Zombies have always felt most at home in the genre of survival horror, which is often enriched with social criticism. But horror-comedy is certainly the second favorite genre of the undead who crave human flesh: after all, the fight for survival in the face of a bloodthirsty but often very limply shambling horde of decomposing people also has all sorts of potential for situational comedy. What the two best-known zombie comedies to date, “Shaun Of The Dead” (2004) and “Zombieland” (2009), have in common is that they also integrate sad moments of loss into their gag-filled plots – and also increase the blood toll with plenty of splatter and gore.
With her feature film debut “Queens Of The Dead”, Tina Romero is now also embarking on this same path lined with horror and humor – and thus also following in the footsteps of her own father George A. Romero, who has rightly been revered as the founder of the modern zombie film since his groundbreaking horror masterpieces “Night of the Living Dead” (1968) and “Zombie – Dawn Of The Dead” (1978). However, the director sets her zombie survival plot in the milieu of a queer drag show club in the New York borough of Brooklyn. In addition to blood and guts, this also promises a lot of glitter, pomp and shade – but unfortunately it becomes apparent early on in “Queens Of The Dead” how difficult it is to harmonize these elements.
Margaret Cho’s bright performance is clearly one of the highlights of “Queens Of The Dead”.
The opening sequence initially sets a trashy tone: A drag queen stumbling through Brooklyn in daylight visits a church before the upcoming party evening and is bitten by a clergyman with metallic-green skin. Then “Queens Of The Dead” switches to the film’s main ensemble, which is spread across two locations: Dre (Katy O’Brian) is the lesbian operator of the queer club ‘Yum’ and is working hard to prepare everything for the evening. However, pretty much everything goes wrong: the toilet is blocked and her narrow-minded cis-hetero brother-in-law Barry (Quincy Dunn-Baker) comes in to make things right and make all sorts of stupid comments. Meanwhile, Nico (Tomas Matos) and Ginsey (Nina West) are rehearsing their drag show – and are waiting increasingly impatiently for Yasmine (Dominique Jackson), the real star of the troupe.
Even here, the affected tips of the drag queens and the tensions between Dre and Barry don’t really mesh. This is mainly due to the slow editing, which leads to strange pauses between the dialogue jokes. The film stutters in a similar way at the other location, a hospital where Dre’s partner Lizzy (Riki Lindhome) works as a nurse. She persuades the nurse Sam (Jaquel Spivey) to step in for Yasmine in the drag show if necessary. Meanwhile, the disgruntled Jane (Eve Lindley) is admitted with symptoms of weakness that can be traced back to the drugs Nico was hawking. Nobody yet suspects what else the adulterated means can trigger…
Lots of glitter, little gore
Tina Romero and screenwriter Erin Judge have devised a dense, quite interesting network of relationships with characters that are diverse in two respects. But giving the entire staff the space they need to develop is proving to be increasingly difficult – especially since the onset of a regional zombie invasion has to be managed in just under 100 minutes. The figures that gradually wander into the Yum and the hospital are proven bloodthirsty, but not very frightening with their glittering outfits and shimmering skin.
In addition, the gore moments are so few and far between that the undead idea becomes more of a background noise. Instead, the focus is on the Yum crew’s fight for survival and Dre’s concern for Lizzy, with whom she is about to start a family. But this emotional weight hardly comes into play: In crucial moments, “Queens Of The Dead” insists on being the most over-the-top horror comedy possible, for which the film lacks the necessary dynamic camera work and an appropriate editing speed.
Tina Romero explores the queer side of her famous father’s “… Of The Dead” series.
Despite this unbalanced tone, I personally retained a lot of sympathy for “Queens Of The Dead” until the end. Because whenever expectations threatened to collapse, the film reared back up again like a zombie – for example with amusing genre references such as a cameo appearance by make-up artist legend Tom Savini, rousing drag performances or bright character introductions such as the first appearance of Margaret Cho as a resolute butch.
In addition, Dre actress Katy O’Brian once again shows the captivating presence with which she so enriched the Kristen Stewart cult film “Love Lies Bleeding”. All of these strengths point to a lot of potential that could possibly have been developed with more technical polish and further revision of the script. So at least we wouldn’t reject it out of hand if Tina Romero continued to devote herself to queering her father’s zombie legacy.
Conclusion: “Queens Of The Dead” boasts pomp, glitter and a small pinch of gore, but gets tangled up in the attempt to work out relationships and strike a clear tone between bloody zombie horror and high-speed undead comedy.