XRGC: Task Season Finale, History of Queer Horror, and Interview With Director Tina Romero

On this week's episode of GROUP CHAT, Jason and Rosie are bringing in producer Ian to discuss the finale episodes of HBO’s “Task”, then we go to the XRV Scream Queens Joelle and Carmen for a discussion on queer horror, exploring why the genre is so intertwined with queer identity? Then Rosie and Carmen invite director Tina Romero on for a discussion on queer horror and her new movie “Queens Of The Dead”.

Queer horror mentions:

Carmen: “Silence of The Lambs” and “The Hunger”

Joelle: “Jennifer’s Body”, “Candyman (2021)” and “Interview With The Vampire”

Rosie: “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2” and “Bride of Frankenstein”

Jason: “Gingersnaps” and “Shiver”

Follow Jason: IG & Bluesky

Follow Rosie: IG & Letterboxd 

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Join the X-Ray Vision Discord

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Warning. Today's episode contains spoilers for Task, the finale of Task,
and some notable queer horror classics. You are warned. Hello,

(00:27):
my name is Jason Gecepcio and I'm Rasey Night, and
welcome back to x Revision of the podcast where we
dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, conducts of pop
culture comedy from My Heart Podcast, where we're bringing you
three episodes.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Week Last News, Last News. In today's episode, we are
back and it is x r G see which we love.
We'd love to have a little x a GC. So
in today's episode, on the heels of our delightful Scream,
King's Matthew Lillard and ski al Rick declaring their characters
Billy and stew from Scream the first husband of horror,

(01:00):
and they said that on stage in Los Angeles, I
believe at the recent La Comic Con and in anticipation
of Tina Romero, yes, the daughter of George Romero's queer
zombie homage to her father, we'll be talking to her
later in the episode and interview of The Vampire season
two making its Netflix debut, and boy have you guys
been watching it? And I love to see it. We

(01:23):
are basically just gonna just dive into the connection between
horror and the queer community, and that's gonna be a
big chunk of our XRGC. We're going to bring in Tina,
but first we're going to talk about that crazy Task
finale and where the show now sits in our best
of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Let's get into it. Let's welcome super producer Ian to
the program.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Ian, good morning, Thank you for having me. What a
great season of TV right.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Unbelieved, an incredible, an incredible season of TV. So The
Task has wrapped up with an emotional season finale that
was also action packed. I think this show did the
prestige drama thing, but that in which like the big
action explosion is the penultimate episode, and then you have

(02:18):
the kind of picking up the pieces episode in the finale.
Although I think they did it, you know, as good
as it can be done, in that there were still
plenty of suspense to be delivered in this final season,
and then all of the kind of dangling emotional threads

(02:40):
that had hung over the season, themes of very catholic
themes of guilt, specifically Grosso's feelings about you know, just
like what he's been involved the criminal conspiracy that he's
been involved in as a law enforcement officer that has
been feeding information and in hill to the gangs causing

(03:02):
the death of task members stoleer Tom's guilt and feelings
towards his children and his wives, and his wife and
the and his son who's currently incarcerated for causing the
death of his of his wife, and the kind of
emotional heartbreak and turmoil that's caused with within his family,

(03:24):
and his biological daughter Sarah, and then his adopted daughter Emily,
and his adopted son uh and then all the the
kind of uh uh interpersonal drama between the antagonists Perry
the j biker who killed Perry, Perry who sees Jason

(03:47):
is like his almost like a son thing, that is
the relationship back right, And he has resisted calls from
the higher gang authorities to to do away with Jason, resist, resist, resistant,
all throughout the season, even to the point of, you know,
murdering Jason's wife because he felt that well, I mean,

(04:13):
his character would tell you I didn't mean to do it,
but yeah, it's like holier ut or wise.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
I think in that moment he truly did not mean
to do it, because like the look on his face
when he realizes that she's not breathing anymore is like
pure terror panic. But yes, he was definitely trying to
silence her. Yes, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, yeah yeah. And and this episode did such an
incredible job of like dealing with the fallout of all
those things in a way that felt just really powerful
and great.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
Ian.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Let's start with you your thoughts on the season.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, overall, I think to a lot of the points
you just touched on, you know, the themes of regret, redemption,
and forgiveness throughout the season, is particularly in finale, we're
just so well crafted that the writing right anglesby is
just like I've if you watch Mayor of Eastown, you're
just getting more of that same like amazing writing here.
He's really great at writing these beautiful characters driven stories,

(05:17):
you know. And then the acting is just phenomenal from
top to bottom. The entire cast is so talented. And
I think to another point you mentioned earlier, you know,
this is a really character driven drama where it's more
about the relationships and the interpersonal struggles, but there's still
just enough of the action the crime thriller drama to
keep the plot momentum going. Yeah, and a lot of

(05:39):
their characters are on a collision course without the season.
So when they finally do meet or have those interactions,
they deliver. They're satisfying, and they're explosive in a great way.
And then that like raises the stakes even higher because
they're You're rooting for all these characters because we get
to know them all in such a deep level. Even
the antagonists or the quote unquote bad guys, you still

(05:59):
will to them, still empathize with them. And so when
you see our heroes and our villain's face off, you're
like kind of torn because you don't want to see
the bad things happen to any of them. And I
think that's a testament to the quality of the writing
and the acting that was delivered here. So yeah, I
thought it was a fantastic season.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
I totally agree. I think that something that I found
incredibly moving about Mary of Eastown and this that I
think you just don't really see on TV very much.
And obviously I am not from America, I'm from England,
but these are shows about like actual working class people
that you feel like you might have met, Like this
is like very rare to see like a normal looking house,

(06:38):
you know, that character making a choice like and real
life like sometimes the house looks cozy, sometimes it looks
fucked up. Like the inter woven aspects of like class
and family and found family and forgiveness like really spoke
to me. And I think that for a show that is,

(06:59):
you know, still about Cops, I was really just totally
blown away by the big final moment that they gave
Tom of doing the victim impact kind of report at
the trial for Ethan, who got angry because he was,
you know, obviously a kid who'd been through a lot,

(07:19):
pushed the wife down the stairs and she died, and
you kind of and to hear Tom go there and
give that speech of forgiveness, and then to see him
at the end like painting the room so it'll be
ready for when Ethan came back. That had me like crying.
I think that we don't often talk about just how
hard it is to be a kid, Like I was

(07:40):
a very fucked up young kid. I did not have
good adults around me. And I often will see a
news story or a show about, you know, a ten
year old who's done something so horrific, and my first
thought is always like what happened to them? You know?
And I think this show had so much empathy and
kindness for all kinds of people. And one of the

(08:01):
reasons I think the show became so huge is because
it also built that for Robbie. You know. Okay, that's
actually a question I want to ask you, because Tom
Powfrey is such a huge part of this show. Didn't
lose something for you when Robbie died?

Speaker 1 (08:14):
No, No, I don't think so, No, because it Yeah,
I one of the things that I found so propulsive
about this show was the feeling that all these bad
choices and were going to come home to roost somehow.
I didn't see anyway that Robbie could survive this story.

