Forbidden Zone
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Movie Reviews of Forbidden Zone
Movie Review: Uh, what just filled my TV screen???
Summary: 5 Stars
This film was passed around by friends for years. I found this movie perfect for parties with weird guests and for pulling all-nighters for work. Now that Richard Elfman and friends made it available, I had to get it.
For those of you who have seen the movie before, it is certainly worth buying a digital quality copy of a black and white movie. The picture is a little enhanced, but the music is GREATLY enhanced and sounds awesome. The documentary explains a lot about the movie's roots in The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo and shows lots of footage from tMKotOB shows. The commentary by Richard Elfman and Matthew "Squeezit" Bright was fitting in that it is nothing like typical movie commentary. It includes such comments like "How embarassed were you?" and "I SO wanted to #@$% her!"
For those of you who never watched this, let me sum it up. I never took illicit drugs in my life. Having watched The Forbidden Zone, I won't have to. This chaotic and bizarre trip to the Sixth Dimension is beyond belief. To give away the plot or suggest there WAS one would cheapen the experience. Like true art, everyone experiences something a little different. In the conventional sense, this movie was a cinematic abomination: incredibly cheap sets, terrible wardrobe, cheesy acting. But the net impact of the collective imaginations involved and the GREAT music is something you have to experience at least once. This is also the first movie Danny Elfman did music for. You will hear why he went on to do music for so many films.
It is certainly for late teens or adults only with nudity, simulated sexual acts and violence. There are some scenes that could be considered racist, but one of the filmmakers is Jewish and grew up in urban Los Angeles. The racial jokes are about people he knew most and grew up with first-hand experience.
So if you want to see a good movie, go get Shawshank Redemption. If you want a unique multimedia experience that'll stimulate your imagination and leave you dancing and rolling on the couch with laughter, you need a trip to the Forbidden Zone.
Movie Review: The coolest movie you've never seen...
Summary: 5 Stars
Once upon a time, way back in the 1970?s, there was a magical land called Southern California. It was in this place that two brothers, Richard and Danny Elfman, devised an avant-garde musical comedy troupe, called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. In 1980, they decided to form a loose story based around some of their performance pieces and make a movie. That movie is the legendary Forbidden Zone. Since my fourteen-year old vhs tape of this movie is rotting on the shelf as I write this, I couldn?t be happier to see its release on dvd.Okay, the film is a certified nut case of a movie, filmed over the course of maybe a week in and around the LA area. It?s in black and white, not because of any artistic vision ? it was just cheaper that way. But it works ? the film is a (tribute, send up?) of 1930?s era musicals, with standout music by Josephine Baker and Cab Calloway and centers around the Hercules family and the strange portal to the 6th Dimension that exists in their basement. The world this takes place in is filled with strange imagery, amazing music, and more oddities than a sane person could hope to count. We have a human-size dancing frog, jockstrap-clad Kipper Kids, Herv? Villechaize as the king of the 6th Dimension, a chicken-boy who is able to communicate telepathically with his transvestite brother, Joe Spinell as a drunker sailor, classroom violence, a Jewish wrestler fighting a guy in an ape suit, and Danny Elfman playing Satan while singing ?Minnie the Moocher.? You get the idea; this is not a normal film. Although it borrows from the works of Olsen & Johnson (Hellzapoppin? & Crazy House), this is still a truly unique cinema experience.
The advance word from Richard Elfman is that this dvd will have a re-mastered print of the film, deleted scenes, interviews, and archival footage! For any fan of Danny Elfman, Oingo Boingo, or just incredibly strange films made by talented people, you simply can?t miss this one.
Movie Review: Living in the Sixth Dimention, Things Get Rough
Summary: 5 Stars
Finally, the wait is over. The movie that Film Threat.com calls the "Citizen Kane of Underground movies" is coming to DVD. No longer will you have to watch your worn-out illicit VHS copy given to you by a friend of a friend.
For the uninitiated, Forbidden Zone may be one of the most surreal and rock and roll movies ever made. The plot involves a house inhabited by the Hercules family who discover a doorway that is a portal the Sixth Dimension. Lording over the alternate-reality is King Fausto and his Queen , who's marital problems are worsened when Fausto sets his eye on wooing Frenchy Hercules a sexy girl who has accidentally come across the Forbidden Zone.
The aesthetics of the film are that of a Betty Boop short on acid. Shot in black and white, all of the arty sets are made of cardboard. The acting is cartoonishly stylized, with many of the older actors playing younger child-like characters. Danny Elfman scores Forbidden Zone with the same frantic tenacity that he has exhibited throughout his entire career. Also featured are musical numbers lip-synched to songs Danny has found from the bottom of the barrel of the thirties hot jazz era that is such an inspiration for the film.
I can't say that Forbidden Zone is for everyone. It's bizarre narrative needs to be watched a few times to truly be followed. It contains enough playfully tasteless jokes in it to offend almost everyone. However one cannot deny its uniqueness and individuality. For a truly creative, weird and unforgettable cinematic experience nothing surpasses Forbidden Zone.
Movie Review: A dream for film geeks; a nightmare for others
Summary: 5 Stars
Just when I had given up hoping against hope that they would ever release this cult connoisseur's ultimate Holy Grail on DVD-(to paraphrase Michael Corleone) "they pull me back in"! Director Richard Elfman's sole contibution to cinema history remains, some 25 years later, one of its most memorable (if not exactly most "family-friendly"). Originally rated "X" upon its 1980 release, by today's standards, "Forbidden Zone" seems almost (dare I say it?) "charming", in its own twisted little fashion. Picture if you will, an artistic marriage between John Waters, Guy Maddin, Busby Berkeley and Rod Serling. Now imagine the wedding night (I'll give you a moment)...that comes close to describing this film. Suffice it to say, any film that features the late Herve Villechaize as the King of the Sixth Dimension, Susan Tyrell as his loving queen and Danny Elfman channeling Cab Calloway in a devil costume deserves 5 stars for sheer chutzpah alone. A beautifully restored print, dynamic sound and fascinating extras make this an almost Criterion-quality release. Director Elfman conducts recent interviews with several principals who collaborated on the film, including brother Danny (who made his debut as a soundtrack composer on this low-budget wonder and has since become one of the most successful artists in the field). The real delight in the extras is the rarely-interviewed Susan Tyrell, who spends a few minutes chatting with Elfman at a recent revival screening. Her candid comments regarding her off-screen romance with Villechaize have to be heard to be believed!Movie Review: An amazing cult classic
Summary: 5 Stars
Forbidden Zone could be the most eye-openingly bizarre film ever made, surpassing even Eraserhead. The fact that it is cheaply made and often inept is most definitely an asset - in a world this surreal conventional filmmaking techniques would seem out of place. In any case, there is no question that anyone interested in underground movies needs to purchase this. Its dismissal by critics and its unpopularity have both been unfair hamperings on its reputation. In actuality, its artistic vision is as singular and imaginative as Eraserhead's, or any cult classic for that matter. Rarely has cardboard been the vehicle for such a visionary production design.
There is so much to take note of - but I would single out the 'Bim bam boom' musical number with the mumbling boxers, the inexplicable antics in the classroom, and Danny Elfman's totally suave appearance as Satan towards the end as truly classic moments in the world of cult movies. They manage to be disturbingly surreal and amusingly silly and cartoonish at the same time. I want to extend my recommendation beyond the intellectuals and outsiders; even more conventionally-minded people may be taken in by Forbidden Zone's utter loopiness and triumphant imagination.