Forbidden Zone (1980) User Reviews

If David Lynch Had Directed Betty Boop . . .

[chuckc · 8/10 · 22 August 2005]

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.

The weirdest most nonsensical musical you'll ever see!

[NateManD · 8/10 · 19 July 2005]

"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!

Extremely Original

[aimless-46 · 8/10 · 20 December 2005]

Danny Elfman's outlandish 1980 film "Forbidden Zone" has to be seen to be believed, and if you are not at least slightly demented you should probably pass on the seeing part. Imagine a cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", with lots of animation in the style Monty Python's Flying Circus and the rubbery Max Fleischer cartoons of the 1930's (which probably inspired much of the original Monty Python stuff anyway). Also deserving mention is the fact that this relatively low budget black and white film is a musical.

There are a lot of characters and the story is somewhat hard to follow so here is what I hope is a helpful summary. The Hercules family (father, mother, son, daughter, and grandfather) live in a house with a door to the Sixth Dimension a/k/a The Forbidden Zone (think Wonderland). Their daughter Frenchy (think Alice) and son Flash (who looks like third stooge Joe Besser in a cub scout uniform) go to school one day. When a gunfight erupts in the classroom Frenchy runs home.

Tripping on a roller skate she tumbles through the door into a large intestine and ends up in the sixth dimension, which is ruled by a King and Queen of dice-used instead of wonderland's playing cards. There are a lot of half-dressed wonderland type characters down there although only the Frog Footman looks the same. There is a shapely princess who runs around topless, a living chandelier that eventually decays into just a skeleton, a devil (Elfman) who is like Cab Calloway playing the Cheshire Cat, and a rival queen.

Frenchy's family and one of her classmates go into the Forbidden Zone to attempt a rescue. The film is a mix of live action and animation. The editor deserves a lot of credit because the whole thing is sequenced quite well and even has a strange unity. There are racist stereotypes (generally too silly to be offensive), lively swing music, and sets that look to have been painted and constructed by a third grade art class.

If this whole wacky concept sounds interesting you should check it out.

Merry Lunacy

[TonyDood · 4 August 2006]

I avoided this film for years even though I seek out movies that appear to have been created by people with "unstable" minds (Jodorowsky, Ken Russell, Lynch and Jess Franco). The problem was the box cover art. The cartoon of Susan Tyrrell is so lurid and 80's it was really off-putting. And the promise of "offensive" humor made it sound like a low-rent John Waters movie. I've gone beyond "it's fun to be shocked" movies and demand some quality.

How surprised I was when I finally gambled on this one! I had seen the last minutes on IFC or some cable station late one night while flipping channels. My first thoughts were probably like anyone's would be..."What. The. Hell?" There was "Tattoo" from "Fantasy Island," a bunch of tap-dancing bimbettes, dice, a French woman, a guy in drag, two bald-headed freaks in their jockstraps...and a guy in a gorilla suit (with a bra on, no less!) All jumping around singing, "The Forbidden Zone!" like they had drank about 6 quarts of caffeine! The image rivaled Fellini!

I finally rented the beautifully re-mastered DVD after still more concern about just what this movie WAS exactly. I was absolutely riveted for the entire running time. I can't think of a single movie in history like this one, and I've seen some real corkers! The opening musical number, using an old recording of the song "Some Of These Days" as a background track, is eye-poppingly brilliant. I still don't know how it was done, certainly not with the skills and technology of a low-budget filmmaker in 1980. But it speaks to me on an unconscious level, dark and brooding yet fanciful and jolly (the slick dancing butler who appears out of nowhere is one of the most delightfully ridiculous and satisfying surreal moments I've seen in years). I was very skeptical that the momentum and creativity could be sustained, and it never did reach that peak again (although the "Pico And Sepulveda," "Witche's Egg" and Alphabet numbers come close), but it couldn't have...I don't think it IS possible to sustain that level forever, it would drive the viewer away.

The plot, involving a family discovering a door that leads to the 6th dimension where a queen and king (the unbelievably game Ms. Tyrrell who deserves an award of some kind for her brave and perfect-pitch performance, and the charming Herve, who she was apparently dating at the time?), is absolutely superfluous, merely an excuse for the music and visuals, and I'd have it no other way personally. It's like "Alice In Wonderland." Any adaption that tries to assign a "story" to the proceedings has missed the point entirely; like a dream, there is an internal logic...but the rules and boundaries of reality are not welcome!