(08:36):
And what I think was really cool about the way
they told the story was like, you understand that Robbie
saw that too.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
By the middle, he knew there was a point in.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
The middle, you know. Yeah, he was very aware sometime
in the middle of the season that like, Okay, I've
really fucked it. I fucked my life up, I fucked
up things for my family and people I care about,
and there's no way out of this. And so really
the forget escape forget Canada, forget all these things. What

(09:07):
I need to do is get the money for the
people I care about, And how.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Can I set them up?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, and then and then die in a way that
takes all the heat off of them. And I thought
that was really really well executed. And I think the
show really did risk losing some repulsion when you lose,
you know, basically the co lead of the show.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
I thought that's very brave.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
But they did a great job of carrying it together.
I think this part of what impresses me so much
about this season was a lot of the tropes and
things that you're used to from a story like this,
whether it's Heat or any other suspense crime thriller, you know,
with the kind of the Shakespearean kind of tragedy that

(09:56):
you expect to find here. It it wrong foots you
with some of the things that you expected. You expect
Robbie to die, but maybe not there. You expect, you know,
the shootout to happen, and you expect one of the
task members to die, but maybe not there. And it
all along the way, the show did a great job

(10:19):
of either wrong footing your expectations, both through pacing and
through character reveals like I very loudly proclaimed my pick
as the task mold to be Martha Plimpton, and then
almost immediately they reveal that it's not her. At first
they hint that it's her, then they reveal, no, it's

(10:40):
not her, and then the show almost seemed to be
taking like a victory lap with Plimpton saying, hey, and
you thought it was Plimpton and now look what a
great fet friend she is.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
And you fought.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
They serve. So yeah. I think the show really handled
the of Robbie extremely well.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
I agree. I think also like Mayve and Amelia Jones'
performance just, oh my god, does such a good job.
Remember this is in case people who are listening just
don't remember. That's the same actress who is in Coder,
which I feel like was not like note she she
really disappeared into this role. This is I love her
because she had also been She plays Kinsey in the

(11:25):
very underrated Lock and Key Show on Netflix, which is
a brilliant show and very similarly deals with a lot
of these themes but in a kind of supernatural comic
book space. But she was so great here, and I
think that after Robbie died, she becomes that co leadue.
She becomes the person that you're actually rooting for that

(11:45):
you want to get out. And obviously there is the
implication with like the way Tom handles the money, that
he also wants that. And I kind of love these
choices of like the difference between like an institutional choice,
and that's something you have to do because it's your
and the little choices you can make to you know,
maybe make somebody's life better. I also wanted to ask

(12:06):
you guys about this was a question that we got
from the discord, but it had been in my notes
to it, and I think Ian Yu'd also mention it.
But Jalatan asked, how do we feel about the turnaround
where we hated Grasso last episode to now? I will
start by saying, I think Fabian Franco is so amazing
in this role that by that when he had that

(12:28):
talk with his sister in the finale, that was when
I bought it. I said, I, yeah, I back him.
I believe he looks tired, he looks exhausted, he looks
like he is so guilty from everything that he has
done that I bought the kind of redemption aspect because
again I understood it. It was like Jason, you said
about Robbie Grosso, knew what his life would be like

(12:51):
if he kept going on. And his option is to
kill Jason. That's like the option and maybe you get
forgiven and maybe you go to jail or whatever. But
that's his only choice and he does it to help
Mave and I actually like it. I think that's a
great choice.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
And it's not a full like listen, it's.

Speaker 5 (13:12):
Life.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
And he's probably gonna get in jailer.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
You know, he's been leaking intelligence to the Dark Arts,
causing uh, probably multiple murders.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Indefinitely death, Lizzie's.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Death, he's directly implicated for so I you know he's
going to jail for a while. But I think this
show did an incredible job of at every turn, even
when it's even when you kind of felt like you
didn't want it, humanizing everyone, even characters like like Perry

(13:50):
for most of the series is like this ice eyed,
cold hearted killer whose only weaknesses he doesn't want to
kill Jason. And it's not until he murders erin that
you see the cracks of like you know, like you

(14:12):
see the emotion come out, and the show gives you,
those like very easily could have let Perry be like
this cold hearted, unknowable, like the pure murderer, but it
resists that. Really, it's only like the the gang leadership,
the upper gang leadership, that you kind of never really

(14:32):
get that human element. But everybody in this show is humanized,
even Jason, who's like, yeah, total piece of shit, but
like obviously his heartbroken that his wife and children.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
And even in that moment, you know, at the end
at the lake where Jason, you know, stabs Perry and
he's like, I know what you did. Even in that
last moment with this dying breath, Perry is still trying
to help him. He's like, they're coming for you. You
need to get out of here, because he that's how
much he loves him and cares a he feels that
sense of regret because obviously he killed this man's wife.
So even in that final moment with his dying breath,

(15:06):
he's still trying to help him. And I think that
speaks to what you're talking about. Every character in this
show on some level has some humanizing element to them
or something about them yeah that is relatable or makes
you root for them or connect with them in some way,
which I think is just a testament to the right
right again.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, for me, I think the thing that is most
human about this show is or relatable, maybe in some
way empathizing force for particularly the criminal characters or the
corrupt characters like Grosso, is this feeling that feels so
right for where this story is set that listen, playing

(15:50):
by the rules, being a regular garbage man, being a
regular cop, being a regular whatever, working person. I'm never
gonna get security for my family, the things that my
kids want, security for them, and just like a not
even like being rich, but like gonna be able to
buy a house. I'm never gonna get a leg up

(16:12):
if I don't cut corners a little bit, if I
don't work with the gangs, if I don't sell a
little bit of drugs. And while that's you know, not
an excuse for criminality, it's also you get it. That's
the thing like watching this and like I get I
get it.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
I also think Jason, you touch on a great thing.
It's not about an excuse. It's about like the symptoms
versus the cause, and the cause is like people don't
have enough money, they need to look after their kids.
So then they're pushed into that criminality or those cutting
of those corners, and I think that the show did
such a good job with that, and also the desperation
of that that was something I thought was incredible about

(16:52):
the actor played Jason in this finale, like the desperation
of just like knowing he's absolutely fucked and just thinking
like this million dollars in this backpack is gonna save me.
But that's also I think a great choice because a
million dollars outside of the scope of this world in
general is not seen as very much, you know, but
in that world for you know, for may or for Jason,

(17:16):
like that is a game changing amount of money that
you will never get your hands on again. And I
think that understanding is so good here. I mean, honestly,
the best moments of this show did remind me of
like The Wire, where there were just.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
These little bits of complexity.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Insight into the humanity. Even Perry something I was blown
away by when he's walking into the bath and he
like into the lake and he's just like so out
of it because he knows what he's supposed to do
and he doesn't want to do it, and he's kind
of like dealing with the trauma of killing Erin, and
he's kind of walking as if he is in a daze.

(17:52):
And there was just something that felt so real about that,
even though I clearly knew what was going to happen,
in that moment, I was in Perry's mindset of like,
oh fuck, Like, well, how do I get out of this?

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Let me ask you about the money? So at the end,
and I think, what truly one of the a surprising turn,
I thought, So Tom is you know, he rides to
the rescue alongside a Leah, They and Grosso, who you know,

(18:26):
in his near death moments, manages to shoot Jason and
save Mave. And Tom realizes that Mave's got the backpack
full of money that came from the Fentanel saleh and
he lets her keep it.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, or he just you know, he looks.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
The other way.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
He has no idea what he's money and says, don't
tell anyone what's in that bag?

