{"id":133318,"date":"2025-09-04T22:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/133318\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T22:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:48:09","slug":"queens-of-the-dead-director-tina-romero-puts-personal-stamp-on-her-fathers-zombie-legacy-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/133318\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Queens of the Dead’ Director Tina Romero Puts Personal Stamp on Her Father’s Zombie Legacy [Interview]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Filmmaker Tina Romero<\/a> grew up with zombies as the daughter of late horror master George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead), but she never thought she\u2019d actually make a zombie film.<\/p>\n

Not only did Tina Romero prefer musicals over horror as a child, but the idea of even broaching her father\u2019s enduring zombie legacy was intimidating. That changed when the filmmaker struck on the concept for Queens of the Dead, inspired by her experience as a DJ in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Queens of the Dead, a zombie apocalypse breaks out in Brooklyn on the night\u00a0of a giant warehouse party, where an eclectic group\u00a0of drag\u00a0queens, club kids, and frenemies must put aside\u00a0their drama and use\u00a0their unique skills to fight against\u00a0the brain-thirsty, scrolling undead. It\u2019s the type of glam-gore setup that provided fertile ground for social commentary, a George A. Romero staple, while letting Tina Romero put her personal stamp on the horror subgenre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am such a huge fan of my father\u2019s, as a person and as a filmmaker,\u201d Romero tells BD of her debut film\u2019s origins and growing up with a master of horror. \u201cI loved his movies and I loved him very much. I was hesitant to dabble in the zombie genre for a long time. When I went to film school, a lot of people would ask me, \u2018Don\u2019t you want to do a zombie movie?\u2019 And I would always say, \u2018Hell no. I want to do a gender-flipped Peter Pan. I want to do fantasy. I want to do musicals.\u2018 Because that\u2019s really the stuff I grew up on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI describe myself as an edgy cheese ball. I was in my bedroom at night watching Pippi Longstocking, West Side Story, all the \u201980s Disney flicks, and then I would walk to the bathroom and tiptoe past a horrifying movie poster of a terrifying monkey or Fluffy\u2019s crate from Creepshow, which I knew was fake, but still I would walk a little bit more quickly past.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dominique Jackson, Nina West, Tom\u00e1s Matos,Quincy Dunn Baker, Katy O\u2019Brian, and Jaquel Spivey in Tina Romero\u2019s QUEENS OF THE DEAD. Courtesy of Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release<\/p>\n

Romero continues, \u201cSo, my world was very much this mashup of dark and light. My dad was also a big cheese ball. He was the most gentle giant who made some really dark and twisted movies, but he was really a silly, fun-loving person who loved to laugh and loved movies. He exposed me to so many movies from a young age. That\u2019s was one of our primary forms of activities, was sitting together watching movies. He had a very strong itinerary of movies he wanted to expose me to. One of the things that really affected me was the way he was so willing to be unabashedly moved by the opening sounds of the overture of West Side Story. It would just move him to tears, and he would weep in front of me just as if it were nothing. I just saw from a young age the power that movies have to move people. That\u2019s kind of where the bug really bit me, seeing the power that cinema can have over a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyway, it wasn\u2019t until many years later, when in my experience as DJ TRx in the queer nightlife scene of New York, there was an event that happened that resulted in this manifesto being posted, asking the question, \u2018When will the community stop devouring its own?\u2019 It hit me that this would be the way for me to tackle zombies,\u201d Romero recalls. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to do it unless I had an in to the genre that felt authentic to me, a story that I could tell with characters that I knew. And queer nightlife is just so full of incredible characters, the most DIY, creative, make-it-work, scrappy individuals. I wanted to see what would happen if these characters went through a crazy night of the dead coming to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Julie J and Ahmad Maksoud in Tina Romero\u2019s QUEENS OF THE DEAD. Courtesy of Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release<\/p>\n

Tina Romero explains, \u201cI think the thing that I feel now that the movie is done is I\u2019m really proud of how this is not a George Romero movie. This is a movie that he would not have made. He was a bit more of a pessimist than I am. I think in general, he had a bit more of a nihilistic view on the world, and perhaps I\u2019m a little bit more of an optimist. This is a zombie movie where I really hope people leave the theater with a pep in their step. Of course, I hope they\u2019re thinking about some things too, because we do tackle the dark stuff of life. I can\u2019t be his kid without making sure there\u2019s some good social commentary in there. I am proud of how it\u2019s a movie that he would not have made. However, I hope that people also feel his spirit in there because one of the things that I felt almost a responsibility to, if I was going to play in his sandbox, I want to make sure it\u2019s like a Romero sandbox where you can feel him and you can feel the monster that he created and you can feel his spirit because his spirit is in me.\u201c<\/p>\n

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Margaret Cho in Tina Romero\u2019s QUEENS OF THE DEAD. Courtesy of
Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release<\/p>\n

Even the zombies are different in Tina Romero\u2019s world. She explains,\u00a0\u201cPersonally, I was bored of seeing zombies with hyper-realistic rotting flesh and ripped up flannel and jeans. I wanted to make these zombies a little bit more fabulous because that is the world of queer nightlife, and that is the world of the queers. I wanted to take it back to Dawn of the Dead. Let\u2019s paint them green, and let\u2019s also add a little bit of shimmer. Christina Grant, our amazing head of makeup, nailed the look. She got exactly what I was going for right away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kept their eyes raw. We don\u2019t have contacts; we didn\u2019t VFX them. I think that actually seeing the actor\u2019s eyes makes a big difference. It actually allows you to see the human side of the zombie, which is the whole point of a zombie, in my opinion, to hold up the mirror to your human self and ask, \u2018Okay, what does this reflect about me? What does this monster reflect about being human?\u2019 My dad always described the zombie as the most democratic blue-collar of all the monsters. There\u2019s no discernible factor. It\u2019s not elitist like a vampire. You don\u2019t have to be chosen. It could be anybody. It could be your neighbor, it could be your grandma, it could be your kid. Anyone is fair game. I think, in a way, it makes it a really rich monster for social commentary because it is just an immediate reflection of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jaquel Spivey, Tom\u00e1s Matos, and Nina West in Tina Romero\u2019s QUEENS OF THE DEAD. Courtesy of Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release<\/p>\n

As proud as Tina Romero is of her debut feature and its unique blend of gore and glam, she doesn\u2019t intend to stick around the zombie subgenre for long.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am curious to keep pushing the genre blending,\u201d she tells us. \u201cI do love to stay outside of the rules a little bit, but I also love things that are a little bit irreverent and surprise you and feel different than anything you\u2019ve seen. I really hope this is the start. I\u2019m so inspired by Edgar Wright<\/a>\u2018s career. I love how he\u2019s done a musical, I love how he\u2019s done a zombie film, I love how he\u2019s done a thriller. I have so many interests, and I\u2019d love to tackle a lot of things. Perhaps one thing I definitely don\u2019t want to do, like my dad, is get pigeonholed into the zombie genre. He came to love doing zombie films, but he did get a little stuck in there. That\u2019s what people wanted him to do. And I don\u2019t see myself as the zombie guy, if you know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queens of the Dead releases in theaters on October 24.<\/p>\n

Read more from Bloody Disgusting\u2019s Fall Horror Preview 2025.<\/a><\/p>\n

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