Queens of the Dead

The stage is set for a wild night inside a Brooklyn warehouse party boasting drag queens, a fully stocked bar and loud music. But things start off rough with feuding performers, last-minute drop-offs and a highly stressed-out party organizer (Katy O’Brian) who’s struggling to hold everything together. She couldn’t account for the evening’s biggest problem, though: a sudden onslaught of flesh-eating zombies. As if trying to work together to execute a party wasn’t difficult enough, now a motley crew of big personalities and eccentric characters must put their bickering aside and stave off the walking dead outbreak. And then maybe, just maybe, if they can live long enough, it’ll finally be time to party.

Zombie horror runs in the family for first-time filmmaker Tina Romero, the daughter of horror icon George A. Romero. Yet what makes the raucous Queens of the Dead truly shine is how Romero enthusiastically makes living dead cinema her own while still honoring her father’s legacy. Romero utilizes a dynamite ensemble cast including Jaquel Spivey, Nina West, Tomás Matos, Margaret Cho, Jack Haven, Cheyenne Jackson, and Riki Lindhome and a wicked sense of humor to bless the horror-comedy sub-genre with LGBTQ+ pride and a potent message of how community and self-empowerment can outlast adversity, whether it be from reanimated corpses or cold-blooded intolerance.—Matt Barone