One of the first lines of dialogue in the queer horror-comedy Queens of the Dead is delivered by actor and drag queen Julie Jay, who discovers a blood trail while on the hunt for her latest booty call in a deserted church. “This isn’t a George Romero movie!” she shouts. A few moments later, as she ventures further into the church, a sexy zombified priest rips into her.
On the surface, that line may seem contentious, even defensive — especially coming from a film directed by Tina Romero, daughter of George A. Romero, a cinematic legend and icon known as the father of the zombie genre.
But as Tina Romero tells Polygon over Zoom, it wasn’t a cry of defiance — it was meant to honor the legacy her father left behind.
“[That line] felt important to me, because I knew this was in some ways a risk, to jump into this sandbox that he created. I feel very proud and responsible to carry on the Romero zombie into 2025. And I wanted to hang onto his rules and his monster and the spirit of him as much as possible,” Romero says.
It’s easy to see why. George A. Romero’s zombie films are iconic, setting a genre standard with their political messaging and gory, memorable visuals. Having such a family history leaves Romero with a lot to live up to in Queens of the Dead.
Romero’s debut movie is about zombies, but it’s still notably different from her father’s work. George A. Romero’s zombies are pale and grey; they shamble along as if drunk, with dark-rimmed eyes, white irises, and frothing mouths. Queens of the Dead’s zombies, on the other hand, are dressed to the nines, with a glittery sheen to their mottled corpses, and eyes that (due to the movie’s barely-there budget) are as human as they were when they were alive. The zombies in Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead are supposed to terrify viewers at a glance, but Queens of the Dead’s zombies remind the audience that there was once something human there. Something with great fashion sense, since this is a film set around the queer nightlife of Bushwick, New York.
That clear aesthetic difference stems from Romero’s desire to put her own stamp on the genre.
“We are so different aesthetically. I’m a little bit more of an optimist. So I really wanted to introduce myself as a filmmaker and call out the fact that this is not a George Romero movie,” Romero explains. “I really do feel like this is a movie he would never make. I was happy to do a zombie film, but I didn’t want to do it unless I could do it in a way that felt Tina. There’s dance, there’s music, there’s costumes, and all these things speak to me as a filmmaker, while also getting to hook people with zombies.”
It’s a big task, picking up the torch that her father lit. George A. Romero’s zombie films critique consumerism and address racism, classism, and culture wars, elevating them above most zombie fare. And they’re historically important as well. With Queens of the Dead, Romero isn’t shy about adding her own fair share of political messaging, though her focus is less on America consuming itself, and more on the queer community turning on each other.
“The idea came to me in a burst, in a bolt of lightning,” Romero said. “I spent many years in the queer nightlife scene of New York City as a DJ, and there was a promoter riff where one promoter posted online, ‘When will the queer community stop devouring its own?’ And that’s the spark of the idea. When I read that phrase, I knew I wanted to use queer nightlife as a lens into the zombie apocalypse.” That idea isn’t as universal as some of the concepts her father’s movies explore, but it certainly incorporates the political spirit that made his films so definitive.
“I do feel like his spirit is in the film. So it’s both.” Romero concludes. “It is a Romero movie, but it’s not a George Romero movie.”
Queens of the Dead debuts in theaters on Oct. 24.
