Few movies can coast on good intentions alone, however low-budget zombie romp “Queens of the Lifeless” comes shut. Directed by Tina Romero, the pleasant characteristic debut is a horror comedy chock-full of enjoyable and significant concepts, most of which cease simply in need of fruition. Romero is notably the daughter of zombie film progenitor George A. Romero (of “Night time of the Dwelling Lifeless” fame), and he or she channels her father’s decades-long fascination with undead ghouls as cinematic symbols for society at giant. By filtering acquainted hallmarks via a distinctly queer story set at a drag present gone awry, she channels the style’s uglier, edgier leanings right into a glamorous farce with a beating coronary heart.

“Queens of the Lifeless” is the type of film that requires going with the circulate — not by turning your mind off, however by protecting it particularly sharp whereas sidelining expectations of refinement. Its aesthetic strategy seldom lives as much as its gestures towards camp as a tenet or its weighty themes (besides, maybe, in its surprisingly raucous closing act). Nonetheless, its flimsy aesthetic foundations are supported by remarkably well-formed characters.

The film’s ludicrous, Church-set prologue sees a bedazzled Brooklyn drag queen matching on a queer courting app with a closeted pastor. Because it seems, this duplicitous man of God has been become a ghoulish “walker” with silver pores and skin and gaunt cheekbones — Romero’s distinctive, tongue-in-cheek tackle the zombie in a world of influencers and life-style addictions. One grisly chomp later, and faith has sucked the life out of a queer performer, a dichotomy additional emphasised by a tough lower to an upbeat, Catholic-themed drag efficiency on Easter.  

The overt spiritual symbolism continues courtesy of anxious male nurse Sam (Jaquel Spivey), who dances his approach via hospital halls whereas providing his sufferers blood-red photographs of Jell-O, like some perverse but playful communion. None of this ever comes again round, which feels a bit odd given its forceful arrival. Nonetheless, it’s certainly one of many stray analogies the movie employs, talking the language of metaphor-as-backdrop (if not foregrounded drama). What quickly follows is a gradual, mild introduction to a large ensemble of characters with torrid histories — which is to say, falling-outs over drag present disagreements — as zombie mayhem slowly creeps in via the corners of the body.

Earlier than the splatter kicks off — courtesy of a televised announcement from a cameoing Tom Savini, a zombie make-up legend — Sam learns that his former boss and finest pal, the overworked butch DJ and drag producer Dre (a charismatic Katy O’Brien) is in sudden want of a brand new lead dancer at a dive bar. As Sam makes his method to Bushwick, within the hopes of resurrecting his dormant stage persona, Romero acclimatizes us to the catty, interpersonal backstage drama of the cabaret’s shifting components, endearing us to every character within the course of.

As curtain approaches, Dre is pulled in one million totally different instructions by her varied performers — performed by the likes of drag queen Nina West and Broadway’s Tomás Matos — along with her ditzy intern Kelsey (Jack Haven), and her conspiratorial and amusingly behind-the-times brother-in-law Barry (Quincy Dunn-Baker). Elsewhere, as town descends into chaos, a much less well-rounded subplot sees Dre’s pregnant spouse Lizzy (Riki Lindhome) desperately making her method to the bar, with the assistance of a transgender out-of-towner (Eve Lindley).

The ensemble, made up of largely queer performers, is a deal with from scene to scene regardless of being saddled with dialogue that grasps at humor with each line, however solely lands about half the time. Nonetheless, the film springs to life about halfway via, as soon as the bar patrons understand the state of affairs. They’re quickly assisted by a makeshift vigilante crew led by a delightfully terse Margaret Cho as Pops, a hard-as-nails butch lesbian who makes an applause-worthy entrance on an electrical scooter.

Pops shortly turns into the middle of a fleeting however significant subversion of the age-old zombie trope of killing off bitten denizens, which facilities humanity above particular person survival instincts and irrational fears. Some rapid-fire jokes are laced with intergenerational queer rigidity, and Cho’s personal standing as a queer elder helps harken again to a way of neighborhood beneath siege in the course of the AIDS disaster, whose specter looms giant over this subplot involving tenderness towards these contaminated, when the world treats them with cruelty.

“Queens of the Lifeless” is rarely stylized sufficient to land alongside most eye-popping cult classics. Nonetheless, its gestural sweetness helps cross this divide; even its most overwrought moments are underlined by an amiable nature seldom seen within the zombie style. Its political musings are simple, however their overt nature permits the film to play out within the type of a saccharine, campy, musically-tinged comedy that zips by, by no means overstaying its welcome.