George Romero‘s daughter Tina Romero is looking to honor her father’s legacy and create her own with gory queer zom-com Queens of the Dead.
Speaking with Fangoria, Romero explained how her zombie movie would be like ” a conga line through the zombie apocalypse.”
“It’s going to be a conga line through the zombie apocalypse. I really believe that zombie movies should be fun. And my hope is that audiences find this movie to be a fun ride that’s packed with some good jump scares, and some yummy gore and some pretty amusing characters.”
So, what’s the story of Queens of the Dead? Romero explained.
Queens of the Dead sees Tina Romero put a modern spin on the zombie movie
“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.”
While Tina Romero is keen to make her movie distinct from her father’s work, she’s equally keen to honor the likes of Dawn of the Dead.
“My dad created this monster in the form that we all know it, and he used it as a way to look at society over the course of several decades.” Tina said at the top of the interview before later explaining further. “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.”
Tina Romero: DJ of the Dead
Tina Romero already has a successful career as an NYC club DJ as DJ TRX. Furthermore, her job helped fuel the inspiration for Queens of the Dead.
“There was a party that I DJ’ed regularly. It was a beloved weekly party, and one year, one of the co-promoters broke off, and started a rival party on the same night. It was a big drama, and there was a big social media war. And the original promoter posted this manifesto that begged the question, ‘When will the queer community stop devouring its own?’ And it kind of hit me like a bolt of lightning. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is the way into the genre for me.’ I want to look at zombies through the lens of going out, and specifically within this community.”
Queens of the Dead is set to begin shooting this summer with an eye for a 2025 release.