The film is creaky in places, of course...it shows it's no-budget roots frequently, the pace is so hectic as to be head-ache inducing in certain parts and most dismaying of all is the constant interruption of lewdness just for the sake of lewdness, as if the filmmaker's were all horny teens who wanted to get as much naughty sex and dirty humor in as possible (Hint: the probably were!) The acting is by-and-large, with the exception of the foul-mouthed, shrieking, Disney-queen-from-hell Ms. Tyrell, pretty amateurish, even though everyone throws themselves into the production full-force (the screen writer bravely spends the whole film running around in his underpants!) But what it lacks in maturity it makes up for in execution. I kept sitting there shaking my head...these are real dancers, the choreography is wonderful, the animation and effects are stunning...and you can't ignore the score!

I don't know how much tinkering has gone on with this re-master, but the things that Danny Elfman was doing with the film score, weaving it in and out with old 30's recordings and New Wave stylings, as well as his more familiar ska style of the 80's...it's just breathtaking. If you are any sort of fan of Elfman's work, soundtrack or otherwise, you probably already have this music. If you're still new to it as I was, you'll become an instant fan. You cannot deny it, Elfman is a genius.

Like anything that seems completely nonsensical at first (example, Fellini's Satyricon), a lot of things in this film probably make more sense the more you delve into it. The DVD features explain that the "tone" of the film is an attempt to capture the live performance style of Elfman and his early "Oingo Boingo" incarnation, as a theatrical troupe. There's the obvious reference to Fleischer/Betty Boop cartoons that don't get seen much anymore. I have no idea who "The Kipper Kids" were but I assume audiences at the time would have recognized them. Certainly Herve was recognizable, if hardly comforting, in the weird world of this film.

I take a great deal of comfort in knowing that the man at the helm of this film, Danny Elfman's brother, admits that he was not inspired to make this movie by the use of any drugs. All too often in today's world we are prone to assume that the only way someone can come up with something genuinely original, creative and surreal is to assume that chemicals are responsible. Certainly I can imagine the experience of watching this film in an altered state of mind would be a "trip." However, hats off to people who find and appreciate the merry lunacy and joyfully insane magic that can be found in the every day world...if you care to look! I'm sorry that the film didn't take the director anywhere, but not surprised...it's not something I would easily recommend to just anyone...but I'm glad Elfman seems to have enjoyed a revival of his project, and is getting some recognition

Why does it feel so good to be sooo bad?

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 4 March 2022]

"Forbidden Zone" is an utterly certifiable fantasy-musical that unsurprisingly has picked up a cult following in the 40 plus years since its release. It deals with a young woman, "Frenchy" (Marie-Pascale Elfman), who disappears into the title dimension through a door in her houses' basement. Her brother Flash (Phil Gordon) and grandfather (Hyman Diamond) embark on a quest to rescue her. Presiding over this dimension are diminutive king Fausto (Herve Villechaize) and his tyrannical queen (Susan Tyrrell).

The talented Richard Elfman co-wrote this with Martin Nicholson, Nicholas James, and another under-appreciated talent, Matthew Bright (who also appears on screen as Squeezit and Rene), and Richards' younger brother, pop star turned film composer Danny Elfman, wrote the tuneful soundtrack. Elfman, too, acts in front of the camera as Satan, and Marie-Pascale, to whom Richard was married at the time, served as production designer.

They clearly put a fair amount of effort into this genuinely strange feature that is packed to the brim with assorted, inspired bits of random weirdness (like a butler with a frogs' head named Bust Rod). The whole look of the film, in fact, has a really appreciable visual tackiness about it. This viewer saw the black & white theatrical version, and it's rich the way that it combines its outre sets with animation. All the performances tend towards the utterly flamboyant, but they definitely fit this material. Appearing in cameos are Warhol Factory veteran Viva (as the former queen) and the great character actor Joe Spinell (as a lusty sailor).

All in all, "Forbidden Zone" is truly like nothing else that this viewer has seen before. It actually outdoes films like "Phantom of the Paradise" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in terms of utter zaniness (however low-budget it may be).

