{"id":14455,"date":"2025-10-24T01:22:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/14455\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T01:22:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:22:32","slug":"tina-romero-on-her-fantastically-fun-zombie-movie-queens-of-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/14455\/","title":{"rendered":"Tina Romero on Her Fantastically Fun Zombie Movie ‘Queens of the Dead’"},"content":{"rendered":"

What if the zombie apocalypse broke out in Brooklyn\u2014and infiltrated the queer nightlife scene? That\u2019s the very fun and sparkle-infused premise of Queens of the Dead<\/a>, which opens this week<\/a> and is directed by Tina Romero\u2014yes, the daughter of<\/a> zombie movie legend George A. Romero<\/a>.<\/p>\n

io9 talked to Tina Romero all about her debut feature, including what it\u2019s like carrying on her father\u2019s splattery legacy and the importance of seeing joyful queer representation onscreen.<\/p>\n

Cheryl Eddy, io9: Growing up with George Romero as a dad, how did that affect your perception of zombie movies?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tina Romero: I tell people I sat on a zombie\u2019s lap before I met the mall Santa. Zombies were just like a fact of life. Like, Santa Claus exists and zombies exist, and that\u2019s just how it is. I also say that I\u2019m a kid who grew up on Pippi Longstocking and Bye Bye Birdie and West Side Story and \u201880s Disney movies, but then I would tiptoe past a terrifying poster on the way to the bathroom at night or Fluffy\u2019s crate from Creepshow. So my world has always been a very strange mashup of dark and light.<\/p>\n

I think that is at the core of my creativity. I\u2019m an edgy cheeseball, and I like things that are light and playful and colorful and also have a bit of a gory edge. And my dad was very much the same. He made some dark, nihilistic, scary movies, but he was such a gentle giant, and he also loved the cheesy stuff. We watched a lot of movies together. That was our primary form of bonding. And he would unabashedly weep when he was moved. And I think that really impacted me and showed me the power of movies, the power of film to move people. That\u2019s what I always picked up on: movies can move people and they can provoke real-life empathy. That was my guiding light as far as what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to move people with movies.<\/p>\n

io9: Was there any hesitation about making your feature film debut a zombie movie because you knew people would immediately compare you with your dad\u2014or was that sort of the reason why you wanted to make a zombie movie first?<\/p>\n

Romero: I think it\u2019s both. As [Katy O\u2019Brian\u2019s character] Dre says in the movie, it\u2019s always both. Certainly there was some hesitation, big shoes to fill, and fear of comparison, which is why I didn\u2019t want to touch the genre unless I could do it in a way that felt authentically me. So when the concept came to me, it was just a very full-body yes. The idea of getting into the zombie genre through the lens of queer nightlife just felt like, this is exactly how I want to introduce myself as a filmmaker because this is a world that I know and people that I care about; I can tell [this] story authentically.<\/p>\n

\"QueensJulie J and Ahmad Maksoud in \u2018Queens of the Dead.\u2019 \u00a9 Courtesy of Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release. <\/p>\n

And I love zombies; I know zombies; I grew up with zombies. So let\u2019s mash up these worlds, and let me introduce myself as my own filmmaker while getting to also carry forward the monster that my dad created into 2025 with a female perspective, with a queer perspective. It just felt really right. Once the idea hit me, I knew that this was the perfect first feature for me.<\/p>\n

io9: Queerness has been present in horror movies since horror movies began, though until the last few decades it was more subtext and suggestion. Queens of the Dead is very overt, of course. How does it feel to be carrying on that legacy and getting to be very free about it?<\/p>\n

