the vibe wasn’t like the traditional Walking Dead, hyper-realistic, rotting flesh, ripped-up denim zombie–that wouldn’t feel right for this world. And it didn’t feel right for me. Part of my perspective on it was figuring out how to glamify this gore. Maybe we could take some cues from Dawn of the Dead where they were straight-up painting the zombie’s brain and we can use that tradition of establishing what your monster looks like but then make it fabulous and glam. Some of the earliest imagery that I pulled was from an artist named Marilyn Minter, and she deals a lot with the fashion industry but she uses saliva mixed with paint and glitter. It will all ooze together in this visceral, grotesque way, but it’s still very beautiful. Christina Grant, our head of makeup, was so aligned with me from the very first conversation. Let’s glamify these zombies!”
There is a fantastic shot of ZombiQueen’s feet as she stumbles around after she becomes infected. Juie J. has incredible comic timing, but seeing a zombie’s feet in heels is another pointed example of how Romero’s film has a specific, beautiful point of view.
“That was our wrap shot, but that little moment was needed since the image of a zombie in heels was so important,” Romero says. “That was the vision from the beginning. Julie J., who plays ZombiQueen was so down to find the movement, and she [spoke] in an interview a few weeks ago about how it was very authentic to tap into the weight of being in heels for so long since she was in heels all day on set. I am so obsessed with her.”
Before Katy O’Brian’s Dre opens Yum’s doors, the rest of the staff is anxious that they aren’t ready. Their headliner has dropped out at the last minute, and they are scrambling to get everything done. With a confident, hero delivery, Dre says, ‘We’re never ready. It’s how it always starts.’ It’s a line that has so much meaning for the present situation and how we are never, you know, ready for an army of the undead to chase us down. Romero and producer Natalie Metzger, who is also the VP of Development and Production of Vanishing Angle, knew how apropos this line was for this production.
“The way that Katy delivers that line is so perfect,” Romero says. “It’s the right note of camp and foreshadowing, and the thing that comes to mind, for me, is almost the meta-ness of what was going on behind the camera and on camera. We are a bunch of queer people trying to make this party go off, a bunch of queer people trying to make this movie work, and, it a lot of ways, we didn’t think we weren’t ready. What’s important is how we forge ahead and how we did it with this power of togetherness. There are moments where you have to walk the plank even when you’re not ready to. My experience in nightlight was always like that. It always feels like there’s never enough time, resourses, rehearsal time or any of that. Dre really captures that hustle and what grind and what it feels like to motivate everyone.”
“This was a shoot where we were working with very limited resources, but everyone put their all into this movie,” Metzger adds. “Everyone cared. Our cast and crew was ninety or ninety-five percent queer, and we were definitely at least fifty perfect female or female-identifying, if not more. Dre always makes it work, and that felt like an important line of when we were making it.”
To put it quite plainly, this cast is stacked. The more I learned about who was starring in Queens, the more anxious I was to see it, but it’s also an incredible mixture of talent. I cannot be the only person who has missed the grandiosity of Dominique Jackson on my screen. Nina West always brings the comedy, the camp, and the heart. O’Brian brings an incredible charge to the material. The ensemble is a great example of knowing how to go after the right people while giving such space to queer and trans talent. It helps when you have Tom Cruise, The King of Hollywood, on your side.
“I have to give Natalie and Vanishing Angle the props here, because they were all about great casting from the beginning,” Romero says. “Even before we had financing and when we were still developing the film, we were thinking about the cast. We started plugging in headshots for people and envisioning the lookbook very early. We were writing letters to people, and Matt [Miller], Natalie, and I put our heads together to think about who would be the right fit. Dominique Jackson was one of our very first guesses along with Riki Lindhome. Nina West was on my book, and I thought that a Miss Congeniality would be the perfect Ginsey Tonic. She needs to be mother in this loving, supporting, almost ‘Oh, my children!’ way. I have always loved Nina West, so I was thrilled to have her. I am shook by how incredible our cast is–they couldn’t be any better. They were all so down to play, but they weren’t afraid to get dirty. No one was bother by the fact that we didn’t have trailers or anything like that. Everything was so family style.”
“It really speaks to how strong Tina and Erin’s script, lookbook, and vision were that people were just so excited to sign on board,” Metzger says plainly. “We kept wondering who the best person would be for the character, and then those people kind of locked into place. There were some really fun, kismet things that happened as well. Our costume designer, David Tabbert, had worked with us on Werewolves Within, and he said that he thought Tomás Matos would be a good fit for Nico after he worked with them on Fire Island. Dominique’s reps were fans of Vanishing Angle, so we sent her the script. Katy was on our minds and we thought she’d be perfect for Dre, but she was busy with Mission: Impossible [The Final Reckoning] at the exact same time. Matt got connected with the writer of that movie who got connected with a producer who said he could check with Tom [Cruise]. We have to give such a thank you to Tom Cruise, because, those movies have a very specific shooting schedule. We had to figure out if Katy could get a certain range of dates off, and Tom wanted her to work and they were able to get her off to shoot our movie.”
“We also wanted to cast as authentically queer as possible,” Romero says “For all of us, the world had to feel authentically queer. Allison Twardziak, our casting director, really did a good job of getting local, New York queer people for everything, and that makes all the different. Kolton Krouse is in Death Becomes Her right now. John-Michael Lyles is from A Strange Loop, and he plays a go go boy. Samora la Perdida is from New York, and they play Jax, who is important to the story.”
The role of Kelsey was someone that Romero was eager to cast since she had such a clear vision for her. They made a huge impression in last year’s I Saw the TV Glow, and they have drawn such a define character for themselves in Queens. There is a hilarious sequence where Kelsey is singing and mumbling to herself when she realizes how nervous and afraid she is when she is sitting on Yum’s empty dance floor.
“I thought they were so incredible on Atypical, and I followed their gender journey,” Romero says. “It was very important to me that Kelsey represented the high-femme young girls–that wave of femme-y girls that are super lesbian. I wanted that character to be true to that vision, but I wasn’t sure if Jack was going to be up for that. We had a Zoom, and they told me that they have an alter efo that’s a Russian performer. Jack wanted to channel her, and she wanted to go all out. I’m so glad they did because Kelsey became so much more than I could’ve ever imagined her to be. Jack talked about channeling Barbara from Night of the Living Dead.”
When zombies come after you, you reach for the closest item to defend yourself. Sometimes you have to get creative! In the event that these fabulous queens comes after Romero and Metzger, they will opt for something classic.
“I have to go with a crossbow,” Metzger says. “I don’t like close proximity battles. I would sniper that.”
“I really like the concept of a mace head, and we made ours out of stilletos and a wig head,” Romero says. “That is the kind of weapon that’s so useful in a zombie apocalypse, because there’s no ammo needed. It’s reusable, and you can stick it in your bag. In my mind, I’m hopping on the back of my girlfriend’s motorcycle and we’re getting out of there. I’d also have a bat on the back that’d I’d put nails in. It’s not that original, but it’s effective.”
It’s classic for a reason, right?
“Exactly,” she says.
Queens of the Dead was recently acquired by Independent Film Company & Shudder. It will next play at the Fantasia International Film Festival on August 2. So far, it has won prizes at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and America’s Rainbow Film Festival.
