Back in 1968, George A. Romero made his feature directorial debut with one of the greatest horror movies ever made, Night of the Living Dead – and while doing so, he also introduced the world to flesh-eating ghouls that became a new definition for the world “zombie.” Romero, who passed away in 2017, went on to make several more zombie movies over the decades… and recently, his daughter Tina Romero revealed that she’s making her own feature directorial debut with a zombie movie called Queens of the Dead. That movie is set to have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 7th – and with that date just around the corner, Entertainment Weekly has unveiled a few images! You can check them out at the bottom of this article.
Romero previously told Fangoria that the screenplay she wrote with novelist and comedian Erin Judge “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.“
Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding), Brigette Lundy-Paine (Bill & Ted Face the Music), Margaret Cho (Fire Island), Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story), Nina West (Rupaul’s Drag Race), Jaquel Spivey (Mean Girls), Tomas Matos (Fire Island), Quincy Dunn-Baker (No Hard Feelings), Becca Blackwell (Bros), Shaunette Renée Wilson (Black Panther), Dominique Jackson (Pose), Riki Lindhome (Knives Out), Jack Haven (I Saw the TV Glow), Eve Lindley (Bros), and drag artist Julie J star in the film. Romero previously provided the following statement: “This is the cast of my wildest dreams. In a movie about survival, you gotta love and root for the survival crew. Every single person in this ensemble brings such a special and specific flavor -both on and off screen. The result is truly a magic sauce.“ The Entertainment Weekly article reveals that George A. Romero’s frequent collaborator Tom Savini and Gaylen Ross of Dawn of the Dead also make appearances.
Tina Romero told Entertainment Weekly, “The zombie apocalypse is such a rich sandbox to play in when it comes to social commentary. I can’t be my dad’s daughter without making an attempt at saying something with zombies. I did want this to be a film in which I am paying homage to the world and the monster he created, but I’m also introducing my own voice. It’s very much not a film he would make, but it is using his vocabulary and is playing by his rules. As far as the queer element, on one hand, I just feel like the gays need a zombie film. It’s time that we get to have a big gay zombie movie.“
Katy O’Brian, who describes herself as a big horror fan, said she was eager to work on this movie because “I just don’t get to do humor very often. And also I love that it’s just unapologetically queer. We’re not coding anybody or anything.” Tom Cruise gets a special thanks on Queens of the Dead because O’Brian was given a week off of working on Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, where she played a character named Kodiak, to work on the zombie movie.
Vanishing Angle’s Matthew Lee Miller and Natalie Metzger are producing Queens of the Dead. They said the movie is a “thrilling, glam-filled adventure. Tina’s vision and style for this film are so unique, hilarious, and fun. Audiences are going to be dying laughing while on this ride.“
Are you interested in Queens of the Dead? Take a look at the images, then let us know by leaving a comment below.
