Director – Tina Romero (Rainbowarrior, Flicker)
Starring – Jaquel Spivey (Mean Girls), Katy O’Brian (The Running Man, The Mandalorian), and Quincy Dunn-Baker (The Righteous Gemstones, Inheritance)
Release Date – 2025
Rating – 2.5/5
A few weeks, or even months, back I was sent a couple press releases for Tina Romero’s Queens of the Dead. I knew exactly who Tina was because I follow her on Instagram but for those of you that are unaware, she is the daughter of the late George Romero and Christine Forrest. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what the film is about after reading the title and knowing her father’s legacy.
I was already thinking about my review for the film before I watched it. I didn’t know if I wanted to go into it just making a quick mention of her father before giving the rest of my time to her and her film or compare and contrast their films given that she was likely inspired by her father. I didn’t want my review to be about Romero and his legacy but I ultimately agreed that his daughter is his legacy and his legendary career that did lead to her directing this film.
**Spoiler Alert** The film follows a small club owner as she prepares for a drag show but clogged toilets, homophobic in-laws, flaky talent, sewer rats, and the undead are stopping her. A night of major inconveniences turns deadly when the undead try to break into her club. As the rag tag group consisting of a right-wing plumber, several lesbians, and a small group of drag queens prepare to barricade themselves in the club, they learn that a boat is leaving soon and could be their only hope of surviving the night. Things then take an even stranger turn when she learns that her wife, who works at a hospital, is pregnant and not answering her phone. **Spoiler Alert**
I was really excited to check out Queens of the Dead. I was the one that initiated contact with them so I could review it. A zombie movie made by the daughter of George A. Romero that features drag queens? This one just sounded amazing to me and I couldn’t wait to dig into it. Sadly, it wasn’t as fun as it could have been and it reminded me a lot of the Tubi original Slay and Kicking Zombie Ass for Jesus aka Dead Don’t Die in Dallas which was a little more fun than this one.
The acting in this one is very uneven. We have some seriously fun performances along with some extremely flat performances. The characters with drag queen personas were a lot of fun and live up to their bigger than life counterparts. We have a few other performances pop up here and there that was solid as well but a good bit of the film features a lot of one dimensional performances with awkward dialogue and zero emotion. This would be kind of funny if I was talking about the cast that portrayed the zombies but I’m not.
The story for this one is a lot like Slay meets Kicking Zombie Ass for Jesus with a group of drag queens fighting for their lives against the undead. I really liked the set up for the film but wish that more time was spent on the character that wasn’t queens, as well as, where they wanted to take the story. We have a lot of time spent on the build up of the story only for it to fizzle out. We get a very strong start, a little bit of build up in the middle, and just more of the same throughout the remainder.
Finally, the film has some blood, great special effects that go along with it but the look of the zombies are very underwhelming. This may be a tribute to Tina’s father and his classic Night of the Living Dead but the gray glitter body paint just wasn’t as enjoyable as it may have sounded on paper. Yea, it does fit the drag queen theme but it doesn’t feel like a true zombie film because of that. Also, the lack of gore was a bit disappointing. Overall, Queens of the Dead had the makings to be a modern classic but the lack of story, underwhelming zombies, and flat characters made this one easily forgettable. God damn, I wanted to love this one but it just wasn’t there for me.
