Tales from the Quadead Zone

This is sort of all about a book the way Black Devil Doll was about the Doll. Less out and out exploitation and better pacing set this beside that oddity as equally worth seeing for fans. Not only does this have the same Casio pre rap music score this time it has a title song!!!! It will sear your preconceptions of reality. So will "the clown" episode. So will the whispering sounds made by a dead little boy, and so will the ending.

The rest of the film is not on the same level of odd bad strangeness, it actually shows a better grasp of making a movie than Devil Doll which will make it I suppose a step down for some, but it retains much of the odd charm of that film and this time you get multiple stories each with its own oddness. This film is better acted and in many ways easier to watch, it doesn't have as many video glitches in it as Devil Doll did. Who would have thought that a short decade later video would be making inroads on traditional film production and a short decade after that be threatening film itself as a format. These little shot on video oddities show how far video has come. Wow! Poor sound remains major weak spot you'll have to play some things back a few times to hear every black-ed-wood type dialog moment that you should not miss.

Where is Chester Turner now? That's the big question, he deserves some discovery as a pioneer of shot on video horror. And someone please tell me if Black Devil Doll from Hell part 2 really exists or not.

After searching high and low I was finally able to procure a copy of this remarkable film. I have to say, it was worth the trouble. As bad movies go, this is the cream of the crop. Though not as wonderful as the splendidly terrible "Black Devil Doll From Hell", "Quadead" does manage to reach tremendous heights of amusement. Bad movie lovers everywhere should track down this film and marvel at its splendor.

C. M. Turner did it again with TALES... and this time it was even better! Rather then try to carry the entire running time of a movie by holding onto one story, Mr Turner throws out four stories to make it more interesting (?). Shirley Jones returns as the mother of a dead son who returns from the other side with a book, TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE. As she reads the stories to him they come to life on the screen. You just have to see it to believe it but this is one feat to ever make it into the public market. I am a die-hard bad movie enthusiast and I love this flick so if you don't like it, don't say I didn't warn you.

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).

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.