Tina Romero Talks QUEENS OF THE DEAD, Queer Horror, and Glamorous Zombies

Julie J and Ahmad Maksoud in Tina Romero's QUEENS OF THE DEAD | Courtesy of Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release.

By Shannon McGrew

In QUEENS OF THE DEAD, from director Tina Romero, daughter of legendary horror director George Romero, a zombie apocalypse breaks out in Brooklyn on the night of a giant warehouse party, where an eclectic group of drag queens, club kids, and frenemies must put aside their drama and use their unique skills to fight against the brain-thirsty, scrolling undead.

For the Shudder release of QUEENS OF THE DEAD, Creepy Kingdom’s Shannon McGrew spoke with co-writer/director Tina Romero. During their chat, they discussed everything from glam gore and drag culture to queer representation, creative collaboration, and reinventing the modern zombie film.

Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Tina. Horror has evolved so much since your dad was making these films. What excited you most about being part of this new wave of queer, campy, and boundary-pushing horror?

Tina Romero: I think it’s so great that we can be in a place where queerness isn’t part of the plot, where it just is. It doesn’t have to be coded, it doesn’t have to be hidden, it can be out there. I love this movie for how out there it is on so many levels. We don’t have just one gay, we have a lot of gays, we’ve got all types of flavors and shades and appearances. It thrills me deeply because I think in 2025, when so much of our community is feeling like they are being erased, this movie is saying, “Nope, here we are, we are loud, we are shimmering, we are fighting, we are resilient, we’re funny, and you can have a good time with us no matter who you are.” 

Dominique Jackson, Nina West, Tomas Matos, Quincy Dunn-Baker, Katy O'Brian, and Jaquel Spivey in Tina Romero's QUEENS OF THE DEAD. Courtesy of Shannon Madden. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release.

How did you work with your cinematographer and production team to develop the look and feel of the film, given how vastly different it is from what audiences typically expect from a zombie movie?

Tina Romero: From the beginning, before I even had a piece of dialogue written, I had a lookbook, cause that’s my style. I always start with a collage and a playlist. I had Poppy tracks on my playlist, along with pictures from Atomic Blonde, Euphoria, and the artist Marilyn Minter. I knew that I wanted to glam the gore. 

I started working with David Tabbert, the costume designer, years before we had any reason to collaborate. We started coming up with ideas for the characters cause costumes were very important to me. I didn’t want this to feel like a bleak world. I wanted it to be vibrant and colorful because the queers are vibrant and colorful. 

As far as collaborating with my cinematographer and camera operator, there’s a certain magic that money can’t buy, and we were very strapped for cash on this film. It was a one-camera shoot, but Tom Willis is a steadicam genius who spent years working on Chopped, so they have the stamina for it, and they were willing to be on the steadicam the whole time. We didn’t have much time for rehearsal. Hence, we were often blocking the scene at the beginning of the day, and Tom and Shannon Madden would watch it with me. Shannon understood the assignment as far as we didn’t have time to switch for coverage, and we needed to light the room overall. We wanted to harken back to the ‘80s color washes like Creepshow, all that good stuff from the '80s, where you wash the room in different colors so that we didn’t have to flip it for coverage. And Tom was down to live on the steadicam so that we could hose them down. 

Our cast was amazing, and they knew how to hit their marks. It was very important to me that this didn’t feel like a play, given our ensemble cast, and I knew the coverage was needed. I wanted to be dynamic and have the camera move, but we didn’t have time to set up elaborate moving shots. There were a couple of shots where we had time, like the zombie queen reveal shot in the club, but most of the time, everybody needed to nail their marks, and Tom needed to nail the camera marks, and it was just like everybody was on their A-game. 

Speaking of the cast, how did you assemble such a diverse and dynamic group of performers? 

Tina Romero: This cast is incredible. I’m still in shock. I can’t believe how lucky we got. I’m obsessed with every single one of them. We started casting long before we had a green light. I began writing letters to people. Nina West was on my mood board for years, and my dear friend Zelda got a letter to her from me. It was all about the letter writing. I wrote letters to Margaret Cho, Katy O’Brian, everybody got letters from me basically saying are you down to do this crazy low-budget, rock and roll movie with me? Do it for the queers! Dominique Jackson was my first yes, and it was a very powerful one because her yes to this movie unlocked other yeses. At the end of the day, the stars aligned, and I couldn’t be prouder of this entire group of people. They all brought it and did such a good job. 

The film unapologetically centers on queer and drag voices in a genre that hasn’t always made space for them. What impact do you hope the movie will have on both the horror and queer audiences?

Tina Romero: Much like the identity-agnostic parties of today in the queer community, where everybody’s welcome, I hope that everybody feels welcome in this movie. I hope that more than just queer audiences come to see this film, and that people who aren’t used to drag culture check it out because it’s a zombie flick. And people who aren’t used to zombie flicks but love drag, come check it out because there’s glitter in the blood. I hope that audiences who don’t usually party together might find themselves partying together in this movie and coming out with a bit more compassionate understanding of a world they’re not familiar with. 

QUEENS OF THE DEAD is now available to stream on Shudder.