Tales from the Quadead Zone

In the '80s, if you had nothing but loose change in your pocket and wanted to make a film, you had to make do with what you had to hand: a camcorder, friends and family for the cast, and a pair of video recorders so that you could edit tape-to-tape, resulting in a loss of sound and picture quality. Most people who shot such movies had the decency to restrict showings of their 'art' to their nearest and dearest, but somehow, a few managed to get their home-made travesties out to a wider audience. One such auteur was Chester N. Turner, whose work is unique, if nothing else.

Tales From The Quadead Zone is Chester's attempt at a horror anthology (if two stories count as such), shot on a negligible budget, with an amateur cast, a risible script, pitiful special effects, and a plinkety, plonkety Casio organ soundtrack guaranteed to grate on the nerves.

After ugly opening credits featuring amateurish drawings by the film's star Shirley L. Jones, the stories begin as a mother (Jones, sporting an extremely nasty hairdo and huge glasses) reads to her ghostly son from a book titled Tales From The Quadead Zone...

The first tale, Food for ?, sees a poverty stricken family of eight, with only enough food for four, resorting to a game of 'fastest gets to eat' at mealtimes. Eventually, one of the sons, a fat guy in dungarees, snaps and shoots several of his siblings, leaving enough grub for those left alive. The story ends with the killer given the death sentence (executed in the 'state gas chair') and his parents 'living high on the hog in witness protection program'. Everything about this tale stinks, from the script, to the acting, to the music, to the editing -- but at least it is mercifully short.

The second story is even worse, and lasts a whole lot longer. 'The Brothers' stars Keefe L. Turner as Ted, who has planned to kill his older brother Fred for stealing his wife and driving her to commit suicide. However, before Ted can carry out his dastardly deed, big bro' suffers a fatal heart attack. Still thirsting for revenge, Ted steals Fred's body from the morgue and, in an interminable monologue, tells the corpse exactly what he thinks of him, before humiliating the stiff by dressing it up as a clown and digging a grave for it in the basement. This diabolical scheme has Ted in stitches (although Turner's incessant, insufferable howling is no laughing matter for the viewer). Fred doesn't see the funny side, however, and returns from the dead to stick a pitchfork in Ted's guts.

Having finished these two dreadful tales from the Quadead Zone, the mother changes her eye-wear for an equally huge pair before answering the door to her estranged husband, who proceeds to knock her about for reading to their dead son. The woman fights back, eventually stabbing her angry spouse with a knife. Bleeding to death, the husband calls the police, who arrive to find his body in the kitchen. His wife is arrested, but allowed to visit the bathroom before being carted away, where she reminisces about her son Bobby (flashbacks featuring even bigger spectacles), before slashing her throat with a razor blade. Twenty-one hours later, her spirit is reunited with her son (via some truly awful special effects), and the storytelling continues.

Inept in almost every way imaginable, Tales From The Quadead Zone has to be of the worst examples of home-made horror that I have seen. However, in an attempt to find something nice to say about the film, I did find Bobby's whispering ghost voice rather eerie (although the real horror is definitely that hair and those glasses).

Tales from the Quadead Zone (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A woman (Shirley Latanya Jones) is in her small house with the ghost of her dead son who wants to hear some stories. She sits him down in a chair and gets the book called Tales from the Quadead Zone and reads him two tales. The first story deals with a family of eight who only has enough food to feed four. The second story deals with a brother who steals the corpse of his much more successful and popular brother.

Yes, those are the two stories, which might confuse you since the title says "quad" and you might be expected four films. No, you get two and then a wrap-around story dealing with the mother and her ghost child but you have to wonder why a fourth film wasn't added or the title changed. Either way, this here is from filmmaker Chester Novell Turner whose previous movie BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL is without question one of the zaniest and wickedly bad movies ever made. This one here is just as bad on many levels but at the same time there's no question that both films has a certain charm if you're a fan of bad movies.

This thing here is certainly a mess because the first story dealing with the hungry family clocks in what seems like under ten minutes. The story is pretty much set up that the family is hungry and then it's over without any type of conclusion. A real head-scratcher of a sequence. The second story goes on and on and on with the brother constantly talking and laughing at the dead corpse. The first story should have been expanded and the second cut down for sure. Then there's the story with the mother and her dead son, which just drags out to get the running time to a total of 62 minutes!

