Richard Elfman's Forbidden Zone

Richard Elfman's Forbidden Zone

Forbidden Zone with music by the mystic knights of the oingo boingo

If I was going to name the film that influenced all of my films, I'd probably give this film as one of the most influential on what I did with films.  Richard Elfman started his street theater group 'The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo' in the early 70's after doing a stint in Jean Savary avant garde theatre troupe in France.  Essentially the mystic knights would do crazy max fleischer type of cartoon raunchy burlesque live action theater with old Cab Calloway standards and originals performed by Richard's younger brother Danny Elfman.  They played theater venues and eventally doing a stint on the gong show.  Danny Elfman was pulling the mystic knights to drop the theatrical elements and go more for a punk vibe ala XTC.   Eventually the Mystic Knights became the pop punk band Oingo Boingo which led to a successful scoring career for Danny Elfman (Batman, Spiderman, Planet of the Apes, Nightmare before the Christmas).

Frenchy sings to her class and teacher (played by Richard Elfman)

Richard wanted to capture the vibe of the insane theatrical experience of the mystic knights of the oingo boingo stage show on film.  He started with a 16mm film called the Hercules family that slowly morphed into the surreal Forbidden Zone.  A cartoon for all intents and purposes, the sets were made on paper and gave the film a weird surreal counterpoint to the crass non PC humor.  A gumbo mix of non PC humor, surreal antics, musical numbers, topless ice princesses, and horny frogs, Forbidden Zone would garner a huge world wide cult following. 

King Fausto and Queen Doris hold court in the sixth dimension!

The plot is the Hercules family moves into a new house and the basement leads to the sixth dimension where King Fausto (Hervé Villechaize) and Queen Doris (Susan Tyrell) hold perverted court. Squeezit and his drag brother Rene are followed by Frenchy who catches the heart of King Fausto.  Many crazy antics follow as the evil Queen Doris is given her just desserts.  There also the devil played by Danny Elfman and the rest of the mystic knights holding court.  If you cross a Betty Boop film with Jerry Springer you get the idea of the madness of the film.

There are two versions of the film, black and white and a recent colorized version.  The behind the scenes story of the film is pretty interesting, and I know that the sequel Forbidden Zone 2: Sex Galaxy is in production with a small segment featured on the spfx show Face Off.

Worth  a look for fans of Spandex and Monster.  Expect very non PC humor though!  It's a toss up which film of mine is the most influenced by Forbidden Zone, although I'd say it's probably Zeppo: Sinners from beyond the moon (complete with a cool music number by wunderkind producer Eric Butts).