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Were you I was listen, I'm happy may have got
the money. I was also a little surprised for for
several reasons. One because it seems slightly at a character
for maybe not maybe after all he's been through. He
thought this is okay, you know what this guy paid
for his.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
There's been enough damage to this family.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Enough, so I felt that maybe it's earned from that perspective,
but it also felt strange to me in that kind
of the theme of the show was that like this
money is blood money, Like it's like Vig's cursed funds,
Like everybody who tries to grab it, who wants it,
who touches it, will come to a bad end, And

(19:33):
maybe that will happen to me. I mean, she's not
like a worldly person, and she's got a backpack with
a million dollars. I don't know. I'm too she had
a money launder like, I don't know how she gets
away with this, but it Yeah, it left me feeling
a little complex, like I thought, I thought, I don't know,

(19:55):
I don't know about it.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
I love that you bought Jason, because I think that
in the moment, Tom probably did think all of that,
because he looks in it and he sees the blood
on it, and he zips it up and just kind
of pushes it. I think in that moment, it's about
material needs immediately versus like the long term, Like, yeah,
the dark Hearts might come after her, but with a
million dollars right now, her and the kids can maybe

(20:19):
go to a different country or maybe go somewhere else.
But I think the implication is really to make you like,
in that moment, he's having this consideration about like his kids,
what he wants to eat in his own forgiveness, like,
and I think it he kind of projects that onto me.
But it did shock me, but I was happy about it.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yeah, I agree. I think in the moment, I was
expecting him to kind of play it by the book
because that's how he's been all season. But then when
he's in the hospital having that conversation with cath and
you know, she's asking like, yeah, so what's up with
the money, you know, and she like knows what's going
on too, but he's like, you.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Know, she kind of feels it.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Yeah, but he's like he says that great line where
like wisdom is knowing what to overlook sometimes. So it's like,
you know, he was like I think he kind of
came to that consensus too, like May's been through enough.
Her dad is dead, her uncle's dead, she almost got
killed like three times. Like let let her have the
money and so she can go start a new life
with these kids.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
And also it's a million dollars that's probably gonna sit
in like a you know, evidence look until someone else
steals it. So it's like money is always going Okay.
Just before we go, guys, Blakeney had asked us, does
the show need a second season because they have announced
it or do we think they're just money grabbing? Do
you guys want to see a second season of this show?

(21:35):
First and foremost, I will say Amelia did an interview
I believe at THHR today that released where she said
she had heard that it would be if there was
a sequel, an anthology, And I think that is a
great idea because I think this story's done. I don't
think what happens next. Yeah, but an anthology also, Blakeney,
I like this. I got to put it in there, guys.

(21:56):
Would you guys be stoked if they found a way
to do a Maria.

Speaker 3 (22:01):
Across over Cross. Yeah, I think that could be interesting
that verse, just like you know, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, that's interesting. I think I think, yeah, he's got
the he's got the juice. I think if the format
is task force every time, right, that can work.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Like a different case, a different task Force. Yeah, I
think doing an anthology in that way could be good.
This this particular storyline with these characters, I think everybody
kind of got a nice ending. All the loose ends
are wrapped up. I don't think it needs to be
further explored. I think leaving it where it lies is good.
But yeah, I think to your point, if it's just
like a new task Force on a new case, even

(22:43):
if it's in the same setting, I wouldn't be upset
with that, you know, if it's still in the same area.
And one last thing to that point, all of the actors,
I think we mentioned this in an earlier episode, almost
all the actors are from the UK doing this, yeah,
doing this amazing accent. Are there any good young American

(23:05):
actors left because the people in the U care taking
all these jobs. I heard somebody say, like Timothy Shallo
Mayer is our only hope, you know, for our good
young American actors right now. So like, what do you
guys think about that? Just as a funny little way
to wrap it up.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
No, I like that, im because honestly, I'd actually read
a really interesting thing about how it was to do
with a contract that somebody had gotten offered and they
were an influencer and they'd been offered a role and
they turned it down because they were like, I'm not
an actor. And then people were like, this is so
depressing because that is where American studios are going, is

(23:42):
like they are reaching out to you know, and obviously
sometimes it works. Addison Ray she was a TikTok influencer
during COVID and now she was in ed guyne Monster
and was the best thing about it, Like right, So
it does happen. But I think that there is an
issue as well. In England you have a free art schooling,
you have this a school you have to say culture.
So I do think that that is a bigger pool

(24:04):
of people being like trained. But there's so many talent
and amazing actors in America too, Like we just need
to giving them platforms, giving them job, give the job finding.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Well, I think I think part of it.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
I mean Timothy went to a public art school. Guys,
the power of power of public.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Well, I think the issue is, uh, well, we'll wrap
it up here. But I remember, you know, when I
was watching you know, see, the CW had this kind
of reputation as the network for the hot actors that
you've never heard of, like everybody is way too good looking,
and they all seemed to come from Canada. And I

(24:44):
think the reason for that is similar to the reason
that the cast that Task was cast in the way
it was was like, we know, being here, you're just
kind of like immersed in American celebrity media culture, and
so you're kind of like, even if you don't know everybody,
you're kind of like, oh, I've heard of this person,
I've seen this person. So it's like when the CW

(25:07):
was like, we need to find hot people that nobody's
ever heard of, Let's get them from Canada. And I
think similarly, Task was like, we need to find great
actors that have know that an American audience doesn't have
any preconceived notion about this character about who they are
from other stuff they've done. Let's get them from England
in the UK. And I think that's I just.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Think that's true. And I think they all HBO. Oh sorry,
I'm just gonna say. Also, HBO does tend tend to
pull from like their their internal pool too, because Grosso
is obviously in Yes, they do House of the Dragons,
So I think there's yeah, probably that's probably why he
got one of the first calls too, But yeah, I
think that's interesting. But yeah, we just need to find

(25:47):
some more young American talent, give them some opportunities. Guys.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Mm hmmm, well we're we await a possible season two
of Task. Let's take a quick break and we'll be
right back.

Speaker 5 (25:59):
There's a queercit woo.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Hello, welcome back to X Revision and we are here
introducing the Scream Queens once again. Carmen Laurent and Joel Monique,
super producers. How are you guys doing.

Speaker 6 (26:28):
It's always a good day to talk about queer horror.
I'm excited about it.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
So I'm going to start this by kind of saying,
you know, we mentioned the things that we were kind
of inspired by here, and I love that we mentioned
Scream and Stu and Billy because I think what this
conversation is gonna definitely cover is the fact that a
lot of movies that are seen as queer horror are
not necessarily textually queer. They are stories that we have

(26:52):
found reclamation in that we have found representation in. There
are movies I know, Carmen, You're definitely going to be
talking about movies that were definitely made to instill like
panic and horror about trans people, but that trans people
like have found love. And you know, one of the
movies we're not going to talk about, but I would
love to have Bja and Harmony come on my Friends

(27:14):
sleep Away Camp. They've written an extensive book about just
how powerful they have found that and the reclamation of
those movies in queer horror, and I think we're gonna
talk about that. So starting off common, what do you
think is about horror that so many queer people find
themselves in?

Speaker 7 (27:32):
You know, it's an interesting question. And Joelle and I
we talked about this a little bit last year when
we did our kind of or not last year? Was
it earlier this year when we did our Robert Oh
it was last year?

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Oh my god?

Speaker 3 (27:42):
Last year?

Speaker 6 (27:43):
And what is time?

Speaker 3 (27:44):
What is time?

Speaker 7 (27:45):
Yes, we were doing our Robert Eggers look back and
talking about why queer people and women seem to be
most attracted to horror. And I think that it's because
we tend to find, and especially in our group of
our of our X ray vision producers, that men don't
really like horror, especially straight men don't really like her.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Actually very fair. I love that you brought that up
because we have two examples of that all.

