Forbidden Zone

You haven't lived until you have seen Richard Elfman's FORBIDDEN ZONE, a 1980 bizarre mix of ALICE IN WONDERLAND and Fleischer Brothers' cartoons, especially the early Betty Boop ones. A young woman falls into the sixth dimension where she is imprisoned by a rather sadistic king and queen. Some of her relatives go looking for her. Along the way, she and they meet all sorts of odd people and creatures, even odder than they themselves are, and almost everyone breaks out into old songs at one point or another, some of them performed in tongues other than English. My favorite involves two pug-ugly boxers in a ring and a dullish young man singing with someone else's superimposed mouth in the front of the ring. I am yet to make it all the way through this sometimes hallucinatory movie, but I shall someday. I understand Elfman's brother, Danny, plays Satan, which I can't wait to see. Interesingly, the sets are right out of a bad high school production, consisting of handpainted cardboard, some cushions and little else. Some sequences are animated in a herky-jerky style. Susan Tyrell is the sixth dimension's angry queen, and Herve Villachaize is the randy king. I don't know who's worse. In fact, the acting by all is abominable, but I suspect this was done on purpose. Why, I have no idea. For the faint of heart, be aware there are naked breasts on display as well as lots of ethnic humor mixed in with a very gay sensibility. Also lots of vulgarities are expressed. Seems to me ZONE would not have been out of place as a stage play in the old East Village days. Not for mainstream audiences.

I first discovered this one during my early mania for the band Oingo Boingo back in the early 1980's. I was expecting anything other than what I got: a live-action Max Fleischer cartoon brimming with low-budget insanity! FORBIDDEN ZONE is balls-out strange, and a hell of a lot of fun for those with a taste for the odd. Truly unique in every way, it is sad to see that more films like this will probably never be made again in this era of big-budget drivel and rampaging political correctness.

FORBIDDEN ZONE follows the adventures of the almost indescribably weird Hercules family who have recently moved into a house whose basement contains the doorway to the 6th dimension. When their bathrobe-clad daughter Susan (who has been studying abroad in France, returning home with an outrageous French accent and now goes by the totally original nickname of "Frenchy") falls into the 6th dimension, all manner of looniness ensues. A tuxedoed frog-man, jockstrap wearing goons, animation that looks like it was done by an acidhead, a wonderful soundtrack that blends oddball rock and big band classics, the worst blackface makeup in film history, Squeezit "Chicken-boy" Henderson and his "sister" Renee, the funniest elementary school sequence in memory, Herve Villechaize as King Fausto, the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo and Danny Elfman as the devil himself...All this and more (!!!) in a ninety minute tour de force of unbridled imagination. HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!

I was so excited that this finally came out on DVD. My dad took us to see it ages ago when it first came out in theaters and it became an instant family favorite. That might sound weird since it's a bit on the racy side, but most of the sexuality is done in a very silly and, I think, innocent way, so it never made me feel awkward showing it to anyone.

I think it's the best musical ever and the low budget production works perfectly into the surreal plot. The actors are brilliant, a crazy cast that makes me laugh until it hurts.

Rent it! Buy it! Give a copy to a friend and blow their mind!

"Forbidden Zone" is up there on the list of strangest films of all time. It's a hell of a lot of fun, even though it doesn't make much sense. The film was created by Matthew Bright and Richard Elfman from the 80's rock band Oingo Boingo. They also did the film's music. The story concerns a family who buys a house from a drug dealer. Little do they know that it has a door that leads to the sixth dimension. The film becomes a crazed B&W surreal musical of comical strangeness. Tattoo of "Fantasy Island" plays the king of the sixth dimension. There's a depraved queen, a giant frog, a topless princess, drag queens, gigantic dice props and other things that you have to see to believe. It's as if John Waters and Jodorowsky teamed up to film "the Wizard of Oz" in black and white. The funniest part of the film has to be the guys wearing jockstraps who make musical fart noises while boxing. This is definitely not your average musical!

No live-action movie has ever captured the anarchic feel of the rubbery Max Fleischer cartoons of the 1930s better than "Forbidden Zone." It's an LSD-fueled Betty Boop picture mixed with "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Inferno," all filtered through David Lynch's kaleidoscope (or run through R. Crumb's Cuisinart).

The story, such as it is, deals with the adventures of Frenchy Hercules, who lives over a doorway to the "Sixth Dimension," which is ruled by King Fausto (Herve Villechaize) and Queen Doris (Susan Tyrrell) with sadomasochistic glee. The whole flick really fits the Betty Boop formula perfectly--a shapely heroine (who loves to rumba) falls from her own bizarre "reality" into an even stranger one. Much mayhem and cool swing music ensue, as Frenchy's brother and grandfather (playing the roles of Bimbo and Koko the Clown from the old Fleischer cartoons) try to rescue the unfortunate girl.

This strange mix of animation and live action really has to be seen to be believed--all very low budget and very imaginative (a quality sorely lacking in movies lately). Fans of Oingo Boingo won't want to miss this one (especially group leader Danny Elfman's Cab Calloway-like turn as Satan in the flick's best scene). There are racial and ethnic stereotypes galore, but since this movie seems to exist in an entirely different universe, it doesn't come across as offensive.

Not for everyone--but a "can't miss" for some. Worth seeing just for the musical numbers alone.