Forbidden Zone is an American absurdist musical fantasy comedy film produced and directed by independent filmmaker Richard Elfman,‘Bloody Bridget’ Exclusive Trailer – Richard Elfman Unleashes His Valentine Vampire! - Bloody Disgusting 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 composing debut of Danny Elfman, it stars Hervé Villechaize, Susan Tyrrell and members of the Mystic Knights, with appearances by Warhol superstar Viva, Joe Spinell and The Kipper Kids. Villechaize kicked his cheque back into production and even painted sets on weekends. The only paid actor was Phil Gordon, who played Flash; all the other SAG actors put their money back into the show.
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. Amid negative reactions to content in the film that had been perceived as being offensive, Forbidden Zone was screened as a midnight movie, where it was met with positive notices, and developed a large and eventually worldwide cult following. In 2004, the film was digitally restored and released on DVD, and in 2008, the film was colorized.
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 Slumlord Huckleberry P. Jones, stashing heroin in the basement of a vacant house that he owns, stumbles through a mysterious door to the Sixth Dimension. He promptly flees, retrieving the heroin, and sells the house to the Hercules family. On their way to school, teenaged siblings Susan "Frenchy" and Flash Hercules talk with their friend Squeezit Henderson. He recounts seeing a vision of his transgender sister René, who has recently fallen into the Sixth Dimension.
After a chaotic day at school, Frenchy returns home and investigates the basement's forbidden door. Falling into the Sixth Dimension, she is captured by the perpetually topless Princess and brought before the dwarf King Fausto and his queen, Doris. The king falls for Frenchy, and a jealous Doris orders their frog servant, Bust Rod, to lock her up. 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 asks Squeezit to help him rescue René and Frenchy. Squeezit is too scared, so Flash enlists the help of "Gramps" Hercules, a deranged former wrestler. Once in the Sixth Dimension, they receive advice from an old Jewish man but are soon captured by Bust Rod. Doris interrogates Flash and Gramps before lowering them into a septic tank, then sends all the denizens of Cell 63 to a torture chamber. The Princess begins to torture Frenchy with an electrical device, but it blows a fuse and the torture is put on hold.
Flash and Gramps escape the septic tank and come across a woman who says that she was once happily married to the king, until Doris supplanted her. They release the ex-queen, who has been sitting in her cell for 1,000 years, writing a screenplay to keep her sanity. Meanwhile, Pa Hercules carelessly ignites a vat of tar with a cigarette butt in his workplace at the La Brea Tar Pits. The resulting explosion blasts him through the stratosphere, and he falls back down through the basement and into the Sixth Dimension, where he too is imprisoned.
Finding a phone, Flash calls Squeezit and again asks for his help. Squeezit musters his courage and enters the Sixth Dimension, where he is immediately captured by Satan. They strike a deal: Squeezit will abduct the Princess, for whom Satan lusts, and in return Satan will help to free René and Frenchy. Squeezit brings the Princess, but since he omitted to bargain for his own freedom, Satan has him decapitated.
Fausto forces Bust Rod to release 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 disembodied head, which has grown wings instead of dying, finds the king and warns him. Fausto forcibly recruits Flash and Gramps, who have gotten distracted and are having sex with random concubines.
Doris prepares to have Frenchy thrown into a cage of feral Ottomans who will rape her to death and throw her body into a pit of spikes, but the ex-queen confronts her, pushing Bust Rod into the spike pit. As the two queens engage in a cat-fight, Doris distracts her rival with a kiss and throws her into the spike pit. Fausto arrives with Flash and Gramps, warning Doris that Satan is holding the Princess hostage and, per his agreement with Squeezit, will kill her if René and Frenchy are not freed. Ma Hercules enters and sees Flash lying on the ground, where Gramps has coincidentally knocked him over, and shoots Doris. Fausto comforts Doris as she dies in his arms, then throws her body into the spike pit. Meanwhile, the desperately horny René has willingly jumped into the cage of Ottomans and is having the time of her life.
After a (brief) period of mourning, Frenchy is crowned as Fausto's new queen, and the surviving characters gleefully plan to conquer 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 masseur The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo as Themselves
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 (voice of Cab Calloway) "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) – the masseur "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. As Richard's interest shifted to filmmaking, he passed leadership of the band to younger brother Danny Elfman. Danny, who had begun to lose interest in musical theatre, had gained interest in other musical styles such as ska, and had become "sick of lugging around so much stuff with the theatre troupe. Towards the end", he remembers, "it was a big production... there was, like a semi full of stuff. And that was becoming burdensome. So, for me, the idea of being a band that can fit all their gear into a van and set up in a club, and an hour later be playing, became a goal." Production began during a transitional period when the group was moving from its cabaret style towards a more pop/rock format; by the time the film was completed, the band had shortened its name to Oingo Boingo.
The film was originally conceived as The Hercules Family, a 16mm musical that consisted of twelve musical numbers and a story loosely constructed around them. But as the project grew to 35mm and the storyline evolved, Richard Elfman found himself re-shooting many of the original scenes to fit the new film. 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.
Marie-Pascale Elfman, at the time of shooting, was married to director Richard Elfman. She designed the film's expressionistic sets and starred in the film. Actor and former Mystic Knight Gene Cunningham helped fund the film. When Cunningham and Elfman ran out of money during production, Richard and Marie-Pascale Elfman helped finance by selling houses, before Carl Borack put money into the production in order for Elfman to complete the film. According to Elfman, he had originally intended the film to be screened in color, stating that the original plan was to ship the film to China, where each frame would be hand-tinted, but that this plan was not practical within the production costs. 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; Villechaize had previously dated co-star Susan Tyrrell. The Elfmans' grandfather, Herman Bernstein, also appeared in the film, and Richard Elfman's accountant appeared under the name "Hyman Diamond" because Elfman had no idea whether or not he wanted to be credited. Others who worked on the film include The Kipper Kids (Brian Routh and Martin von Haselberg), Joe Spinell, and former Warhol superstar Viva.
Writing