Forbidden Zone

Forbidden Zone is an American absurdist musical fantasy comedy film produced and directed by independent filmmaker Richard Elfman, and co-written by Elfman and Matthew Bright. Shot in 1977 and 1978, the film premiered in 1980 and was distributed in 1982. Originally shot on black-and-white film, Forbidden Zone is based upon the stage performances of the Los Angeles theater troupe The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, of which Elfman, Bright and many of the cast and crew were a part, and revolves around an alternate universe accessed through a door in the house of the Hercules family.

The film was made as an attempt to capture the essence of The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo's live performances in a cinematic sense, and also as a means for both director Elfman to retire from music to work on film projects, and to serve as a transition between the group's former cabaret style and a new wave-based style.

Said Elfman, "Doing anything original is taking a chance. Financially it bankrupted me and we lost our house. But I'm still glad I did it (although I'd change a few things if I had a time machine, of course)."

A prospective sequel, entitled Forbidden Zone 2: The Forbidden Galaxy, has long been in development by Elfman, who launched a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2014 to raise an initial sum. As of 2019, the sequel is still in the stages of development but regularly updated and discussed by Elfman. Elfman has also licensed Forbidden Zone as an intellectual property for manufacturers to produce collectibles based on the film's characters.

Plot

On "Friday, April 17" at 4 p.m. in Venice, California, Huckleberry P. Jones (pimp, narcotics peddler, and slumlord) enters a vacant house that he owns. While stashing heroin in the basement, he stumbles upon a mysterious door and enters it, falling into the Sixth Dimension, from which he promptly escapes. After retrieving the heroin, he sells the house to the Hercules family. On their way to school, Frenchy Hercules and her brother Flash talk with Squeezit Henderson, who says that, while being beaten by his mother, he has a vision of his transgender sister René, who had fallen into the Sixth Dimension through the door in the Hercules' basement.

Frenchy returns home to confide in her mother, and decides to take a "little peek" behind the basement's forbidden door. There, she is captured by the perpetually topless Princess, who brings Frenchy to the rulers of the Sixth Dimension, the midget King Fausto and his queen, Doris. When the king falls for Frenchy, Doris orders their frog servant, Bust Rod, to lock her up. To make sure that Frenchy is not harmed, Fausto tells Bust Rod to take Frenchy to Cell 63, where the king keeps his favorite concubines (as well as René).

The next day at school, Flash tries to convince Squeezit to help him rescue René and Frenchy. When Squeezit refuses, Flash enlists the help of Gramps instead. In the Sixth Dimension, they speak to an old Jewish man who reveals how to help Frenchy escape, but they soon are captured by Bust Rod. Doris interrogates Flash and Gramps before lowering them into a septic tank. She then plots her revenge against Frenchy, relocating all the denizens of Cell 63 to a torture chamber. She leaves the Princess to oversee Frenchy's torture and execution. However, when a fuse is blown, the torture is put on hold and the prisoners from Cell 63 are relocated to keep the King from finding them.

After escaping the tank, Flash and Gramps come across a woman who says that she was once happily married to the king, until Doris stole the throne by seducing her. The ex-queen has been sitting in her cell for 1,000 years, and has been writing a screenplay to keep her sanity. Meanwhile, Pa Hercules is blasted through the stratosphere by an explosion caused by improperly extinguishing his cigarette in a vat of flammable tar during his work break at the La Brea Tar Pit Factory. After re-entry, Pa falls through the basement and into the Sixth Dimension, where he is imprisoned.

Finding a phone, Flash calls Squeezit and again asks for his help. Squeezit agrees to help rescue Frenchy and René. In the Sixth Dimension, he is captured by Satan, with whom he makes a deal to bring him the Princess in exchange for Satan's help freeing René and Frenchy. Squeezit accomplishes this task, but failed to include himself in the deal to rescue his friends, and the devil has him decapitated. Queen Doris sends Bust Rod to keep an eye on the king, and to ensure he does not find out where she has hidden Frenchy.

Fausto catches Bust Rod and forces him to lead him to Frenchy and René, whom he orders to leave the Sixth Dimension to avoid the Queen's wrath. However, en route to safety, René is stricken with pseudo-menstrual cramps, and they are again captured by the frog. Squeezit's head, which has now sprouted chicken wings, finds the king and reveals what has happened.

While preparing to kill Frenchy, Doris is confronted by the ex-queen, and the two engage in a cat-fight; Doris eventually coming out as the victor. Just as she is about to kill Frenchy, Fausto stops her, explaining that Satan's Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo are holding the Princess hostage, and will kill her should anything befall Frenchy. Flash and Gramps arrive, and Flash is knocked down by Gramps. Ma Hercules enters and, seeing a seemingly dead Flash, shoots Doris. Fausto mourns Doris, then marries Frenchy.

The surviving characters later plan to take over everyone and everything in the Galaxy.