Six out of 10.

a definitive 'take it or leave it' flick. I'll take more, please!

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 31 August 2008]

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson once said, "It never got weird enough for me." With all respect and love to that late-great Gonzo God, I wonder if he would eat those words following a viewing of this. This is truly one of the weirdest movies ever conceived, shot, executed, whatever-ed. But it's brilliance is in the fact that amid its chaos and delirious mayhem is that it's not really all that incoherent. It may not be any more or less crazy a piece of avant-garde experimentation than a super-obscure picture like Pussbucket.

The difference, I think, lies in professionalism. In a small way I'm reminded of Russ Meyer; Richard Elfman is a very careful director with his camera, never making a shot unintentionally out of focus or deranged in masturbatory terms, and with his production designer (if maybe it was just him and his wife who also financed the picture) create madness that can't exactly be called shoddy in production value. Like it or not, and I can imagine people definitely NOT liking this, there's some art going on here.

It's also the kind of movie you can't peg down. I was laughing mad throughout, almost convulsively at one other step after another in the 'plot' (and yes, there is one, once checked into the 'Zone' and the 6th dimension and the annals of the Queen and the family going through the zone), but is it entirely a comedy? Actually - yes, it is. But what kind of comedy? There's a sensibility that borrows heavily at times from those delightfully insane cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s (Un Iwerks' obscurer shorts come to mind), but only at times like bits in that classroom singing old songs.

There's also characters in black-face (yes, black-face), obvious caricatures of black people and Jews, a little person (the actor from Man with the Golden Gun), a guy with a giant frog head and a suit, and Satan. Did I mention it's a musical shot in black and white and that it's also like if Rocky Horror Picture Show wasn't likable for its badness but was genuinely f***ed-up as a true cult hit?

Enough trying to explain it- this is cult in the sense of Eraserhead or Ichi the Killer, or even one of the real old-school guards of the avant-garde like Jack SMith. You really do have to see it to believe it, and understand how much of a mix of forms and styles work its way into it, of the obvious and joyfully exaggerated "characters" (just between that one Queen with the hair and the little guy it could be enough, but then what about the little guy's new French mistress?), of the sudden title-cards, of the animations from time to time with most prominent example a travel down an intestine.

Not to mention the music, which is some of the purest genius in the picture (this and Blues Brothers, both good for a double feature not too oddly enough considering one specific song I need not mention here, are great wacky musicals of 1980). There's two facets: the usage of old blues and show-tunes of the 30s, almost like speakeasy songs, and then the songs of Oingo Boingo, Danny Elfman's equally weird band he had before becoming a composer. Needless to say he composes his first time here, and it's a great training ground for the likes of other great scores in Tim Burton's pictures; his one appearance as Satan is a howler, though overall he matches up to what his brother has to offer as a filmmaker of verve and daring.

How much you might respond positively to the daring of Forbidden Zone will depend on how seriously you take it. I don't think I got any profound life lessons, but if you can tap into the vibe of the picture then you got it made. It doesn't get much weirder than this, and I love it for it on whatever terms it makes as imaginative low-budget gonzo comedy.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot! Why was the movie made?

[rickmacnamara · 6/10 · 13 July 2022]

I used to own a VHS copy of this movie but didn't own a VHS player. When I finally watched it, I couldn't imagine why anyone would make a movie like this. And, maybe more importantly, who would watch it? It's like the dreams you might have with a 104 degree fever while taking shrooms. If John Waters and David Lynch made a live action cartoon with Max Fleischer, it might look something like this. And yet, as weird as it is, it's watchable and has an interesting score by Danny Elfman. I could only give a 6 because so much of this made no sense that I wasn't quite sure what I was reviewing.

Trashionate

[Ali_John_Catterall · 5/10 · 26 October 2009]

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.

Good Weird Fun!

[louisa_animaniac · 10/10 · 7 February 2002]

Just about the strangest thing I've ever seen. THIS cult classic puts "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" to shame if you ask me! Danny Elfman and The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo perform the music and they even make a strange appearance in the movie. Elfman shines in his brief but delectable role as Satan.