Speaker 7 (28:11):
Yeah, and you know, I am in a relationship with
a straight man who doesn't like horror. It's a very common,
you know, kind of thread. I think it has to
do with the fact that this is all just my
own hypothesis. But men aren't supposed to be scared. Men
aren't supposed to feel horror. They're supposed to be, you know,

(28:32):
the protectors, the caregivers all of this, or the provider.
And so I think gay people, queer people, or women,
we are able to look at horror as like this
morbid curiosity of like not only things that we're not
afraid to face, but things that we are facing quite commonly.

(28:54):
So women and minority groups tend to be the targets
of these horrible things, and so there's like a morbid
curiosity I think there with just kind of looking into
the possibility of what could be.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah, I was gonna say, also boundaries working out what
you're scared of, what you're not scared of in a
safe environment, and oftentimes as well, you know, horror is
an outsider genre that is about outsiders, whether that's the
people who are being chased down who are like teenage
girls who you know, are not particularly valued members of society,

(29:29):
or you know, the killer, Evel, it's the killer, you know, Wendy.
I was watching her killer videos. I still think about
the killer, but like they're outside of movies, and you know,
being queer is outside of culture, like and I think
that that nature of like kind of the queering of
what you expect from a movie. Silence of the Lamps, calm,
and I know that's going to be one of your picks,

(29:50):
is a big, a big one for that. In fact,
why don't you just let's just start there, calm and
talk about Silence of the line.

Speaker 7 (29:56):
Oh yeah, So this is probably my favorite horror movie
of all time. I've seen it so many times I
can quote just about every line from the movie. But
you know, I saw it for the first time when
I was seven years old, which is a crazy.

Speaker 6 (30:11):
You watch Silence of the Lambs, it said.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Well, I have American, I have a stable.

Speaker 7 (30:15):
I have a sister that's seven years older than me,
and I was very obsessed with you know, my sister
wanted to watch horror. I wanted to be behind the
sofa watching the horror you know, even though I wasn't
supposed to be now, they fully let me in the
room to watch Silence of the Lambs because I just
think it's one of those things that is, because it's

(30:37):
kind of true crime, it's not really considered.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
It was seen more as a crime movie than a
horror Yes, yes, but it has definitely horror elements to it,
and of course it's very disturbing for a child to watch.

Speaker 7 (30:49):
Especially I was seven years old about to come out
as trans just a couple of years later. This was
like the first time I'd ever seen any sort of
media representation of it trans person aside from like you know,
the the Gypsy and Scooby Doo being yeah yeah, yeah,
a man.

Speaker 6 (31:08):
And so.

Speaker 7 (31:10):
It's a complicated movie because when I did come out
as trans eventually, you know, Buffalo Bill is one of
those characters that like, oh, you're like, oh, I don't
want people to associate that with me.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Of course, evil trans kill a very big recurring woman
in a dress kind of.

Speaker 7 (31:28):
Chorpe, yes, absolutely wearing their skin exactly, And so it
took me a while to really embrace the movie and
really embrace the character. And what really broke it down
for me is listening to what Hannibal Lecter has to
say about Buffalo Bill and also looking around at Buffalo

(31:51):
Bill's house. So I recommend if you haven't watched the documentary,
it's on Netflix. It's called Disclosure. They talk about all
of this transrepresentation in media. It's a great film to
watch to kind of understand this more. But just to
talk about the horror elements alone. This was for the nineties,
the Goodbye Horses song with a man wearing a wig
with his genitals tucked between his leg that became like

(32:13):
a whole meme representation of a trans woman for a
whole generation of people. But if you actually listen to
what Anthony Hopkins' character says and what Hannibal Lecter says.
He is the psychological expert in the movie, and he says,
this isn't actually a trans person. He says, quote, Billy
hates his own Billy hates his own identity. You see,

(32:35):
he thinks that makes him try transsexual. But his pathology
is a thousand times more savage and more terrifying. Now,
people watching the movie still just kind of took that
and ran with it. Oh, that's a trans woman. But
if you actually look at like in his house, he
also has a bunch of like neo Nazi merch up
on the walls and stuff like that. Now, looking back

(32:57):
at that film, I realized, through like the scope of
today also that this is like kind of just like
an in cell. You know, Buffalo Bill is not a
great representation of an insult or of a trans person,
but more of just an in cell who can't fit
in anywhere and is you know, choosing to find that
place to fit in within the trans community, whether or

(33:19):
not that be misplaced. And so I find that very
interesting as a trans woman now to just be able
to say, yeah, that's actually my favorite movie. And I
think Hannibal Lecter is one of the gayest characters of
all time.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Oh my god, he's so gay. He's always reading.

Speaker 7 (33:35):
Always reading people with your cheap shoes and a nice bag,
and Sanata.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Love this suits.

Speaker 7 (33:43):
Yeah, So just those two things alone, you know. I
And of course you know, Clarie Starling herself is the
inspiration for Dana Scully, who goes on to be like
many a bisexual and lesbian icon for women in the future.
So absolutely I think this movie sounds to the land
encompasses a lot of different like queer kind of things throughout.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, not surprising anyone. I also just
have to say, like in the Hannibal TV show at
NBC that yes, the Will Graham iteration is based on
Clarence Startling, and they bought in some of the claris
stuff because they didn't have the rights to use Clorice.
So it even went on to make the most textually
gay version of this even gayer, like that Hannibal doesn't

(34:27):
exist if this version of it has not come out. Joelle,
what is your first pick?

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (34:34):
My goodness. Okay, So I was trying to think really
hard about like queer characters and revelations and what was working,
and I went with the bisexual panic classic film Jennifer's Body,
a film that when it came out similar to Harley
Quinn and The Birds of Prey, where I was like,
why are you fucking up the marketing? Okay, this is

(34:55):
huge audience for this film and they will allower it.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
What have you done?

Speaker 6 (35:00):
And uh? And instead of being like, Hey, queer ladies,
here's some nice representation for you, they were like, guys,
you think Megan Fox is hot? Right, get in here.
Incredibly frustrating. But up until seeing this film, I hadn't
really seen like quality by panic film. And by this,
I mean like you get it. You get a taste
of it in the Craft, you know, Job Breaker, It's

(35:23):
always there, but it's very much for the boys. It
feels like it's, yeah, this is the the girl I
kind of fake flirt with until I lose my virginity
and then ultimately die in the movie, Like that's kind
of where the Bye Pandy representation in horror film was
until Jennifer's Body, But here you get like such like

(35:45):
incredible great moments. I wanted to talk about specifically the
moment where Needy, that's Amanda's character, loses her virginity. While
she's losing her virginity, she is like psychic, psychically linked
to Jennifer. They're literally talking to like she's saying the
words Jennifer saying. Is Jennifer's experiencing like her first like

(36:07):
blood rush where she's like out killing and this connection
and very reality of oh, I like my boyfriend, he's fine,
but this is not who I want to be having
sex with, which she literally runs to Jennifer's house after
this and they kiss and you're like, Wow, it's really happening.
I think particularly for girls who had like their first

(36:29):
crush was also their best friend. This movie because like
a very high like wow, I'm seeing the sort of space.
And I also like that we don't have to deal
with a kill your gaze trope at the end, like
we do kill Jennifer because she's eating too many people
it's going to become a problem. But there's an acknowledgment

(36:50):
in taking out Jennifer of like these men have done
awful things to you and made you have to be
awful in order to survive in this world. So there's
so loving and caring, like your life has to end,
but then there's a raging I will kill all of
the men who harmed you kind of vibe immediately after,
and it's a great way to sort of keep like

(37:11):
the trope of the villain going. You need kind of
satisfying ending with somebody who's done this much murder, But
it doesn't reject the relationship of them, which I love.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
She is a demon and according to Jennifer, and I
mean according to Megan Fox and a man of seafreed
and hopefully from what we're hearing about a sequel. You know,
they might not have even needed to bury that gay.
She's just she's she's a demon. She came back, you know.

