Rules to live by… #1 Be kind to yourself and others. #2 Focus on what you can control. #3 Don’t hook up with that headless torso DL guy from Grindr no matter how desperate you are. Yes, I’m looking at you, don’t do it! #4 If you ever find yourself in a zombie apocalypse, make sure you’ve got your hair curler on max heat, those nails pressed and sharpened, and your weapons glistening with glitter. If you have to slice and dice your way through a hoard of zombies, you might as well look fierce while doing it.
Opening the 10th annual Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and playing NewFest’s 37th New York’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival, following its world premiere at Tribeca—where it won the audience award—Tina Romero’s Queens of the Dead is a glitzy, glamorous, and gory feature debut.
Needing a last-minute cover for her half-dead party, Dre (Katy O’Brien) hesitantly calls on an old friend, Sam (Jaquel Spivey), to fill in the stilettos of the headliner for the night. After getting reacquainted with some old faces and butting heads with some new queens, Sam, along with everyone else, soon realizes they are biting off more than they can chew as their attendees take the term ‘eating’ a little too literally. The eclectic group of queers must fight tooth, and well-pressed nail, against the Brooklynite undead. Boasting an all-star cast featuring Spivey, O’Brien, Jack Haven, Nina West, Tomás Matos, Margaret Cho, Riki Lindhome, Quincy Dunn-Baker, Dominique Jackson, and Cheyenne Jackson and with thumping catchy house music soundtrack, including an unforgettable sequence set to Ke$ha’s Blow, Queens of the Dead is as fabulous as it is funny.
The ensemble works together flawlessly, bouncing off each other and giving hilarious performances all around. Notable standouts include Jack Haven as Kelsey, the lovable blonde bimbo lesbian. Haven, who gave a powerhouse dramatic performance in last year’s I Saw The TV Glow, makes clear that he’s a remarkably versatile actor and is hysterical every moment he’s on screen in Queens of the Dead. Pose star Dominique Jackson’s performances are always a treat and that’s no exception here. She lends a fierce bite to her character that even the flesh-eating zombies can’t match. Drag Race superstar, Nina West, provides an endearing maternal energy and stuns with her comedic timing, solidifying her as a queen of her craft.
The screenplay, by Romero and Erin Judge, is slathered with instantly quotable lines, brought to life by the cast’s delivery. It relishes in its own camp. Unapologetically queer, with in-jokes and universal aspects to queerness used to create a compelling comedy about our community, without us becoming the butt of the joke. Every kind of queerness is the norm here, and the fact that the majority of the cast is LGBTQ-identifying adds so much underlying heart and realness to the film, despite the outrageous premise. The lack of emphasis on homophobia/transphobia is apparent and refreshing. The horror we see on screen does not have to coincide with the everyday atrocities we face as a community. Instead, in Queens, we get to fight zombies, be strong, be vulnerable, be messy, and look fabulous while doing so.
It is also worth pointing out that Queens delivers our first-ever plus-size scream queen in Jaquel Spivey’s Sam. With Spivey and Romero fashioning the character with depth and sensitivity that’s rarely afforded to plus-size people in film, let alone horror. In horror, the plus-size characters are usually one of four things: a) a comedic punching bag; b) the villain and/or obstacle; c) both a) and b); or d) non-existent. Them being the protagonist has hardly ever been on the table. As so often with queer characters in mainstream movies, plus-size characters have been pushed to the outskirts and othered. Sam, a plus-size Black queer drag queen, is given grace and is the hero of their story. It’s a special intersection that’s deeply underrepresented, and it’s meaningful here. Personally, as a plus-size person myself, it gave me great joy to see.
It is impressive that Queens of the Dead is a feature debut. The confidence Romero exudes with this film is palpable. She is able to weave her way flawlessly through the different genres, culminating in a balanced dark comedy with plenty of heart and emotion. Subverting the usual zombie film conventions with queer centered spins, Queens stands tall amongst the greats of the genre.
Tina Romero has created a work that earns its place in the “Of the dead” pantheon that her father, the granddaddy of the genre—George A. Romero—began in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead. With special surprise cameos from longtime George Romero collaborators from decades past, clever reinvented callbacks, and queer twists on memorable lines, fans of the original films will no doubt be delighted and proud to see the legacy living on. And remember, the 5th and final rule to live by: if ever you see a Romero name attached to a zombie film, just know you are in good hands.
Iconic doesn’t even begin to describe the bloody bedazzled rhinestone beating heart of this zom-com. It’s a must-see for queer horror freaks and anyone needing a fun undead pic this Halloween season.
By Andrew Pankey
Queens of the Dead opens in theaters on Friday, October 24th.
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