Tales From The QuadeaD Zone [1987]

From just the title screen I found myself saying, "I'm getting some Black Devil Doll From Hell vibes from this" not thinking about what I was saying too deeply. On a quick search twenty minutes into the film to figure out what the name of something was since the sound was so bad, we discovered the truth. Tales From The QuadeaD Zone is actually the second feature film of Chester N. Turner, his first being the most scarring movie we ever watched at movie night. I screamed, both in delight at how quickly I noticed the similarities and also fear of what this might mean, but thankfully this movie wasn't scarring at all. It wasn't particularly great either though. We also never learn what the QuadeaD Zone even is.

The film has a bit of a frame narrative. In the outer frame we have a woman who lives with the ghost of her dead zone. He has given her a book of tales to read him. How he manifested this book in the corporeal realm is never explained or even really commented on. The first tale is called "Food For ?" which is about a family or cult that doesn't have enough food to go around and apparently refuses to share and how each meal they have to grab for food when the bell rings and hope they're eating that night. One of the people grabs a gun one day and offs the right number of people so everyone can eat. The second tale is called "The Brother" and after a long build up of guys breaking into a funeral home without explanation and then stealing a body, we find out it's the body of one of their brothers. The brother plans to get revenge by dressing the body up like a clown and burying him in his basement instead of his fancy grave (the smell tho?). The brother's ghost inhabits the body and they fight to the death. Finally, we have the conclusion of the frame narrative. The woman's husband comes up and they fight, which ends in her stabbing him. The police arrive and she commits suicide in the bathroom while thinking about how she will be reunited with her son. The film ends with their ghosts sitting down to read more tales.

Like Devil Doll, this film has poor quality in all major movie aspects from editing to sound to writing. Some of it really drags and "The Brother" especially was really confusing at first. But unlike Devil Doll, I didn't have a PTSD moment recalling the film to write this post. Obviously the superior film. Adam has the two movie box set and apparently the film also has commentary from the director and lead actress, so that might be something worth exploring one day.

Spoon Rating: 3