I'm certain that "Forbidden Zone" isn't for everyone, but its loopy, nutty humor will appeal to some folks... especially fans of Boingo. Give it a try! If you thought that Rocky Horror was weird, take a gander at THIS!!

Thoroughly weird in every way

[Red-Barracuda · 7/10 · 13 September 2021]

Now, this was STRANGE! It's a midnight movie which is so thoroughly unhinged it has to be seen to be believed! There is no point whatsoever doing a synopsis for this, its more instructive to just recall things about it. Its cartoony, it has a bunch of very strange songs, blatantly two-dimensional sets, bits of animation, a score that combines 30's jazz with spiky new wave, Fantasy Island's Hervé Villechaize as The King, human chandeliers, a dancing frog butler, a school from your nightmares (just wait until they do the alphabet song), intentionally offensive racial stereotypes and scenery chewing acting performances. Absolutely not accessible at all! Only to be approached by those willing to go full-fat weird! Every day's a school day right enough.

The reason the Fast Forward button was invented

[unsolicited-2 · 2/10 · 27 August 2006]

I first saw this when it was picked as a suggestion from my TiVo system. I like Danny Elfman and thought it might be interesting. On top of that, I'm a fan of Max Fleischer's work, and this started out with the look and feel of his 30s cartoon. With both of those, I thought it would hold my interest. I was wrong. Just a few minutes in, and I had the fast forward button down. I ran through it in about 15 minutes, and thought that was it.

Afterwards, I read some of the other reviews here and figured I didn't give it enough of a chance. I recorded it again and watched it through. There's 75 minutes of my life I'm not getting back.

I can't believe there aren't more bad reviews. Personally, I think it's because it's hard to get to the 10 line comment minimum. How many ways are there to say this is a waste of time?

The movie comes across as though it was made by a few junior high kids ready to outrage the world and thinking they can with breasts, profanity, and puke jokes. The characters are flat. The parody of "Swinging the Alphabet" is lame, essentially cobbling the tune, getting through A - E, hitting the obvious profanity a "F", and then having no idea where to go. The trip through the intestines to the expected landing doesn't work the first time, let alone the following ones.

Across the board, the entire movie is what you would expect from someone trying to "out-South Park" Stone and Parker without the ability to determine what is and isn't funny. This might be amusing if you're high. Otherwise, it's not.

A chaotic musical fetish!

[gothicgoblin1334 · 10/10 · 27 May 2006]

I very much enjoyed this movie and watch it again and again. What can I say? It's artistic and enjoyable, very much the kind of thing I like in movies. Also the fact of its' bizarre, dark and surreal mood and humour toward the film. It's like David Lynch's take on Betty Boop, that's how good it is! The characters are insane and possibly on drugs, the King is a sex-addicted monster, yet somehow a gentlemen to the woman he loves, one of the characters is well, uh, a transsexual, another character is a frog. I couldn't recommend it more for it is a musical fantasy giving to us by Richard Elfman. Seriously, leave it to the Elfmans' to give us one of the greatest musicals ever!

Unreal, surreal, a live-action cartoon

[xredgarnetx · 6/10 · 22 September 2007]

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.

How this inspired Tim Burton still puzzles me

[nipperoshea · 3/10 · 13 March 2006]

Me friend works at a videostore and recommended this movie to me saying it was the film that inspired Tim Burton to make films. I decided I'd give it a fair chance, as I do with most movies, but I honestly couldn't do it.

I expected a somewhat bizarre movie, but this movie seemed to have no point. I turned it off half way through, so I can't comment on the conclusion (which means, no chance of ruining it) but here are a few things that caught my attention in the film. WARNING: the following 4 - 5 lines may be considered a spoiler by some, although I highly doubt it.

Some of the women in the movie were played by horribly cross-dressed men. A guy who was killed in one scene came back to life in the next. All of the women in the Forbidden Zone run around topless. The first scene in the movie has nothing to do with the film and serves only to mention that the house was once owned by a pimp.

My friend who recommended it has watched it three times and still cannot find any hidden symbolism or purpose to the film. The acting is horrible (as can be expected with a low budget film), the sound effects are corny and the plot is nearly non-existent.

My Recommendation: Don't waste an hour and a half of your life, don't watch it.

