Summary

• Tina Romero's Queens of the Dead will feature a distinct storyline with a group of non-fighters surviving a night.
• Tina Romero feels a responsibility to uphold her father's zombie legacy while introducing her own unique voice.
• Queens of the Dead aims to subvert classic zombie tropes through a female perspective, adding new dimensions to the subgenre.

Tina Romero teases her zombie movie Queens of the Dead. Tina Romero is the daughter of prolific director George Romero, who is best known for films such as Night of the Living Dead, Creepshow, and Dawn of the Dead. Tina Romero has previously directed two short films and an episode of the TV series Flicker, but Queens of the Dead will be her first feature film.

Speaking with Fangoria, Romero shares details about Queens of the Dead. In making her film, Romero felt a “responsibility to take the torch and keep the Romero zombie alive.” At the same time, the director wanted to carve out her own voice, which is distinct from her father’s. In of plot details for Queens of the Dead, the film “takes place over one night” and sees a “motley crew of characters,” Check out the full quote from Romero below:

My dad’s zombies were always reflecting what was going on in the world, and I almost feel a responsibility to take the torch and keep the Romero zombie alive, upholding, respecting, paying homage to it, while also introducing myself and my own voice as a filmmaker, and my own perspective. Which is different from his.

It takes place over one night, at the beginning of the dead rising. We find ourselves at a big warehouse party in Bushwick. We’ve got a party promoter for whom everything’s going wrong, and her lead act has dropped out, so she needs to call upon a friend — a retired drag queen — to resurrect his drag, to come and save the night. And it turns out to be a night of many resurrections. And our motley crew of characters find themselves holed up in a Bushwick nightclub, having to decide ‘do we get out of here or do we board the place up?’ And they’ve got to survive the night. It’s about a group of non-fighters finding the survival skills deep within.

Queens of the Dead Will Be Nothing Past George Romero Movies (But That’s Good)

George Romero's Movies Always Reflected Timely Issues

With Night of the Living Dead, George Romero created one of the most iconic horror films of all time. With its microbudget and black-and-white style, the film is a classic low-budget horror movie, but none of that is a detriment to its quality. Its limitations only make the film more visceral and more of a cult classic zombie film, and cement the film and Romero’s other work as true horror classics.

Finding a main subject in a “retired drag queen,” it seems that Queens of the Living Dead is trying to take existing zombie tropes and subvert them for a new batch of survivors, or “non-fighters,” as Tina Romero puts it, to make it out alive in a mini-apocalypse. George Romero traditionally returned to the zombie genre approximately every ten years to produce a zombie movie that reflected the times. Queens of the Dead looks to continue the social commentary that is well-established in the franchise.

Queens of the Dead will also be different from its predecessors in that it will be directed by a woman. Romero will bring a new perspective to the zombie film in this way, as the subgenre is still highly dominated by the male lens both behind the scenes and in the characters chosen. Even if Queens of the Dead might not seem as original as the first of the Romero zombie films, it will find its originality in bringing these new perspectives into the zombie subgenre.

Source: Fangoria