Speaker 6 (37:39):
She came back as a Ginger Snaps in a moment
another place where women had to kill their lady loves,
but they came back.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
They multiple exactly I'm saying. Well, I was actually gonna say, Jason,
I would love not only to hear you talk about
Ginger Snaps, which is one of your picks, but also
what do you do you like as a pop culture
and expert and commentation are like, what's it been like
to see the way Jennifer? Because when we were young,

(38:06):
Jennifer's buddy was like hate ed. It was like badly responded.
What's it been like to kind of see that change?
And why do you think it is?

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Well, it's been It's been very interesting to see it change.
And I think that's because horror is a genre and
maybe the only genre that the fans of the genre
will give something a try, regardless of whether they've heard
of it, if they know any of the people in it,
if it's in the section, at a certain point, you

(38:34):
will get to it as a fan.

Speaker 7 (38:36):
That's so true.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
Because that's your appetite for it. And in that way,
audiences will find the things that resonate with them and
find these subtextual elements. And I think that's so important
and such a natural process, specifically around horror. And also
now I'm going to go on a slight ramp. One

(38:59):
of the things I don't like about like mainstream corporate
diversity narratives around media, like and you'll see it often
with the way a certain thing is promoted that like oh,
because it's you know, Latino Heritage Month, Yeah, this, that

(39:20):
and the other right. Yeah, On the one hand, like good,
it's good to see the diversity embrace. On the other hand,
to me, that kind of approach is always rang as
like hollow marketing for the whites that run things to
be able to say, look how much we care, we
do stuff that's great when in reality, me as a

(39:41):
person of color, if I saw an Asian person had
made something, or was behind the camera of something, or
was in something, nobody needed to tell me that that
was cool and spoke to me like I saw it
and it spoke to me. And audiences in horror similarly,
or any genre will say, oh my god, that speaks
to me. Nobody can tell me that this is queer

(40:04):
coded or anything else. It just speaks to you, and
it speaks directly to you without this like framing of.

Speaker 8 (40:13):
Look at the good thing that I did some bisexuals,
look at how cool we are, right, And it's much
more organic and and.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Valuable, like a person to persons in your relationship to art,
It's much more valuable that way. And so and I
think horror is because it's one has such a rabbit
fan base, and two is often low budget and cheap
without that marketing thing behind it, it is naturally a

(40:46):
place where the audience finds the thing that it is
looking for and finds these hidden, subtextual, deeply buried messages
that have sometimes been purposefully hidden in the text or
other times are just there to be found and taken
out of it. And so I think that that's why horror, yes,

(41:10):
the kind of fans that it has, and why it's
for me, just such an important genre.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
You also summed up perfectly there. I think, like, you're right,
that's exactly what happened in the case of Jennifer's body specifically,
that's why we're talking about it like twenty years later, yeah,
you know, like because it didn't get that Undiscorporate didn't
see it in a way that they could market it
in that way, so instead market it as sexy lady
and blood.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
You know, yeah, the rest that part.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
But Jason, I would love to talk a little bit
more about Ginger Snaps, which was your first queer helper
horror pick, because it's such a great pick and definitely
in this queering kind of of the cinema canon space.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
It's one of those that you know, Canadians ultra low
budget horror movie about where we'll and a beautiful friendship
between two main female leads, and it spawned a suite
of movies all within this general kind of like very

(42:14):
bloody kind of queer coded universe. But it was one
that I had heard. It's in that same way of
like if you're a horror fan, you'll eventually watch it.
I had not heard of it until like, I don't know,
two thousand and eight or long time after it had
come back, because it was like I read was like yeah,

(42:34):
when I was like when I read about in a
blog and was like, oh wait, there's hold on, there's
like actually three of these movies and and watched it,
and just like it's if you're a fan of horror
and for the kind of social commentary that can only
and the depiction of like relationships that have this specific

(43:00):
visceral texture when displayed in horror, because it's such a
horror is about the fantasy of power and about how
becoming a victim can lead to power in horrific ways.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
And how do you use it?

Speaker 1 (43:18):
It happened, what happens when the when the oppressor the
week immediately becomes powerful? What is it? What does it
do to your moral compass? What does it do to
the people that then become killed by this former victim?
And Ginger Slabs has all of that. It's and you

(43:40):
see every dollar, every Canadian dollar that went into making
this film you see on the screen. It's a wonderful film.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
It's so good and I love that you picked it
because I do think it fits into the whole thing
of like, this is a very quea movie in the
nature of it being like an outside a movie because
it's also about like a movie about periods. Nobody means
that that in it.

Speaker 9 (44:05):
Nobody immediately makes it an unappealing, unmarketable And the movie
did not make a lot of money at the time,
but was critically loved and is one another you know,
fantastic cult horror movie and has.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Catherine Isabelle, who would go on to star in a
ton of other fantastic queer things, including Hannibal. It all
comes back there for me. No, I love this movie.
I love that this was your pick. I think it's
a perfect example of how a story that ostensibly someone
could watch and say this isn't gay, but if you're
like queer or you get it, you're like, oh my god,

(44:39):
like this shit is it's so much about being the outsider,
so much about being the other, so much about the
violence of being alive, which like who makes that?

Speaker 1 (44:48):
It's got that thing when I'm looking for the book.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Now, it's that I was like, what's done a doing?

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Now it's give me that that. It's got that thing
that I love about horror, which is to your point, like, oh,
this isn't gay, this is this is just like a
Wherewill movie with some very heavy period references. This isn't.
But the more you think about these very simple stories,
the more complex they appear. And it's the I mean,
the text that open my eyes to the horror genre.

(45:15):
Specifically is Carol J. Clover's iconic Men Woman in Chainsaws,
which argues that, I mean, for anybody that loves horror
and loves thinking about films, you should read this and
in it, essentially Carol argues that these seemingly very exploitative films,

(45:35):
particularly slasher genre stuff, and you know, things like the
Texas Chainsaw massacre, are actually like deeply moral feminist texts
about survival. Yeah, and it continues to blow my mind,

(45:57):
and I think without like, it's not like everybody who
makes a horror film is this like deep theorist. But
even so, there is something about the genre that asks
and answers these like deep questions about identity in a
way that like feel exploitative. But then the more you

(46:20):
think about them and unwind them, the deeper they get.
And again, Ginger Snaps is for me a prime example
of a movie like that.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
I love that I'm going to quickly throw in. I
did a presentation about this movie last night with my
friends Nightmare on Elm Street to Freddy's Revenge. It's incredibly
textually gay. It was denied by the creators that it was,
but Mark Patten, the lead who plays Jesse was also closeted.
I encourage you to watch it, and only because it's
an incredibly fun, silly, great slash a movie. It's also

(46:52):
surprisingly dark, surprisingly deep, reads very much as an adult
more about the horror of having to come out and
the fear of it. And Mark has actually reclaimed the movie,
reclaimed his space in the queer horror canon and made
a documentary that I cannot recommend enough called Scream Queen
about his own experience. So we are running out of time,
but each of you, I just want you to tell

(47:13):
me two more queer horror movies people should watch. Comment
start with you.