A LYSERGIC LIVE-ACTION MAX FLEISCHER CARTOON...WITH OINGO BOINGO!!!

[EL BUNCHO · 3 January 2002]

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!

Perhaps the best movie ever made, definitely the weirdest!

[galaxis007 · 10/10 · 24 February 2005]

I love this movie, and I was lucky enough to be standing next to the filmmaker at an Oingo Boingo concert, so I mentioned to him that Oingo Boingo was a great band, but that movie they were in really blew! That put a smile on his face, especially when I said "just kidding, Richard" There is no way to describe this movie adequately. Yiddish humor, Cab Calloway and other oddball jazz tunes, sick animation, and totally fearless acting make this a real tour De force. There has never been, and will never be another movie even slightly similar to this one. So if you are a film or music buff, you need to see this, if only to realize the extent to which the medium of film can be taken by the most wildly creative and uninhibited minds. Now I want to learn more about this Elfman's body of work. His brother Danny's work I am familiar with and appreciative of. If anyone reads this and knows of more Richard Elfman films, won't you post the info for us please? Thanks!

How could I have never seen this?

[treemarc · 6/10 · 18 August 2005]

This is part of my Scarecrow Video Guide inspired movie-trek, after "Jerry & Tom".

As a rabid Oingo Boingo fan, I'm not sure why I had never seen this until now. Of course, it was hard to find until recently. I even managed 2 different large video stores in the 90s, and never saw a copy. But still, I had seen the band 4 times (a high number for someone living outside California), and had been somewhat active in bootleg trading- thanks to stumbling across their infamous 1976 Gong Show appearance and managing to get it on VHS. (It's common now, thanks to multiple GSN runs.) I even have a demo version of the theme song. But I had never seen the film before a week ago.

Of course, the Mystic Knights don't make their appearance until near the end, and most of the music isn't even original Elfman compositions. But it's still a key part of the OB legacy.

Can a non-fan appreciate it? As a film, it's a beyond-low budget piece of nonsense. More of a piece of performance art than a film, it's like a semi-pornographic Betty Boop cartoon brought to life and fed a bunch of LSD. The performances are awful, even from Oscar nominee Susan Tyrell. But Marie Pascale Elfman exudes a silly charm ("Hot damn...the sixth dimension!"), if you can make out what she's saying. And Herve Villechaize is a bit funnier than I expected. Of course, Danny Elfman as Satan was the highlight for me, but it's an all-too-brief segment. Instead of more Satan, we get endless scenes of old men dry humping everything they see- funny once, but annoying 6 times.

FZ has a reputation as a "shock" movie, but 25 years later, the only real shock is the racist material. I suppose the black-face scenes (maybe there was only one) could be a nod to the 20's and 30's cartoons on which the style is based. But the black pimps and gang members in the back of the classroom are out of place and unnecessary (although I did giggle at one of the gags.)

I'm giving it a reluctant 6 out of 10 just 'cause I'm an OB fanatic. Lower that score if you don't know what a Tender Lumpling is, and raise it if you have a high tolerance for excessive silliness.

Next on the movie trek- "Getting Any?"

I really wanted to like this film, but...

[shaxper · 2/10 · 21 December 2004]

I've been told that people either love or hate this film, that it was weird and random; that it made very little sense, and that it would appeal to my appreciation for the bizarre. Though initially skeptical, I was sold by these words of warning. These were all the proper ingredients for a perfect film.

Yet The Forbidden Zone, a compromise between Rocky Horror and Monty Python, directed with questionable funding, talent, and motives, didn't work for me. I feel that it's my duty in life to support all misunderstood cinematic acts of deranged genius, so it therefore troubles me that I don't feel compelled to celebrate this one. What could have gone wrong? I guess my search begins by attempting to define what makes a "weird" film work. In my opinion, there are two ways. The first is when a director leads you through the weirdness with care and craft. Even in a film like Napoleon Dynamite, which makes no attempt to explain or even acknowledge its own purposeless randomness, the director is very consciously presenting this as if it were perfectly normal of both life and cinema, creating carefully calculated reactions of confusion and humor. These films work because the directors make them work. They cause you to either embrace the weirdness or to at least appreciate it.

