Tales from the Quadead Zone

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.

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.

There are not words in the English language or any language to describe the pure unadulterated evil which exists in this movie.

Imagine a 1980s camcorder with no boom mic and edited with a Commodore 64. I'm not saying that as an insult. Seriously try to imagine that.

I have no idea how this home made monstrosity was committed to video and got a release.

The plot: An anthology of horror starring Shirley; a black trash housewife reading from a book the size of Webster's Dictionary to a ghost. Since we never see the ghost we just have to presume it's there.

The first story focuses on a redneck family so poor their evening ritual is literally fighting to the death over sandwiches around the dinner table. The losers starve.

The eldest son decides to "take it to the next level" by bringing his toy shotgun and murdering his family members to assure himself a sandwich.

So how does this story conclude? It doesn't! It just ends! The first story is also the best. No kidding. It gets worse from here on. Far far worse.

The second story, 'The Brothers' focuses on two black brothers. After the elder's funeral his grave is robbed by the younger brother whom takes him back home to curse him out for 20 minutes about how he stole his wife. That's right! 20 minutes of one man cursing at a dead body! His ultimate revenge is to dress his brother's corpse up like a clown. But this somehow brings his brother back to life! The undead brother strangles his brother while saying something in a computer distorted voice. This distortion sounds like Steven Hawking on super fast forward in 'Twin Peaks' Black Lodge. It's unclear if the audience is even supposed to understand what he's saying and the distortion is intended make his voice sound scary, (now we know what inspired Christopher Nolan to computer distort Christian Bale's voice as Batman) or if the distortion was merely intending to be a scary scream.

With the word "quad" in the title, we'd presume this horror anthology would have four stories but that's it. Shirley's all done reading. There are only two stories! Now Shirley's abusive husband comes home to bitch smack her with the big book. He's angry that she's been talking with the dead. Let's deal with this issue on Steve Wilkos. "I beat her for necromancy." We can only hope that next Mr. Shirley beats up John Edward.

But Shirley busts a cap (cap gun) in her abusive husband. When the police (no they don't have police costumes or fake badges, they're just two guys with toy guns saying they're the police) arrive to arrest Shirley, she slits her own throat while sitting on the toilet. If only she burned her husband alive in his bed, or shot him while eating ice cream, then she'd have nothing to fear from the police.

This is tear your eyes out bad! Aside from the truly horrible "screenplay" the photography is like Abraham Zapruder with helmet cam and the audio is almost completely unintelligible. This is as bad as I gets. And yes, I've seen all of Michael Bay's films. Bay and Chester Novell Turner are destined to be cellmates in hell.

"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.

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.