For a queer horror comedy following a gaggle of membership youngsters and misfits as they deal with the zombie apocalypse, Queens of the Useless has a surprisingly highly effective political message. However possibly that shouldn’t be stunning, with Tina Romero on the wheel. The daughter of George A. Romero, the daddy of the zombie style, was consciously working to hold on his legacy of politically charged metaphors, whereas placing her personal stamp on the style.
Followers of her father’s filmography know that George A. Romero didn’t mess around when it got here to speaking charged political statements in his zombie motion pictures. His debut function, the 1968 traditional Evening of the Dwelling Useless, reveals an America that may’t let go of sophistication, race, and gender prejudice, even when plagued with zombies at each nook. Ben (Duane Jones), the movie’s hero, slays zombies and steps up as a resourceful, clever chief for a gaggle of zombie survivors. That also isn’t sufficient to save lots of him from being gunned down by a posse of white rescuers, who, by means of malice or apathy, don’t hassle checking whether or not the Black man of their gunsights is a zombie or not.
Out-of-control consumerism, and America’s willingness to eat its personal, is a outstanding topic in his later movies – notably 2005’s Land of the Useless, the place client tradition in the end spells doom for the communities which have risen up throughout the zombie apocalypse.
Chatting with Polygon over Zoom, Tina Romero defined that Queens of the Useless, her personal directorial movie debut, has a message or two to get throughout as effectively. Her movie is much less about America as an entire, and extra concerning the queer neighborhood consuming itself. Romero says the thought for the movie got here to her whereas she was working New York Metropolis’s queer nightlife scene as a DJ. She noticed a promoter publish a query on-line that caught along with her: “When will the queer neighborhood cease devouring its personal?” That was the spark Romero wanted to begin writing. Ten years later, she’s addressing the query in Queens of the Useless.
On the floor, a queer horror-comedy might seem to be the other of her father’s work. Her aesthetic and vibes are starkly totally different, and whereas there are actually moments of levity in George A. Romero’s motion pictures, none are as rib-achingly brazen as Queens of the Useless. Nevertheless, for Tina Romero and her co-writer Erin Choose, the comedy got here second to the deeper social commentary on queer identification, neighborhood dynamics, and company poaching of queer expertise.
“We wrote the script pondering much less concerning the comedy and extra concerning the characters, pondering extra concerning the tapestry of social commentary we needed to make, and what had been the problems,” Romero explains. “And so we had our whiteboard of issues. We needed to deal with the opioid epidemic, gadget dependancy, infighting inside the neighborhood, and an excessive amount of info in a disaster.”
Id and the wrestle to know it, and the way that may typically result in misunderstandings and downright hostility from others inside the identical neighborhood, is a large a part of this movie. Sam (Jaquel Spivey), a nurse, grapples together with his former life as a drag queen and what he feels when he performs versus who he actually is. His wrestle contrasts with Dre (Katy O’Brian), who’s way more assured and cozy in her pores and skin, and isn’t as understanding of Sam’s wrestle as she might be.
The neighborhood infighting is additional aggravated by the poaching of queer expertise. Dre runs a queer nightclub, one that may barely afford to maintain the lights on. The nightclub’s headlining act, Yasmine (Dominique Jackson) blows off a present to prioritize a better-paid gig, leaving Dre and others in a disaster. Yasmine as an alternative goes to carry out at a company social gathering referred to as Glitter Bitch, a promotion for a brand new membership referred to as Yum that is totally different from Dre’s nightclub in each doable manner. Judging from Yum’s clear, company aesthetic, the work undoubtedly pays higher, too.
However Yasmine quickly realizes she’s getting used as a prop to focus on how “queer-friendly” the company behind Yum is. When the zombie apocalypse hits, her resolution instantly places her at loggerheads with the holed-up survivors sheltering in Dre’s nightclub. If Yasmine can go away them out to dry in favor of cash, they query whether or not they can depend on her on this new brain-munching world.
Romero has seen company interference’s impact on the queer neighborhood along with her personal eyes. “In my life as a DJ, I’ve accomplished the queer events and I’ve additionally accomplished the model events,” she says. “And the model events have all this price range. They’ve all these assets, they throw cash, cash, cash at it. And but there isn’t any life, no soul, as a result of everybody’s there on their telephones working, not speaking, not dancing, not hanging out. It is so surreal and so icky, versus the queer events that don’t have any price range. [Those are] filled with DIY to make them work, however they’re energetic.”
On the identical time, Romero acknowledges that authenticity doesn’t at all times put cash on the desk. “We wish queer folks to receives a commission. [Yasmine’s] going to make more cash on the Glitter Bitch social gathering, nevertheless it’s going to suck, and he or she’s going to be like a prop.”
Yasmine being prepared to surrender a part of her soul for revenue, even at the price of damning her personal neighborhood, is the form of factor Romero is pondering of when she talks concerning the queer neighborhood “devouring its personal.” It takes a disaster, with the world breaking up, to deliver this fractured neighborhood of queer outsiders again collectively. The place the zombies of George A. Romero’s genre-defining movie spotlight the dour narrative that society can’t come collectively resulting from previous prejudices, Queens of the Useless’s zombies do the precise reverse. It’s a much more optimistic, hopeful take, however one which feels earned for a neighborhood whose successes largely (and traditionally) come from counting on each other.
Regardless of that distinction, Queens of the Useless and George A. Romero’s work seize the identical want to deliver a loud-and-proud message into horror filmmaking. As Romero places it: “I can’t be my dad’s child with out attempting to say some shit.”
Queens of the Useless is enjoying in theaters now.
