Ali Catterall
First, some back-story: Richard and Danny Elfman grew up in South Central LA. In 1972 the precocious brothers formed a musical cabaret troupe called The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo.Under Richard's leadership The 'Knights (think Spike Jones' City Slickers or Viv Stanshall's Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band) covered old jazz and swing tunes, Cab Calloway and Josephine Baker numbers, and classical arrangements alongside multi-instrumentalist Danny's original material, such as 'You've Got Your Baby Back' about kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, all delivered in outrageous costumes and clown face. Danny sung 'St Louis Blues' every night and, years before Bono, donned devil horns to sing 'St James Infirmary'. The Residents and the B52s among other American New Wave bands, definitely owe them a debt.When Richard became more interested in film-making (though not to the point of doing anything so conventional as actually attending film school), he handed the group's reins to younger brother Danny, who began to steer the band toward a more rock-oriented (though still distinctly left-field) direction. In the late 1970s Richard decided to make a film that replicated the spirit of their live shows. The budget was raised by buying, renovating and selling houses. With money so tight, the film was shot in black and white, in a mixture of live action and animation.The resulting movie was Forbidden Zone. What a strange and near-incomprehensible thing it is. In a nutshell, the plot - belatedly built around a series of musical set pieces - goes like this: in the basement of a Venice Beach house belonging to the crazy Hercules family, including a supernaturally-strong Grampa and a middle-aged cub scout son, is a doorway that leads to the sixth dimension, accessed through an immense intestine. Among others, the sixth dimension is peopled by a butler frog, a gorilla, robot boxers, a human candelabra and a permanently topless princess.One day, Frenchy Hercules trips on a roller skate, stumbles through it, and meets little King Fausto, who is immediately smitten with her. Green (at least, grey) with envy, Queen Doris kidnaps the girl, while the rest of the Hercules clan, along with her friend, the 'chicken-boy' Squeezit Henderson, sets off to rescue her. Cast members, such as Gene Cunningham (aka Ugh-Fudge Bwana) were pooled from the band, their families and their associates.Boingo bassist and future writer-director Matthew Bright (aka 'Toshiro Boloney') was a childhood friend of Danny's and was roped in to play the twins Squeezit & René Henderson. Bright was considered ideal for the role of the put-upon twins, having endured gay taunts throughout his schooldays; Danny would always ask his older brother to protect him. Matthew in turn had been a roommate of tiny sensation Hervé Villechaize, the plane-spotting star of 'Fantasy Island', who'd play randy King Fausto. According to Bright, Hervé had a violent temper and liked firearms, once shooting himself in the arm by accident.Former Warhol ingénue Susan Tyrrell played his frustrated wife, Queen Doris. Tyrell was Hervé's real-life girlfriend. On first meeting him she says, "It's what I psychically knew all along - that I wanted to f*ck a midget. I used to say to him, "If you f*ck me, and I ever hear about it..." Gisele Lindley, an occasional performer with the 'Knights was cast as their wonky-breasted daughter. In a nod to his stage act, Danny cameoed as Satan singing Cab Calloway's 'Minnie The Moocher', and Richard's then-wife Marie-Pascale Elfman, another singer with the 'Knights, starred as Susan B 'Frenchy' Hercules and also designed the wonderful cardboard sets; in the years after splitting from Richard, she'd go on to become a respected painter. Her outrrrageous accent in the film, incidentally, was not put on. "I've talked to French people who said she had a weird accent," says her former husband.A real family film then, which suffers from the same affliction as most home movies; inclusive as hell, we often get the distinct impression these skits and antics are not necessarily for our benefit. With an 'otherness' worn so self-consciously it could quickly irritate the casual viewer, the feeling may be akin to showing up at a private party of street theatre performers where the guests have taken more drugs than you and whose collective DNA is already morphing into something unrecognisably human.Yet in truth, for all its 'out-there' cult credentials, Forbidden Zone doesn't have an original bone in its body. This doesn't make it any less of a diverting romp; simply one where you can box-tick the influences at the outset, including Tod Browning, the Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, and (especially) animators Max Fleischer, Robert Crumb and Terry Gilliam. With its typically 1970s trash aesthetic (where Ed Wood and Betty Paige meet Warhol and Waters), the most obvious comparsions can be made with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, although there's not many numbers here you could easily sing along with, Tyrrell's self-penned 'I Was Born From A Witch's Egg' excepted.Ironically, these weaknesses are also its strengths: the movie is such an over-the-top melange, it just about pulls through on sheer exuberance and reckless charm. But the real hero of Forbidden Zone is Danny Elfman and his dazzling score. His debut film soundtrack is also one of his most magnificent, incorporating rock operas, pseudo-classical passages, 1920s novelty songs like 'The Yiddish Charleston', and old jazz numbers with dextrous ease.As Tim Burton's future collaborator (and Forbidden Zone's influence on Burton, particularly his debut, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, is clear) Elfman would go on to cement a position as one of Hollywood's major players, with Boingo guitarist Steve Bartek as his orchestrator. The Boingos themselves split in 1995, having shed more of their name along the way, and are best known for contributing to a number of 1980s movie soundtracks, such as Weird Science. But as a showcase for Danny's gifts, and the enduring spirit of the Oingo Boingo, there is no greater legacy than this.
