A few of you reading might be familiar with Danny Elfman. He’s one of the most popular and prolific film composers in the business, best known for his frequent collaborations with Tim Burton and his creation of the theme music for The Simpsons. Before he got so enmeshed into the film business, though, he was the frontman for an eccentric experimental music band in the 80s known as Oingo Boingo. He didn’t found the group, though; that was Danny Elfman’s brother Richard Elfman. Founded in 1972 as The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, the troupe was more of a surrealist theater troupe, performing strange entertainments on streets. When Richard wanted to move into film, though, he decided his first would be a sort of greatest hits compilation of the Mystic Knights’ performances. So, what do you get when you combine all of the many performances of an already surrealist troupe into one? Why, you get Forbidden Zone!
The plot of this movie is almost too strange to put into words. Nevertheless, I shall try my best. In a small, unassuming house owned by the dysfunctional Hercules family, there is a strange door that leads to the Sixth Dimension (the interdimensional gateway is also a giant small intestine). A local girl has already gone missing after going through it. When Frenchy, a girl in the Hercules family, returns home from her French studies abroad, she immediately ventures through, partly to look for the missing Rene, but mostly out of curiosity. Unfortunately for her, the sixth dimension is not called the Forbidden Zone for nothing, as she finds herself beset on all sides by danger, including King Fausto (who wants to marry Frenchy then take over the world with an army of zombies), Queen Doris (Fausto’s jealous wife), and Satan (who is played by Danny Elfman).
In addition to the charmingly bizarre story, the set design, costume, effects, and aesthetics need to be seen to be believed. Every single set is roughly handcrafted and painted, heavily stylized and obviously false. Every single costume is over-the-top to the point of parody. Every single effect makes no attempt to hide its status as such, as if actively showing off the strangeness that manipulating film is capable of. The entire movie oozes campy style and feels like a cartoon brought to life, which, incidentally, was exactly the intent, as Max Fleischer (father of Betty Boop) was one Richard Elfman’s greatest aesthetic influences on the project.
This is further emphasized by the soundtrack (by the way, did you know this was a musical? Now you do!). The heavily jazz and cabaret influenced musical numbers stick in one’s head long after the movie is over and make it worth coming back to on their own. Combined with the visuals, the entire movie is an experience unlike any other.
Now, for all that this movie has going for it, there is still one thing that must nevertheless be addressed that works against the film. It contains plenty of content that can be charitably described as highly offensive. There are some decidedly caricaturist portrayals of all manner of minorities, including women, dwarves, black people, Jewish people, and just about anybody else one can think of. Not that the majority are portrayed much better, but that doesn’t change the fact that many of these portrayals are still decidedly punching down. It’s not even a matter of it aging badly, as much of that content was the reason Forbidden Zone was relegated to being a midnight movie when released. Now, according to Richard Elfman, the intention for much of this was for it to parody casually discriminatory portrayals in other movies. While this might have been true (though claiming something to be satire is always an easy way to weasel out of trouble), there are still questions surrounding the ethics of this variety of satire. In all fairness, much of the elements described as homophobic were inspired by Elfman’s experience working at a drag troupe, the antisemitism can only be criticized so much considering that Elfman himself was of Jewish heritage, and Elfman went on record stating that he regretted the use of blackface in the movie, editing it out in his 2020 cut.
These controversial elements are still the main reason I can’t rate it a 10/10 much as I otherwise would want to. Whatever Elfman’s intent, those aspects are still questionable enough that watching the movie is uncomfortable at best. Nevertheless, it hasn’t been called “the Citizen Kane of underground movies” for nothing. The eye-catching visuals, the earworm music, and the charmingly insane plot make it a cinematic experience like none other, and almost indispensable for anybody who enjoys camp. For this reason, I will still rate it three hanging human chandeliers out of five, but I’m taking two off for some of the more inappropriate elements.
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