Forbidden Zone (film)



Forbidden Zone is a a completely bonkers musical directed and written by Richard Elfman and Matthew Bright (who would later direct Freeway) as a vehicle for the antics of their band, The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo. At the time, the band was a stage art troupe that would later become a successful New Wave and Ska band, with Richard's little brother Danny Elfman as its frontman.

The movie's story focuses on a family that moves into a house that has in the basement a door to the sixth dimension that they pretty much try to ignore, but when the eldest daughter returns from her studies in France, curiosity attracts her to investigate. Heavily inspired by Cab Calloway, Betty Boop cartoons and Underground Comics.

This movie is groundbreaking for being the first film that Danny Elfman ever composed a soundtrack for (no surprise considering his brother is the director and screenwriter, his brother's wife is the protagonist, and their father and grandfather both play characters in the film). Danny himself plays the devil while the rest of the original Oingo Boingo band (when it was known as The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo) are here as his minions. The film also includes a post-Fantasy Island Hervé Villechaize and pre-Cry-Baby Susan Tyrell.

The film had a huge influence on both Tim Burton and Paul Reubens, who first met while working on Pee-wee's Big Adventure. The decision was quickly made to base much of their film's visuals on Forbidden Zone, and to hire Danny Elfman to write the score. The rest is history.

""The queen said she was going to ream us with twelve-inch cattle prods... and I'm still waiting!""
 * Abusive Parents: Squeezit and Renee's parents.
 * Considering Fausto and Doris are the parents of The Princess, they count.
 * Badass Grandpa: More like mentally-distubed violent grandpa.
 * Busby Berkeley Number: Parodied.
 * Chew Toy: Squeezit to a ridiculous extent. Originally the scene when his father beats him while his mother laughs was going to be ten minutes long and the weird scene when he was going to say the pledge of alliance actually was going to have him castrated.
 * Cloudcuckooland: The sixth dimension. Reality isn't much normal in this film, though.
 * Cover Version: About a third of the songs are covers of 1930's songs, especially Cab Calloway ones.
 * And later, Danny Elfman would create a somewhat re-arranged version of the movie's title song to use as the opening theme for the TV show Dilbert.
 * According to an interview later on, he said he had nothing to do with that, and was surprised to hear that they had done so.
 * Crowd Song: Pico & Sepulveda, Queen's Revenge, The Alphabet Song and Finale.
 * Cut Song: "Johnny" and "Giter Brider Itzik"
 * Dead Baby Comedy
 * Dawson Casting: The actor playing 10 years-old Flash was in his early 70's, at least. All his classmates are also examples of this.
 * Deleted Scene: A scene where Gramps sings about his days as a wrestler.
 * Deliberately Monochrome: Well, maybe not deliberately. The director intended the black-and-white footage to be colorized by hand, but found it would be too costly to pull off; it's since been digitally colorized.
 * Deranged Animation: The intro and the sequences to the sixth dimension.
 * Deal with the Devil: Squeezit
 * Disney Villain Death:
 * Distant Duet: Queen's Revenge.
 * Down The Butt Hole: The only way to reach to the sixth dimension
 * Dysfunctional Family
 * Dysfunction Junction: The most normal character of the film is the wife-beating Norwegian-accented tarpit-working father.
 * Enforced Method Acting: Susan Tyrell and the actress playing the Ex-Queen hated each other; according to Elfman, they actually started fighting during the Cat Fight scene.
 * Erotic Eating: Lampshaded and averted with a polish sausage.
 * God Save Us From the Queen
 * Groin Attack: The frog manservant gets this a lot.
 * Improbable Hairstyle: Queen Doris
 * Innocent Fanservice Girl: While she's far from innocent, the Princess doesn't seem to be under any pressure to cover her breasts.
 * In the Style Of: Fleischer Bros. and early Warner Bros. Cartoons.
 * With a bit of Monty Python thrown in.
 * Jukebox Musical
 * Large Ham: Queen Doris of the sixth dimension.
 * Les Yay: The former queen and the current queen of the sixth dimension.
 * Little People Are Surreal
 * Ms. Fanservice: The Princess. Oh, the Princess.
 * Named After Somebody Famous: King Fausto and Susan B. Hercules.
 * No OSHA Compliance: La Brea Tar Pit Factory.
 * The Napoleon: King Fausto.
 * Black Comedy Rape
 * Refuge in Audacity
 * Romance on the Set: Herve Villechaize and Susan Tyrell. No, really.
 * Shout-Out: The whole Satan sequence is one on Betty Boop's Minnie The Moocher cartoon.
 * The Alphabet song is a cover of an old Three Stooges short.
 * Frenchy "sings" a Josephine Baker song, and Pa "sings" a Cab Calloway song.
 * Soundtrack Dissonance: Pa Hercules singing a joyful cover of Pico & Sepulveda with a chorus of men while going to their crappy job at La Brea Tar Pit Factory.
 * With a little bit of Lyrical Dissonance thrown in - "Where nobody's dreams...come...true!"
 * Spoiled Brat: The Princess, and to a lesser extent, Susan.
 * Stock Underwear: Aside from the mooks mentioned below (who wear jockstraps), everyone whose underwear is part of their costume wears tighty whiteys.
 * Those Two Guys: The boxer... mook... twins (?) whatever those two are.
 * Why, they're the Kipper Kids, bizarre British performance artists! They actually made a moderate career doing exactly what they did in the movie.
 * They also appeared on Bette Midler's "Mondo Beyondo" and breifly, dressed as Uncle Sam (both of them), in another cult favorite movie, "UHF."
 * And you can hear them singing "Playmate" in the first Addams Family movie.
 * The Speechless: Gramps Hercules and Bust Rod.
 * Title Drop
 * Twin Telepathy: The Henderson twins.
 * Talking to Himself: Several actors play two roles in the film, more memorable are the Henderson twins (Squeezit and Renneé)
 * Weirdness Censor: Do you have a gate to other dimensions in your basement? Just ignore it, and tie up grandpa to make sure he doesn't fall in.
 * Villain Song: "Witch's Egg" and "Queen's Revenge" by Queen Doris and "Squeezit The Moocher" by the devil
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: I am not saying the opposite, believe me.
 * What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Squeezit can talk with chickens.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser / Depraved Homosexual: Squeezit's "sister".