Kadath Bird
The midnight movie circuit is my home away from home, whenever I feel depressed I hop on over to the tower for their midnight showings. Recently, a re-release of Forbidden Zone in colour was playing, and previously only having a poor VHS copy I had to see it in the theater, plus I wondered what the bizarre world would look like in full colour.Forbidden Zone is something like a cross between John Waters & Terry Gilliam. Bizarre, surreal visuals permeate the film, as do quirky, offensive gags involving bodily fluids you've never even seen, and probably didn't want to. Despite the gross out humour and low budget, Forbidden Zone is a treat for the eyes, you'll never see a movie quite like it visually. In a way, the low budget actually makes it unique and only lends to the humorous atmosphere. The films soundtrack is a great mix between Danny Elfman's band, "The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo" (Who have an appearance in the film) and classic 1930's tunes. So all in all, FZ looks and sounds great.The plot is relatively simple: King Fausto and his Queen rule over The Sixth Dimension, a bizarre netherworld full of female slaves, fetishistic desires, and general chaotic insanity. The entrance to the Sixth Dimension lies in the basement of a house, the very house that the Hercules family moves into. The young daughter of the household, "Frenchy" (Because she's French, of course.) enters the Sixth Dimension through the door, and it only gets stranger from there. Exploding bald men speaking gibberish in jockstraps, frog butlers, Tattoo from fantasy island playing a horny king, and even Satan appear in the Sixth Dimension's bizarre plane.The film itself is absolutely hysterical. With all the strange sights on display, it uses them for some surprisingly funny shock humour, and even when the humour isn't in your face or easily visible or audible, you'll still be chuckling at the set design and strange quirks beneath the surface.If you consider yourself a fan of Midnight Movies, then why in the name of GOD haven't you seen this film? Go! Go now! Enter the Sixth Dimension, move in the wrong direction! Just see the damn movie!
Justin1983
I'm not going to bother describing the plot for the Forbidden Zone (I am assuming that if you are reading this review that you are familiar with this movie on some level), but if you are not familiar with the plot, just read a few of the first paragraphs of the synopsis at Wikipedia and you'll get the idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_ZoneMany of the films that came from the "Midnight Movies" camp of the '70s to early '80s are often close to unwatchable. But Forbidden Zone is actually pretty decent, especially in comparison. The film is really helped by the soundtrack (if you are a big fan of Oingo Boingo, you should have reason enough to see this film right there), creative art direction, and the nice and crisp black and white cinematography.Where the film does lose points with me is that it really is a film that is strange for the sake of being strange (and while there is nothing wrong with making something strange--if you make something that is strange for the sake of being strange, the results are rarely favorable). That being said, there really isn't that much substance behind the weirdness in the movie, and I can think of dozens of "strange" and "weird" movies that I would recommend before Forbidden Zone; but still, all in all, Forbidden Zone is a short movie and I was never bored (but then again, I was never enthralled either).The bottom line is that this is not a great film, it is a decent film. The Oingo Boingo soundtrack is the best thing going for it, but the art direction and cinematography come in a close second. If you were interested in a "strange" or "weird" musical cult-film, I would recommend something like the Talking Head's movie True Stories (1986) or The Billy Nayer Show's movie The American Astronaut (2001) before this film.NOTE: When the film was originally released it was panned for being seemingly racist. Honestly, the racist imagery used in the film is presented in a post-ironic manner (and I doubt that Danny Elfman or Richard Elfman are actually racist against Jewish and black people). But if racist imagery bothers you and you don't even begin to care about post-irony, then you might just want to skip this movie.