The second way in which a "weird" film can work is quite the opposite. A "weird" film can succeed when the director has no intention of making it weird. These are the much beloved "b-movies" made by directors who had fully intended to be taken seriously, but who were simply too bizarre to be seen as anything else. Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda is my favorite specimen of this kind of film. No one really knows what expectations Wood had for this film, but unrestrained laughter at a Satan with pipe cleaners for eyebrows certainly wasn't it. These films work because they present weirdness in its truest form, without the hindrance of a conscious lens attempting to frame and explain it. They are pure weirdness incarnate. No artificial ingredients added.

But The Forbidden Zone falls into neither of these categories. Its particular brand of weirdness can best be compared to a party. Imagine arriving at a friend's party and discovering that you don't know any of the guests. They all grew up together and know your friend intimately, which makes matters all the more awkward. Your friend makes only the most meager of attempts to introduce you and make you feel welcomed, so the conversation quickly descends into old stories and in-jokes with which you have no familiarity. The Forbidden Zone is this friend, whom you are dependent upon for clarity and involvement, but who makes no effort to tailor the conversation (film's content) to your level of understanding. Rather than make any effort to present it to you, it merely leaves you to bear witness to the madness, watching gags and humor that seem very entertaining to the actors and director, but which only manage to evade and confuse you.

I'm the kind of person who can find the unexpected use of the word "carrot" funny, so I don't consider myself a prude when it comes to off-kilter weirdness. But "carrot" can only be funny when we have some guess as to why it was said; what reaction it was intended to provoke. A stranger on the street, muttering "carrot" without context or helpful facial expression, is someone who causes us to move to the other side of the street and avoid eye contact. It's more an anomaly than humor. The Forbidden Zone rubs me the same way. The plot is incomprehensible, the humor is odd, over the top, and carelessly delivered, and as we watch this whole mess unravel, we're given no entrance point. We don't identify with the characters, we don't care about the plot, and we're not given any context for understanding the weirdness (which is everywhere). Granted, a film can do without any two of these things. But for all three to be absent, it leaves an audience with no incentive for following along.

The production value of this film is a similar problem. Imagine an amateur home video that some eight year old kids put together. Now imagine a masterpiece of cinematography, complete with ingenious special effects and evocative, expressionistic backgrounds. Now imagine a compromise, somewhere between the two, but far from being either. It's hard to tell when this mediocrity is fully intended, and when it's entirely accidental. No doubt the cardboard walls of Cell 63 are an intended part of the film's look and feel, but what do we make of the characters' entryway into the Forbidden Zone, which includes them pressing themselves against a wall with a giant mouth painted on it, for one second too long, before the scene cuts to a cartoon of them journeying down the esophagus? I personally have no idea.

This film does have some high points that almost make the view worthwhile. Danny Elfman's appearance as Satan is highly amusing for the first two seconds, before his subplot descends into similar incomprehensibility and then ends just as quickly. My favorite moment had to be the death of the queen, which was surprisingly well done and clearly quite funny. Unfortunately, it was not enough to redeem the film for me.

In all fairness, this film has no responsibility to make itself understood. It's important to keep in mind that this was a college project, no doubt produced for the pleasure of a very small and specific audience. In this sense, exclusive humor might well be appropriate. It's not Richard Elfman (director) who owes me a response to my dumbfounded "What the F***?" It's the fan base that I don't understand, the people who have kept this alive as a cult classic phenomenon. Clearly, they're seeing something in the film that I'm not, and that frustrates me beyond belief.

The Greatest Musical EVER MADE!!!

[zmaturin · 10/10 · 13 July 1999]

How shocked was I when my friend popped this tape into the VCR and my eyes were glued to the screen, riveted beyond comprehension. This movie, a kind of 1930s musical filtered through Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Fleisher Brothers cartoons, and a bad LSD trip. This is one of the most inventive, hilarious movies ever made, and I can't say enough good things about it. Find it today and watch it over and over and OVER!!!

Required Viewing

[pmtelefon · 7/10 · 9 August 2022]

I'm not saying that "Forbidden Zone" is good but serious film fan should see it at least once. I've seen it a bunch of times. With the exception of tonight, all of them were in the original black & white. Tonight I watched the colorized. They did a nice job with the colorization. The Princess looks great. But for the most part, I found it distracting. The cheap sets look cheaper. It also cools down the sleaziness of the original version. Also the new version also chickens out and changes some of the original characters' color but as long as the original version is still available, I'm fine with that. I understand.