Romero: Oh, it feels incredible. I\u2019m so excited that Shudder and IFC are putting this movie out in 2025. It feels like such an important time to, as you said, like it\u2019s not subtext, it\u2019s out there. We are here; the queers are here. We\u2019re fighting zombies, we\u2019re surviving, which is very much how the world feels right now.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m really proud of the fact that this isn\u2019t a movie that is showing queerness in a bleak way. It\u2019s celebratory. It\u2019s joyful. I feel like that\u2019s what we need as queer people right now: we need to celebrate ourselves and we need to have some fun. And we need to feel the joy. So it feels incredibly important to me to be able to do this. My dad\u2019s movies [had] a history of representing marginalized communities. And I\u2019m so proud that I can, in 2025, do this for the queer community through the Romero zombie monster.<\/p>\n

I hope this is a place where people can come and feel celebrated instead of erased and have a little reprieve from the fucking news cycle that just every single day is so scary. It is a horror film, but it\u2019s also lighthearted. I wanted to make a film that people left the theater feeling a little hope in their heart and a pep in their step and a little fighting spirit. Because we have to keep fighting, and we have to stick together as a community and get through this, whatever this is.<\/p>\n

io9: George Romero\u2019s movies always had social commentary front and center; for instance, Dawn of the Dead\u2019s shopping-mall zombies and consumerism. Queens of the Dead definitely seems to be making a statement about social media: influencers, dating apps, Snapchat, being too online, and being overly connected to our phones. What made you want to zero in on that theme?<\/p>\n

Romero: Oh, because I am just so freaked out about how my own brain has changed in the, whatever, 11 years that it\u2019s been since I\u2019ve had a smartphone. I feel it. I feel my brain changing. When I go to open Candy Crush on the train without even making that choice, it really freaks me out. I feel like it\u2019s sucking my attention. It\u2019s changing the ways that we interact\u2014just the anxiety it provokes. It\u2019s been bugging me for a long time, and it really does feel like when you walk around the streets of New York, everyone\u2019s a phone zombie. It\u2019s happening. We are all phone zombies out here.<\/p>\n

[The theme] felt very natural to me. We wanted to stick to the Romero zombie monster rules: they are slow, they do not run. One bite turns you. You have to take out the brain to defeat the monster. And then I wanted to add this little thing, which I know my dad would have approved of, which is that they\u2019re still responding to their devices.<\/p>\n

I believe that we would still be responding to our devices in in the event of a zombie apocalypse because it\u2019s innate. It\u2019s not a choice. It\u2019s a muscle thing. So that was very important to me. And also, I think that phones\u2014as much as they are a tool, and there are plenty of good things that have come out of connecting online and finding community online\u2014I also think they are separating us in a whole entirely new way. I think it\u2019s causing more tension and causing more fighting. That\u2019s also something I wanted to dig into with the character of Barry [played by Quinn Dunn-Baker]. Barry, the brother-in-law, is on very different podcasts and very different algorithms but ultimately has a lot more in common with this group of people than he realizes. And I think that\u2019s kind of the case for all humans right now: we\u2019re more mad at each other online than we need to be.<\/p>\n

\"QueensKaty O\u2019Brian and Jack Haven in \u2018Queens of the Dead.\u2019 \u00a9 Courtesy of Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release. <\/p>\n

io9: The movie plays into zombie movie tropes\u2014the sheltering in place, the weapons-gathering scene, and the \u201chead shot\u201d directive\u2014but its setting and characters bring a new perspective. How conscious were you of including those familiar moments and aiming to subvert them?<\/p>\n

Romero: I thought a lot about, okay, people are coming to this probably having seen a zombie film. So we don\u2019t necessarily need to review all of the rules. But how can we remind people what they are while also treating the audience with the respect of, like, \u201cYou probably know what goes on in a zombie movie\u201d? So there was a bit of a dance around how much we wanted to treat the audience as if they knew nothing or assuming most people would know about a zombie film and the rules of that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fun to play with the tropes and to queer them, you know? One of the first things I wanted to do was flip the script as far as the motley crew goes. Instead of having the token gay, we wanted to have all queer people with the one straight guy instead, and I love that. I think it really lends itself to a fun ride. And queer people are the funniest, most fun, most resilient, strongest, and most bound to survive. So it all felt so right to me.<\/p>\n

