Movie Review: QUEENS OF THE DEAD

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN

Posted: October 26th, 2025 / 08:39 PM

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Katy O’Brian, Jaquel Spivey. Quincy Dunn-Baker, Margaret Cho, Riki Lindhome, Tomás Matos, Thomas “Nina West” Levitt, Jack Haven, Cheyenne Jackson, Dominique Jackson, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Becca Blackwell, Eve Lindley, Karan Brar, Tom Savini, Julie J
Writers: Tina Romero & Erin Judge
Director: Tina Romero
Distributor: IFC/Shudder
Release Date: October 24, 2025 (theatrical)

When your personal father is also the acknowledged father of the zombie genre, that would seem to confer certain rights and responsibilities.

Tina Romero, daughter of George A. Romero, seems to take these seriously even though she mixes humor into her feature directing debut, QUEENS OF THE DEAD.

QUEENS is a zombie movie set lovingly in and around a drag bar in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The characters range from drag performers to transgender women and men to nonbinary folks to gay men and lesbians to one heterosexual man who comes to unclog the toilet and stays to fight the unforeseen battle.

In the hands of an outsider, this could be unspeakably horrible. However, Romero and her co-writer Erin Judge demonstrate keen knowledge of this scene and its details. With every respect to Romero’s iconic father (what would horror movies look since 1968 if he’d never made NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD?), his characters were never as fleshed out and specific as those of QUEENS.

Structurally, QUEENS OF THE DEAD resembles plenty of other zombie movies, especially DAWN OF THE DEAD. The mythology (transmission by bites, slow-moving undead, the need to destroy the brain, etc.) is what George Romero established long ago, although the filmmakers add some new flourishes that enhance the danger.

It is just that QUEENS OF THE DEAD is set in a milieu that doesn’t often feature horror, or when it does, the people are depicted as freaks. A notable exception is the 2024 Australian T-BLOCKERS, also a zombie film set in the queer community, but QUEENS is less trippy and didactic.

Another aspect of QUEENS OF THE DEAD that differs from most of its subgenre is that it is not about a group of thrown-together strangers, but rather people related by blood, chosen family and/or work. Club promoter Dre (Katy O’Brian) oversees the performing talent at Yum, a dive nightclub owned and run by bartender Jimmy (Cheyenne Jackson).

The night’s star attraction, social media influencer Yasmine (Dominique Jackson) has bailed, so Dre prevails upon veteran drag performer Ginsey (Thomas “Nina West” Levitt), to do a longer set. Background dancer/drug dealer Nico (Tomás Matos) is also getting some stage time, although they and fellow dancer Jax (Samora la Perdida) are getting so high beforehand that their readiness is in question.

Meanwhile, Dre’s wife Lizzy (Riki Lindhome) is a nurse at a hospital where she works with Sam (Jaquel Spivey), now also a nurse and doing his self-professed “adulting” after bailing on his “Samoncé” act at Yum a while back under mysterious circumstances. Lizzy and Sam are both dealing with recalcitrant patient Jane (Eve Lindley), a young trans woman who is recovering from a drug overdose.

Lizzy wants to help Dre with her problems whether Dre wants help or not. So, Lizzy coaxes Sam to go back to the club and revive his act, which will boost attendance in Yasmine’s absence. Lizzy also calls her plumber brother Barry (Quincy Dunn-Baker), a straight guy who loves his sister but is appalled by drag, to fix the club’s plumbing.

When some strange behavior breaks out, the Mayor of New York (Tom Savini, because really, who else?) gets on TV to assure everyone that zombies aren’t real and this is not “a George Romero movie.”

The club staff catch on relatively quickly to the nature of the threat, while Lizzy and Jane try to make their way from the hospital to the relative safety of Yum.

Here, the filmmakers give us every individual on their own terms. The narcissistic characters are irritating, but their peers and the movie both know it. Although they’re facing a life-and-death emergency (at one point, Dre observes that it’s not life or death: “It’s always both”), everybody is a little more low-key than the people were on, say, POSE.

Standouts in the cast include O’Brian, whose Dre gives the movie a level center, and Spivey, who touchingly illustrates Sam’s struggle between his intrinsic desire to help and his paralyzing anxiety. Levitt is wonderfully maternal, and Margaret Cho shows up partway through the proceedings to strong effect. Gaylen Ross (of the original DAWN OF THE DEAD) has a cameo as a hospital doctor. Greg Nicotero is on the film’s makeup effects team.

QUEENS OF THE DEAD is not THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW or any other story where the characters are wholly preoccupied with desire and appearance, zombie menace or no. Here, the characters are preoccupied with their friends. It’s warm and personable – and has some great jump scares, too.

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Article: Movie Review: QUEENS OF THE DEAD

Movie Review: QUEENS OF THE DEAD

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