Don't waste your time on this

[Loadmaster · 2/10 · 15 August 2003]

Even being drunk with a bunch of close friends, which is how I saw it, doesn't make it any more palatable.

This film sank many budding film careers, judging by how many of the actors appear in only this one little experiment in excrement. (One notable exception is Danny Elfman.) Hervé Villechaize is probably the best actor of the whole lot, which should give you some idea of the depth and quality of acting brought together in this bastard-piece.

Whoever pitched this idea to the producers must have forgotten to budget for sets or costumes; what they got looks like they snuck into an empty filming stage on some weekend and used whatever they could find in the way of costumes and sets lying about. The "teleportation" doorway is nothing more than - I kid you not - a large pair of buttocks drawn on a sheet hung loosely on the wall. So much for the "fantasy" angle.

I don't remember much about the film (thankfully), except for a few unsavory images of Herve permanently burned into my memory, and a vague recollection of a dance sequence near the end featuring someone resembling Cloris Leachman. I guess it's good that such a work is so forgettable, otherwise I'd be waking up screaming in the middle of the night from flashbacks.

I suppose this film might be a good source of campy entertainment for a suitably inebriated fraternity on an otherwise wasted Saturday afternoon.

Well, no, probably not.

The Elfman Brothers Are Creative Geniuses

[gavin6942 · 10/10 · 19 December 2006]

A strange tale involving heroin, a family of people who are mentally retarded and Jewish and French (but not at the same time), and a Sixth Dimension ruled over by a midget king. Featuring music by the Mystical Knights of the Oingo Boingo. Yeah, you want to see it now, I know.

Some people are going to be put off my this film because it is black and white, has weird music and animation, and the production cost was probably three dollars. But for those who like cult movies or want to see the seed that is Danny Elfman, this is your dream come true.

Richard Elfman (who went on to do a whole lot of nothing, apparently, besides becoming Scientologist spokeswoman Jenna Elfman's father-in-law) directs this odd blend of wacky nudity, singing, racially tasteless jokes and poorly simulated sex. Danny Elfman, who would go on to front Oingo Boingo and be a big time composer made the music, and stars as a very memorable Satan.

This film is very much in the same vein as "Rocky Horror Picture Show", though I actually prefer this film. Also, you can see how a weirdo like Tim Burton gets along with these guys.

I don't know what to say... the movie is really too weird to describe. A woman who sings in French, a topless princess, chained up fat ladies, a man with a frog's head... and the midget from "Fantasy Island". You really have to see it to believe it.

Your mouth will hit the floor!

[prisner6 · 7/10 · 10 March 2003]

I saw this film in a bar, but missed the title so had no idea what I was watching. I had to use IMDB to identify it, thank god Herve was in the cast.

This is the most visually disturbing film I have witnessed. We were glued to the screen, mouths agape. I though the guy dressed in a tuxedo and giant frog head molesting the topless girl might have been a little too much for my wife, but she was laughing like the rest of us.

If you can find it, WATCH IT. You won't be able to look away, I promise!!

Shrill freak show

[HEFILM · 2/10 · 3 October 2005]

I give this two stars for the Dr. Caligari like set design and a funny profane ABC song. The rest of it is unwatchable would be wanna be but ain't cult movie. Though it's in bad taste to mention this the main topless woman (and she's topless for the whole movie) has one breast that's obviously larger than the other. Was this the best they could do, or did they cast her on purpose because of that. Knowing the other works of director Elfman and writer Bright, odd instead of clever, usually tasteless and always noncommercial, it's probably no accident.

This is a claustrophobic mess that is almost unwatchable at feature length, not funny and willfully noncommercial. If you're own dope I'm sure this is better, but then again wouldn't a good movie on dope be even better than this stoner's idea of a one note joke that lasts a long long time? This is one of those films that seems to start over again every 6 minutes or so and will never end. It's no wonder it took a long time for Elfman to direct again. Writer Bright has had better luck, but don't bother with this one. Tune in if your curious but you'll tune out long before it's over or wish you had.