Speaker 7 (47:18):
The Hunger in nineteen eighty three, Tony Scott's directorial.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Debut, Stunning It Is.

Speaker 7 (47:25):
I gave this one the tagline of an ethical, non
monogamous couple looking for a third and it essentially is that.
But it's technically about Catherine Denov and David Bowie's character.
Catherine Denov is this old ancient vampire from ancient Egypt.
She's a white woman. I don't know how that makes sense,
but whatever, eighty the white woman from ancient Egypt, and

(47:49):
she's this vampire that's been living for centuries and eventually
she has to go through all of these centuries finding
new lovers because eventually her lovers that she turns into vampires.
They lose their immortality, they lose their ability to sleep,
and then they start to age and then eventually die,
which is not supposed to happen when you're a vampire.

(48:10):
So they meet the sleep study doctor Susan Sarandon, and
then Susan Sarandon joins their throatpole.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Love that.

Speaker 7 (48:19):
Yeah, it's a very fun queer hormone. It's like one
of my favorite vampire movies because it takes the vampire
lore and completely changes it. You know, they don't have fangs,
they don't have teeth. They have a little onk around
their neck that has a knife in it that they
slice open the neck and drink from. And the whole
opening to the movie is a music video for Bella

(48:40):
Lagozi's Dead.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Really great just love goth Yeah, love it, fantastic Joel,
how about you?

Speaker 6 (48:47):
Okay? So modern queer or candy man?

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Yeah, eat his gig.

Speaker 6 (48:53):
They survive at the end. I will say I found
some criticism from a non binary writer who was upset
that there's an I'm on your a teen who's introduced
and it almost immediately killed off. Totally understand that being
a frustrating point. I think for the way this film
both talks about blackness exploitation and then also queer representation,

(49:14):
I have a lot of high praise for Nita Costa's
candy Man. I also throw in because we can't leave
a horror queer thing without talking about interviewing the Vampire.
I just think it's such a fun study of going
from coded to explicit if you take the novels to
the movie to the TV, which is a lot of

(49:34):
reading and watching if you're not sure if this is
your thing, but if you like I think Victorian literature,
Gothic horror, you know there's so much in it that
deals with being queer, especially if you consider, you know,
interview Vampires written in the late seventies, it's still not
safe to be out. We As the story continues to

(49:54):
evolve to more features than we're dealing with the AIDS crisis,
there's so many Listen, I'm just gonna read you one
quote and then we'll get out of here. It was
as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him,
And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him.
It was as if he had only just left the
room and the ring of his voice were still there.
And somehow there was a disturbing comfort in that. And

(50:15):
despite myself, I didn't vision his face. Listen, if you
had to be closeted and you have the longing, and
also you can't touch in public, and also death is
right behind you. Horror like it's the keys, it's the
crux of all of it. And I think, you know,
for queer folks, particularly for older generations, I think there's
just so much love for horror because we know how

(50:37):
to read between the lines of things. We unders we
had to walk and talk and dress in code in
order to communicate and find our communities, and so to
do that in a theater it is fabulous and it's
lovely and so yeah, definitely. If you haven't read the books,
I highly recommend then they are wild and insane and
a little bit unhinged, but so delightful. Yeah. Check. I
interviewed with the vampire. What about you, Jason? What are

(50:59):
your team? Are two less?

Speaker 3 (51:01):
These are not?

Speaker 1 (51:03):
This is more of my interpretation, although I think I'm
alone in this interpretation of these films. They are the
twin std Pana films by David Cronenberg, Shivers and Rabbid.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
Oh great cool.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
I mean, it's one of the ultimate queer directors of
queering a cinematic tradition.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
And again, there's nothing in there that is definitively like queer,
but it's about It's about the shame and horror of
dealing with a sexually transmitted disease that's killing, and that's
killing and affecting the community, and it's something that nobody

(51:51):
believes in. You can't talk about, there's no one there
to help, And I just always viewed at it through
the lens of STDs and communities having to grapple with
this thing that's affecting them that nobody cares about in
this horrific fashion. I just think it there are they're

(52:14):
incredibly striking movies about being uncomfortable with your body, the
desires that your body has and the effects of an
illness on it that you can't speak about.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
Oh yeah, Ian just put in a great another one.
It follows, you know, very much in that tradition. I
love that one. So this was also inspired by the
fact that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has once again been adapted
by Giama del Toro, one of the greatest horror guys.
ME and Joel have seen it. There is so much
queer subtext in that movie. It's unbelievable. So I will

(52:51):
leave you with the final recommendation to lead you into that,
which is the nineteen thirty five Brider Frankenstein movie made
by James Whale, who was a gay guy who lived
with a gay partner. And the movie is so unusual,
it's so strange. It chooses to be about Mary Shelley
and also about the bride. I love it. I think
only a queer person could have made it. So watch

(53:11):
that and then go and watch Gia my del Toro
is also extremely gay Frankenstein.

Speaker 7 (53:16):
I'm so excited.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
We're gonna go to break and be right back with
our interview with Tina Romero, director of Queens.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Of the Day, and we're back. Me and Carmen will
be chatting to Tina Romero, director of Queens of the Dead,

(53:45):
and you can listen to that chat right now.

Speaker 7 (53:50):
Tina, Yes, thank you for being here. We loved the
movie and one of the things that I found so
just awk him about the film. Was that you were
able to bring together every letter from the libiquitter community.
As my Auntie T. S. Madison calls it, You're able
to bring together all the letters of the libiquitter community.

(54:15):
What was it like bringing together this this cast?

Speaker 10 (54:19):
And I mean what a cast. This is a dream
come true, this cast. I can't even believe how lucky
we got. And I, you know, from the beginning, one
of the first goals of mine was to flip the
script on the Zombie Apocalypse Motley Crewe.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
You know, instead of having the one tokens.

Speaker 10 (54:39):
Gay, I wanted to have you know, I wanted to
have the.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
Entire crew be gay, with our with our token, with.

Speaker 10 (54:47):
Our straight guy from Staten Island, I really didn't think
he was going to be here on a Saturday got
to have one, and you know, he didn't think he
was going to be here on a Saturday night when
the dead started to rise. But ultimately he's kind of
glad that he is. And that was just important to
me from the beginning. I wanted to do that. And
I also really wanted to cast this thing as authentically

(55:09):
queer as possible. I wanted queer actors in these queer
roles and so that's it's it's not without challenge, you know,
like this is an indie film for sure, but there
still is always like some sort of question about like okay,
who gets the movie made and stuff like that, which
you know, I roll on many levels because like, especially

(55:29):
when you're doing horror, I don't I don't believe that
you need big names.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
But oh my god, names did we get.

Speaker 10 (55:35):
And I was, I was writing letters to people years
before I had any business to do so, before we
had any funding, before we had a green light, before
we even had a yellow light.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
I was. I was writing to people and there were
many many no's.