If you're unaware of Chester Novell Turner then you should know that his movies were recorded on a camcorder with unprofessional actors. The camera-work is pretty bad and even worse is that a lot of times the added on music score is so loud that you can't hear the dialogue being said. Apparently the budget of this was just $11,000 and it certainly shows. With that said, there's no question this is a "bad" movie but if you're into these types of films then it's actually fairly entertaining. It's certainly feels long even at just 62 minutes but bad cinema lovers should eat it up. The rest should just avoid.

This is one of the weaker horror anthologies i have seen the light and sound are the worst and boy does it drag. A woman tells hers son who's a ghost some stories from a book called tales from the Quadead zone . The first story which is not even ten min's long is about a poor family who has to fight for there food one family member becomes becomes dangerously hungry the second story is about a angry brother who's more popular and favorite brother dies and he plans to bury him under the house in a clown suit there's one part where he goes on for 5 min's yelling at his brother saying he planned to kill him before he died. You feel bad for him his brother was a jerk always trying to one up him. Thats the last story from the book the movie ends with the woman's husband coming home and starting a fight which ends with him being stabbed.This is one of those shot on video movies that was filmed on a camcorder the sound is so bad when a ghost talks it non understandable the son sound like whispering when a scene is shot in a dark room it's pitch dark and for a movie thats only an hour long it drags there so much padding. The theme song is so off key it sound like some jive witch is singing it.

Ah, the good old days of VHS, when just about any cinematic turd could find a distributor - why else do you think so many of the movies shown on MST3K were released on VHS *before* that show was even aired? Tho I guess they had some standards; a direct to video release like Tales From the Quadead Zone probably would have never even qualified. And certainly not for a cinematic release, as the whole thing was shot on video. And it shows.

The second movie of Chester Novell Turner, who only made two films before forever disappearing into relative obscurity, shows that Chester Novell Turner is to writing what Chester Novell Turner is to directing. After a whole three minutes of lousy drawings and even lousier Casio keyboard music that makes up the movie's opening, we're introduced to the same ugly lady with the hideous hairdo that starred in the previous movie, The Black Devil Doll From Hell, who speaks to her crappy video effect of a dead son and reads him stories.

Obviously this movie is supposed to be a horror anthology like Tales from the Crypt, what with the premise and all, but for one thing, this film never even begins to work as a horror film; despite the title of the movie, there's only THREE stories in the entire film - and the third isn't even from the stupid book she reads! I don't think I need to even get into the storyline to tell you how awful this film is. Let's just say that both stories are neither interesting or terrifying, the audio mix is so bad that the awful and unfitting Casio music drowns out the already inaudible dialog.

This film really is best viewed with a group of friends while MST3K'ing the hell out of it.

Chester Novell Turner returns from (or to?) Black Devil Doll territory with this anthology, which barely even qualifies as an anthology, as the framework apparently counts as one story, and there are only two stories presented.

Shirley Jones returns as well to play a woman haunted by her dead son's invisible ghost. She reads him a pair of stories from a book, the first involves a hillbilly killing his family, off-screen, in order to eat their sandwiches at dinnertime. Or, at least she starts to tell him the story. Turner seemingly either ran out of money, or interest in it, because crummy intertitles abruptly finish the tale for her, and the audience, after a short run time.

The second is about a guy who tries to bury his dead brother under his house. For some strange reason, he feels compelled to shout profanities at the dead body before dressing him as a clown and digging the grave. For some even stranger reason, being dressed as a clown somehow reanimates his brother's corpse, the two men battle it out in the cellar, while dead clown brother recites from cue cards lines of dialogue, which is then heavilly distorted to make it unintelligible.

That is the extent of the stories read by this woman. The third tale is, one supposes, the story of her husband coming home and whacking her over the head with the book from Hell, before getting himself shot and killed by her.

Slightly less annoying than Novell's earlier Black Devil Doll From Hell, and not quite as technically inept (we don't hear high pitched buzzing noises on the soundtrack this time around) Truthfully, the dead clown brother segment wasn't bad, in a zero-budget, late night cable television sort of way, but I doubt I could endure this a second time.

The closing credits read: "Tales from the Quadead Zone will return", implying that a sequel might emerge, which, thankfully, never happened.