Cast

Hervé Villechaize as King Fausto of the Sixth Dimension
Susan Tyrrell as Queen Doris of the Sixth Dimension / Ruth Henderson
Gisele Lindley as The Princess
Jan Stuart Schwartz as Bust Rod
Marie-Pascale Elfman as Susan B. "Frenchy" Hercules.
Virginia Rose as Ma Hercules
Ugh-Fudge Bwana (Gene Cunningham) as Huckleberry P. Jones / Pa Hercules
Phil Gordon as Flash Hercules
Hyman Diamond as Gramps Hercules
Toshiro Boloney as Squeezit Henderson / René Henderson
Danny Elfman as Satan
Viva as The Ex-Queen
Joe Spinell as Mr. Henderson
The Kipper Kids as Themselves
Kedric Wolfe as Miss Feldman / Human Chandelier
Herman Bernstein as Mr. Bernstein, the Old Yiddish Man
Richard Elfman as a masseuse and a prisoner

Musical numbers

"Forbidden Zone" (Danny Elfman) – Danny Elfman and The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo
"Some of These Days" (Shelton Brooks) – Pa Hercules, Frenchy and Ma Hercules
"Beautiful Dreamer" (excerpt) (Stephen Foster) – Ma Hercules
"La Petite Tonkinoise" (Vincent Scotto, Henri Christiné, Georges Villard) - Frenchy (voice of Josephine Baker)
"Bim Bam Boom" (Noro Morales, Johnny Camacho) - The Kipper Kids and Miguelito Valdés
"Witch's Egg" (Susan Tyrrell, Georg Michalski) – Doris
"Pleure" (Jérôme Savary) – Frenchy (voice of Josephine Baker)
"Alphabet Song" (D. Elfman) – Miss Feldman, Flash, Squeezit and Schoolkids
"Queen's Revenge" (D. Elfman) – Doris, Frenchy, Princess, René and Prisoners
"Pico and Sepulveda" (Eddie Maxwell, Jule Styne) – Pa Hercules and Chorus (voices of Felix Figueroa & His Orchestra)
"Squeezit the Moocher" (Cab Calloway, Irving Mills, D. Elfman) – Squeezit, The Princess, Satan and The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo
"Yiddishe Charleston" (Billy Rose, Fred Fisher) – Mr. Bernstein and Doris
"Finale" (D. Elfman, R. Elfman, Nicholas James) – Frenchy, Fausto, Princess, Doris, Ex-Queen, The Kipper Kids, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, Flash, Gramps, René, Squeezit, Huckleberry and Company

Production

Development

The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo were formed in late 1972 by Richard Elfman, as a musical theatre troupe. Two sequences from the original 16mm footage were featured on the 2004 DVD release: one of Danny Elfman, as Satan, performing "Minnie the Moocher" (later reshot with visual elements borrowed from the original 16mm sequence and alternate lyrics), and another of Marie-Pascale Elfman, singing "Johnny". The sequence with Elfman as Satan, and members of the Oingo Boingo as his minions, came from live shows, in which the band would perform Cab Calloway tunes like "St. James Infirmary Blues" in the same costumes. Elfman ultimately went bankrupt during the production of Forbidden Zone and had to assign the rights away in order to finish the film; in 2015, Elfman regained the full rights to Forbidden Zone.

Casting

Actor Hervé Villechaize was a former roommate of co-writer and co-star Matthew Bright; and added three theatres in San Francisco, Seattle, and Columbus in May. The film received another limited theatrical release through The Samuel Goldwyn Company in 1982. Following its theatrical run, Forbidden Zone fell out of circulation for roughly twenty years, though bootleg recordings helped find the film new life as a highly sought-after and well-regarded cult film. the film has a score of 83% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.6/10.

Home media

The film was digitally restored and released on Region 1 DVD by Fantoma in 2004, receiving a Region 2 release by Arrow Film Distributors Ltd. in 2006. and was later screened in exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art in 2010. Arrow released a Blu-Ray edition in the UK in 2012, followed by "Ultimate Edition" North American Blu-Ray and DVD releases by MVD Entertainment Group in 2015; all contained both the black-and-white and color versions.

Controversies

Upon its original release, Forbidden Zone was singled out for criticism for its use of broadly-drawn racist, homophobic, antisemitic and anti-Christian visuals and characters. Elfman, himself of Jewish heritage, has disputed many of these accusations, noting that elements seen as homophobic were inspired by his time as a director and occasional performer in the San Francisco avant-garde drag troupe The Cockettes, while the character of "Mr. Bernstein", accused of being an exaggerated Jewish stereotype, was played by Elfman's Jewish grandfather Herman Bernstein, of whom Elfman wryly asserted "wasn't acting".

Legacy

Sequel

In June 2009, it was revealed through an entry on IMDb that Elfman had been developing a sequel to Forbidden Zone entitled Forbidden Zone 2: The Forbidden Galaxy. The prospective project was more formally detailed in March 2014 when Elfman launched a successful crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo to raise part of the film's financing. As of the campaign's most recent update in May 2023, Elfman confirmed the project is "still alive" and noting that he "will not give up on FZ2", describing Forbidden Zone 2 as "number one on his ." "As long as I am breathing, I will do Forbidden Zone 2!"

Mixed media

Richard Elfman entered into a licensing deal with the creative resource company, PANGEA, to provide licensees with the opportunity to create merchandise based on the cult film. According to articles that appeared in the media on May 3, 2016, the arrangement calls for content to be created that will include a Storyboard Book of the original film, featuring commentary and anecdotal notes from director. Shot glasses and sculpted pieces were among the list of immediate items that would be released. A fantasy novella series was also noted as being under development.

The Syfy Channel has run a teaser piece musical number, "Princess Polly" from Forbidden Zone 2: The Forbidden Galaxy on its show The Monster Man, starring Cleve Hall. Elfman opens the Forbidden Zone shadow cast shows (after the march in) with Erin Holt singing Princess Polly live in front of her screened “monster” image on stage.

References

External links