When it comes to unclassifiable movies that just get dropped into a pile called cult, FORBIDDEN ZONE would have to be near the top. Set in a bizarre world ruled by a sex-crazed midget king (Herve Villechaize) and populated by his domineering wife (Susan Tyrrell), their beautiful topless daughter (Giselle Lindley), a giant dancing frog butler, a chicken boy, obese bikini-clad maidens, a machine gun-toting schoolteacher, a human chandelier, the irrepressible Hercules Family and Satan himself, it is a place where degraded beings of every imaginable kind run riot! And all set to music scored by a young Danny Elfman (who appears in the film as Satan). Elfman scored films such as CORPSE BRIDE; CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY; SPIDER-MAN 2; THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS; EDWARD SCISSORHANDS; BATMAN. The film is directed and co-written by Danny’s brother, Richard.
The Forbidden Zone resides in the bowels of the Hercules Family’s Venice Beach home through a mysterious portal into the Sixth Dimension…
Bored with another humdrum day at school, Susan B. “Frenchy” Hercules (played by Marie-Pascale Elfman, the director’s wife at the time) returns home intent on satisfying her curiosity concerning the strange door in the basement. On opening the door, Frenchy is sucked into an intestine-like passageway and flung headlong into the bizarre Forbidden Zone where she finds herself trapped and at the mercy of the vertically-challenged King Fausto, his wife, Queen Doris, and their spoiled and permanently topless daughter, Princess. It is up to her brother to rescue her, with the aid of her Grampa and her friend the chicken-boy. PRINCESS BRIDE it is not.
If the story wasn’t weird enough, it is shot in black and white on painted cardboard sets, making it look more like a theatre piece and mixed with stop-motion and line animation. The fact that it evolved from the stage show of the Elfman brothers’ musical group, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo-Boingo, goes some way to explain it.
Despite its obvious weirdness and deliberately low-budget production values, I was strangely entranced by it, and the music, a combination of original Elfman tunes and reworked classics by the likes of Cab Calloway, Josephine Baker, early Duke Ellington and Django Rheinhardt.
To me it was a giant cocktail made up of countless film and theatrical influences. Here’s my list, in no particular order, and if any of them appeal to you then give this movie a look.
Vaudeville; Burlesque cabaret; Busby Berkeley; Fellini; Marx Brothers; Three Stooges; Pee Wee Herman; Max Fleischer; Jan Svankmajer; John Waters; Troma; Tim Burton; Frank Zappa; Rocky Horror Show; James Whale; Ed Wood – you get the idea. Fans of SFL favourite, THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT, will find a kindred spirit in this film, although the cinematography of AMERICAN ASTRONAUT is far superior.
The FORBIDDEN ZONE DVD, released on August 14 by Arrow Films, has a new high-definition widescreen transfer and restored and remastered 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround soundtrack, along with a host of extras including commentaries by director Richard Elfman and co-writer/actor Matthew Bright. There is also a documentary, A Look Into The Forbidden Zone, with archive, behind the scenes footage, interviews and scenes from Elfman’s lost film, The Hercules Family.
FORBIDDEN ZONE can be ordered now from Amazon.