Speaker 10 (55:51):
I got many nose along the way, but then I
would get a magically yes. And one of my first
magical yesses was Dominique Jackson and a legend exactly, and
she and I had a fantastic conversation. She related to
the material. She comes from New York night life. She

(56:11):
knows these streets. She and her colleagues back in the
day would fantasize in the green room about what they
would use to get out of the club should go down.
We talked about how like you know, women in her
and their acts would She had one friend in particularly
who had a but dazzled hammer that she carried around
for personal safety and the cops couldn't confiscate it because

(56:31):
it was rhinestoned and that was a prop for her,
and and so you know, we were just very spiritually
aligned on this, and you know, put and put dominic
Jackson in everything she is. She's she's agreed professional, she's
a great actor, she's funny, she's dreamed to work with.
And I do think that when when the script started

(56:51):
to go out with Dominique Jackson attached, I got a
little bit more interest, like, oh, I'm going to take
a second read at this.

Speaker 4 (56:58):
And and you know, Katie O'Brien was an early was
an early yes.

Speaker 10 (57:02):
And then but then you know, with casting, it becomes
the question of like, okay, but when it actually goes
are all the same people still available?

Speaker 4 (57:08):
Are they still down?

Speaker 10 (57:10):
You know, Katie had since we first connected, she got
she did love Lives Bleeding. She was literally on set
Mass Masterpiece, and she was literally on set in the
UK doing Mission Impossible while we were shooting Queens of
the Dead, which is why there is a special thanks
to Tom Cruise and our special thanks in the credits.
It kind of looks like a joke, but it is

(57:30):
very sincere We Tom, we sincerely thank you for releasing
Katie O'Brien to us. They let they worked with our schedule,
They helped, They helped fly her back to New Jersey
from the UK to New Jersey more than once so
that she could be doing both projects at the same time. Yeah,
and I was like, I was so nervous because I

(57:51):
knew that they definitely had a smoothie truck on set
on Mission Impossible, and we most definitely did not. And
you know, it was it was like, you know, it
felt like the I kept joking that it was like
she was going from the glittervich party to the young
party that she said, you know, but like, but you know,
our our set was we didn't have much as far

(58:12):
as bells and whistles and treats for people, but we
had a lot of heart and and this cast really
set the bar for morale, you know, because they they came.

Speaker 4 (58:22):
We did not have private trailers.

Speaker 10 (58:23):
We have family style meals, and it was a type
of set where like the second Ac and dominicqu Jackson
on a first name basis, And I think that that
is it's so it can be really rare to find that,
and and I think it really created a sense of
camaraderie and a sense of community and a sense of
we're in it together. And you know, I've been saying
a lot that, Like the story on camera is very

(58:46):
much like queer people sticking together to survive something crazy,
and that was the story behind the scenes too.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Like this was a very hard shoot, but the gays
got it done.

Speaker 10 (58:54):
We had ninety eight percent queer crew, department heads, all
the departments, you know, just down to everybody, props, hair wardrobe,
like ads, second ads, Like it was the community coming
together to get this movie done, the little gay zombie
movie that could. And as a result, these characters go

(59:17):
through an insane night without a strand of hair.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Out exactly everyone. That was why I was. I love
that you talked about casting authentically because something that I
loved about this when it comes to, you know, turning
the zombie story, flipping the script, is like I love
how it is about this rave this like one night,
the one night that you know we all have where

(59:40):
every weekend, if you're like in a quick space and
you're living in a squad and stuff, every night is
that we can, like every night can every party can
change your life, right, And I love that we get
that as the setting, so we still get so much
fun into personal drama and.

Speaker 11 (59:57):
Like play and actually a real in its own way
way more realistic look at the kind of interpersonal play
that you would have in a space like this.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
Because actually a lot of times, you know, you're Dawn
of the Dead's and those kind of incredible settings. Everybody
knows about. It's strangers, it's people who have been thrown
into this situation. And what I love about this is
that you really spent the time to make this a
found family. And it sounds like that's because that's what
it was on set. So could you talk a little
bit about showcasing that aspect of queer community while also

(01:00:32):
knowing you were going to have to have gorgeous makeup,
incredible fits and make it scary sometimes.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
Yes, you know, I.

Speaker 10 (01:00:40):
Was really interested in exploring the infighting and the tensions
within the community because queer nightlife is absolutely a space
of coming together, resistance, resilience, creativity, great parties, all of that,
but it is not without drama, it is not without
being you know, and as identity politics as identity opens

(01:01:04):
up in general and parties become a little bit more
identity agnostic.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
Everyone's welcome here.

Speaker 10 (01:01:08):
It's putting a bunch of queer people in the same
space that don't always know how to get along and
don't always have the same types of cultural ongoings, and like,
you know, the gay boys and the lesbians don't always
party the same way, and and yet here we are
in the same spaces. And it's beautiful and it can
also be hard, and it's both and and so I

(01:01:30):
really wanted to make sure that we captured some of
those because that's also a trope of a zombie film
that I think is a great one.

Speaker 4 (01:01:35):
It's like, you throw together.

Speaker 10 (01:01:36):
These people and life before, the life before is one thing,
and then you have this event and everything changes, perspective shifts,
the stakes are higher, and you know, people can really
people already get in each other's way, but in a crisis,
when there's a breakdown of communication, it can be even
height more extreme. And so that was one of the

(01:01:58):
first things that my co writer Aaron Judge and I
wanted to look at, was was like, how how within
this like this beautiful, wonderful community are there are there
problems and where do people not get along? And like
what about the age differences, Like we really wanted to
have the older gays and the younger gays at each
other's road a little bit, and that's what we see
in gen zy Tonic and Ego and and then you know,

(01:02:20):
we and then there's even the power struggle between Dre
and Pops to both kind of identify as the like
the alpha power dykes of their posse's but like, but
they come from different they come at it from different ways.
And you know, Pops has this career as a lawyer,
and Dre's promoting, promoting parties and and and so we
wanted to play with all of these these tensions. But

(01:02:41):
ultimately we really didn't want this to be a final
Girl movie. We did not want it to be whittled
down to one lone survivor. We felt it was important
to have most of our people survive. Spoiler alert, not
everybody survives, but we we do lose some beloveds, but
we we wanted most them to make it out, and
we wanted the survival to be because they stuck together

(01:03:04):
and they fought alongside each other. And that's the message
that we wanted to send. We wrote a bulk of this.
You know, we've been working on the story for nearly
eight years. It's a long time. It's evolved in many
many ways, but that was always true. We always that
was always the conceit of the story was that this
is about community and the community getting through this night together.

(01:03:26):
But we wrote the bulk of it during COVID, which
was a dark and scary, weird time, and we were like,
we don't want we don't want to see personally, we
didn't want to see something that was heavy and sad,
and like, you know, we wanted to make a movie
where you had a fun, banging credits track and you
like were leaving the theater with a little bit of
a dance move and like a little hope in your

(01:03:47):
heart and a smile on your face. And we just
felt like that that's what the world needed. And here
we are in twenty twenty five, and I'm so grateful
to IFC and Shutter that this.

Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
Movie is coming out now.

Speaker 10 (01:04:00):
You know, you make an indie film, you take it
to festival and it could be years before it gets
to release, and I just can't believe it. I can't
believe how lucky we are that this movie's actually coming
out in twenty twenty five, because the timing feels so important.
I just think the queer community is going through something
pretty intense right now. They're really scared and under attack

(01:04:21):
and erased. And I'm happy, so happy that this film
puts queer people on the screen, and it does it
in a way that's like colorful and joyous and you know,
just fun.

Speaker 4 (01:04:35):
And I think we just need a little bit of fun.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
Yeah, we do, we do that bit.

Speaker 4 (01:04:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (01:04:43):
You already kind of like went into my next question
there for you, but yeah, I did want to kind
of know what it is like to bring this film.
You know, you said you've been working on it for
eight years. What is it like for this film to
now be released into the world that is today, Like,
how does that feel?

