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.

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.

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.

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.

"Tales from the Quadead Zone" is an ultra-cheap horror movie/oddity shot on video from Chester Novell Turner,the man behind "Black Devil Doll from Hell".Turner is an enigmatic man.He was born in 1950,made his first feature film "Black Devil Doll from Hell" in 1984 (possibly in the Philadelphia area),made "Quadead Zone" three years later and supposedly died in a car crash in 1996."Black Devil Doll" star Shirley Jones reads her deceased son Bobby creepy tales from the book called "Tales from the Quadead Zone".The first one involves mass murder in the family of rednecks and the second one involves ghostly clown.After bloody shooting spree fat redneck dies on a gas chair(?)."Tales from the Quadead Zone" is gorier than "Black Devil Doll from Hell",but no less amateurish.There is pretty gory stabbing and suicidal throat slashing.Unforgettable and absurd "Tales from the Quadead Zone" is a must-see for fans of Z-grade trash.6 out of 10.