And I personally think it\u2019s very boring to kill zombies with guns; it\u2019s so easy. So from the beginning, I was psyched about the concept of DIY weapons. What do they have in the club that they\u2019re using to make armor? What are they fighting these zombies with and what does their armor look like? Because I do think drag in many ways is like armor. David Tabbert, the head of costumes, and I started talking about [the costumes for the final showdown] years before we started shooting. Like, what do their final showdown [outfits] look like and how are they both armor and drag?<\/p>\n

\"QueensJaquel Spivey, Tom\u00e1s Matos, and Nina West in \u2018Queens of the Dead.\u2019 \u00a9 Courtesy of Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release. <\/p>\n

io9: The look of the zombies is unlike anything I\u2019ve seen before\u2014they\u2019re metallic and glamorous, which obviously suits the movie\u2019s themes. What went into coming up with the monster make-up?<\/p>\n

Romero: I think zombies are often so butch. They\u2019re wearing jeans, they\u2019ve got the gross rotting flesh. And I just knew that wasn\u2019t right for this film. If we were gonna do this in the queer nightlife world, we had to make the zombies fabulous. So from the beginning I knew I wanted to put glitter in the blood and Christina Grant, head of makeup, really got the assignment right away.<\/p>\n

I love the zombies in Dawn of the Dead; I love that they\u2019re just painted green. I think that there\u2019s something to that. I think you can trust your audience to be like, \u201cIn this world, this is what zombies look like. Come along for the ride.\u201d That\u2019s what my dad did in Dawn of the Dead, and I wanted to sort of expand upon that.<\/p>\n

So we found the perfect shade of green, and then we found the perfect metallic shimmer to layer on top of that. We worked with our prosthetic mold maker to ensure that the masks left ample room for there to also be a fabulous eyeshadow look. We wanted to make sure that the cheekbones were giving cheekbones, because we wanted to layer glam makeup with the gore. That very much on the mood board from the beginning, the concept of glam gore.<\/p>\n

Also, how can that invite people into this movie who maybe would be hesitant to go to a zombie flick? In this case, there\u2019s some glam. There\u2019s some glitter in the blood. Come over to this movie. You\u2019re going to have a good time. It\u2019s not going to be too gross. And it also just feels spiritually right for the world of queer nightlife. These zombies are freshly dead on a Saturday night in Bushwick. They\u2019re wearing going-out looks.<\/p>\n

io9: Last up, I have to ask you about Tom Savini\u2019s cameo.<\/p>\n

Romero: There are two really fun Romero cameos! In the hospital. Gaylen Ross from Dawn of the Dead is the doctor that bumps into Sam [played by Jaquel Spivey] in the hallway.<\/p>\n

io9: I didn\u2019t catch that one. That\u2019s amazing!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Romero: Isn\u2019t that fun? It\u2019s an ensemble cast; there are not a lot of speaking roles that are outside of the main group. And I really wanted to have some fun Romero universe cameos. And Tom was\u2014I did have to ask him more than once because he was very, he\u2019s a busy guy. But he ultimately was like, \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll do this for you.\u201d And I am thrilled that he plays the mayor of New York City at a party. We shot it on Zooms and I think he\u2019s the perfect choice. What can I say? It\u2019s so fun that there\u2019s a Tom Savini cameo in this movie. Also, he and his partner, Jason Baker at Callosum Studios, made the zombie baby puppet.<\/p>\n

io9: Almost a third cameo!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Romero: Exactly, exactly.<\/p>\n

Queens of the Dead opens October 24; you can check the film\u2019s website<\/a> to see where it\u2019s playing near you.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What if the zombie apocalypse broke out in Brooklyn\u2014and infiltrated the queer nightlife scene? That\u2019s the very fun…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[5921,9,24,63,122,124,123,5229,5233,5926],"class_list":{"0":"post-14455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-george-a-romero","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-queens","13":"tag-queens-headlines","14":"tag-queens-news","15":"tag-queens-of-the-dead","16":"tag-tina-romero","17":"tag-zombies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}