Speaker 10 (01:05:01):
It feels surreal, it feels of course, there's like it
feels scary.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
I I'm like, oh my god, we're doing it. It's
we're putting it out. It's it feels magical.

Speaker 10 (01:05:12):
It feels like a dream come true. I just had
the experience of showing this film at NewFest Saturday.

Speaker 4 (01:05:20):
Night Love And and it.

Speaker 10 (01:05:22):
Was, Oh my god, what a divine experience to be
in a theater full of New York City queers, you know,
really the perfect audience for this movie. Yeah, and every
and every time they laughed or squealed, it was just
felt like a warm hug. And I have to say,
like I've i this has been such a long pregnancy,

(01:05:42):
and like it was such a hard labor, and now
that the baby's out, like there's this fear to share
the baby and passed the baby around. But I'm so
touched with how people have been like we'll be gentle
with the.

Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
Baby, like let us hold the baby.

Speaker 10 (01:05:56):
We like her, she's cute, she's you know, like we
can you know, I think there was I did have
a lot of anxiety around like, Okay, my name is
Tina Romero. People might read that and expect one thing,
and what they're going to get is something pretty different.
Like it's not it's not a gore fist, it's not
a it's not gonna scare you shitless. There are there
are there there are ways that this film is so

(01:06:18):
not a George Romero film. And I was, you know,
I'm nervous that people will be disappointed by that. But
I also firmly stand behind the film that I made
and I and I love the baby for who she is,
and it's very much a Tina Romero film. Yeah, And
so it's just I do hope that people are like
down to take this ride with me, because I really

(01:06:39):
wanted to capture my dad's spirit. I want his spirit
to shine through, because his spirit isn't me And I
loved him so much. I love the movies he made.
I love this monster he created, and and the part
the parts of the monster that resonate with me most
deeply are the parts of the monster that remind me
of him, Like he was this big, six foot four,

(01:06:59):
silly like walking muppet, you know, very very gentle giant
who love to laugh and love to be playful. And
I think that zombies are the most fun when they're
a little bit silly. So I wanted to bring that out.
And I do hope that that people can feel a
little bit of bub and feel a little bit of
the dawn of the Dead, and feel some of these

(01:07:21):
Romero these Romero things, while also like you know, coming
into a different kind of setting with me.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
And so so it feels great, it feels.

Speaker 10 (01:07:30):
So exciting, but you know, you go to film school
and your dream is to make a feature film and
maybe put that feature film on a big screen, and
it's happening, and I'm just over the moon.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Well, something I think is really exciting about it, too,
is the me and Common. We're talking about this before,
but this is a wide release and it's not just
going to your big up and city scent is even
though obviously like the New York Games, the LA Gays
like us, like this has made for us. We love it,
we love cinema, but like Common, this is playing.

Speaker 7 (01:08:00):
It's playing in Lawrenceville, Georgia, where I'm from, which is crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
Just how does that feel that for some kid who
just wanders in because it's cheap Tuesday and it's in
a cinema where they don't usually show this stuff but
maybe they have an extra screen, and so how does
it feel that, like somebody, this could be not only
their first you know, zombie movie if they're a teen
or whatever, but it could be their queer movie that
they find that becomes the one that they hang on

(01:08:26):
to that makes them love who they are. I mean,
we all have those films. How does that feel?

Speaker 10 (01:08:31):
It's honestly, it's so incredible. It's this is why I'm
so grateful to I f C. Because I do think
that there is I do think there are people in
states that are, you know, maybe a little bit less
blue than LA and New York that could really use
this movie who might really see themselves in one of
these characters. And I feel like it's it's just it's

(01:08:54):
so it's so exciting to put this full spectrum of
the lipiquitas, as you said, but it's so good on
on screen, you know, like it's we are in an
era where we don't have to code those things anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:09:11):
We don't have to be hidden. We can be out there.

Speaker 10 (01:09:13):
And and what I think is so special about this
movie is that it's like it's kind of like the
Queer Goonies. It's like it's it's like, this is a
posse of people and there's a lot of really delightful,
magical characters, and like I hope that people can find like,
oh yeah, I'm like a Kelsey or I'm like an Eco,
I'm like a Pops like I I you know, and
I hope that people do get to see it. I

(01:09:33):
really do. I want that for the people in Lawrenceville.
I want that for the people and and down in
North Carolina. Like you know, I think I really, I
really truly hope that this film does make it reach
out to these less urban places too.

Speaker 7 (01:09:49):
Do you know, we think that horror is a very
queer genre. Last thing before we let you go. Why
Why do you think that horror queer people horror so much?

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
Oh man? You know, because we like things extreme, you know.
We we're we we queer people are we can handle
a lot. We do handle a lot.

Speaker 10 (01:10:12):
And and like you know, just just like queer people
often like musicals, you know, I think we I like,
I think we we we are not afraid of things
being over the top, and and like horror is over
the top.

Speaker 6 (01:10:26):
You know.

Speaker 10 (01:10:27):
And it's also like there's I think there's a lot
of ways you can look at it, like we also are.
It's it's cathartic, you know, it's a way of it's
a way of externalizing a lot of dark ship that
we feel inside that we go through in the world.
And it's and you get to experience it in the
safety of your in the theater, the safety of your home.
And I think there's catharsist there. But and but then

(01:10:49):
I also think like aesthetically like you know.

Speaker 12 (01:10:52):
We we we Likeraankenstein, Crush felt exactly like there's just
it just I think it makes perfect sense that queer
people love horror and all types of horror.

Speaker 10 (01:11:04):
I think there's so many ways to go at it,
and there's like, you know, different strokes for different folks.
But at the end of the day, I do think
that this is like I hope this is kind of
a gateway horror for people. Yeah, for those who don't
really maybe are a little squeamish about blood or maybe
don't want to see, you know, a lot of violence
on camera.

Speaker 4 (01:11:24):
I think that this is an okay film.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Yeah, to check out. Well, you know that. Literally just
before we hoped on, I looked at my thing. It
was eleven fifty five. But I almost was gonna be
late to jump on because I texted my sister, who
will not watch a horror movie, and I sent her
the trailer and I said, I am so sure that
you will like this because she she loves drag culture,
she loves like fabulous women, like, she loves all the stuff,

(01:11:50):
she loves queerness, she loves all the stuff that is
in the movie. But she was like oh, I don't
watch spooky stuff. And I was like, you've watched Pray
Little Lias, Like if you can deal with that, it's
a suspenseful show, like this is fun, this is goofy,
it's gorgeous, it's sexy. So so don't worry. We're already
doing it. We were already spending the Gateway horror wad.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
Thank you, thank.

Speaker 10 (01:12:13):
You, because yes, at the end of the day, like
this is a film about the queer community, very much
created by the queer community, but I feel strongly that
everyone is invited to the party, and I really hope
that people even outside of the queer community have a
good time at this movie. And those of you who
don't really love horror, I think you'll have a good
time too.

Speaker 4 (01:12:33):
We put glitter in the Blood.

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
Hey, guys, glare in the blood. Thank you so much
for joining us to Thanks youving, Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:12:43):
You've both have been so lovely to talk to. Thank
you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:12:47):
All the next episodes of X ray Vision, we're diving
into news. That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Cepcion, I'm Rosie
Night and is a production of iHeart podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Our supervising producer is Abuza part.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wag.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Our theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Heidi our discord moderator.