For my first entry on this blog, I wanted to talk about the late 70s/early 80s surreal absurdist musical Forbidden Zone. This is a film that I saw many years ago and has always stood out in my head. It has a lot of aspects that I love: a crazy surreal feel, a creative mixture of mediums, oddball/demented music, and just the right amount of campy acting to pull it together. Being a fan of Oingo Boingo, when I heard that they had made a movie many years ago, I knew I had to seek it out. I was pleased to find that it was just as wild as I had hoped. To better understand the context in which this film was created, it’s worthwhile to explain the history of the band leading up to its creation.
The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo was essentially a performance act or street theatre group founded by Richard Elfman. Elfman was a Los Angeles native who got his start in musical theatre performing with the San Francisco group The Cockettes. He later moved to Paris and became part of the musical theatre group Le Grand Magic Circus, in which he would often play percussion. He would also develop a close relationship with one of the main performers Marie-Pascale, and the two would later marry. Richard’s younger brother, Danny Elfman, would also join the group as a violinist as well. Eventually, Richard and Marie decided to move back to L.A. and form their own troupe, which Richard dubbed The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, while Danny went on a tour of Africa (Bedouin). The Mystic Knights would play an assorted mix of different musical styles and covers (most notably those of Cab Calloway) and, when Danny later joined the group in the mid-70s as a musical director, would become even more theatrical, creating crazy characters and donning striking outfits. Danny would take over the band in the mid-70s as Richard got more interested in film-making, and by the late 70s expressed a desire to restructure the act into a more traditional rock band (well, perhaps “traditional” isn’t quite the right term, but you know). Richard decided to encapsulate the band’s original style by making a film based around it (Benson). Originally titled The Hercules Family, the film was set to be a series of performances with a loose story to connect them (Bedouin). However, as the concept developed, the film transformed into the cult classic we know today.
The film concerns the Hercules Family, an oddball family who recently purchased a house in Venice, California. The house contains a doorway in the basement that leads to a surreal underworld known as the Sixth Dimension. Recently, one of the Henderson twins, Rene (a perverted trans-girl) went through the door and was captured by the king and queen. The daughter of the family, Frenchy (who recently studied in Paris, ha ha), is immediately interested, despite warnings from her folks. After escaping from school during a shootout (it’s wackier than it sounds), she takes a trip through the basement portal and winds up in the Sixth Dimension, where she is taken before the king and queen. King Fausto is smitten with her and plans to make her his new queen, much to the anger of the current queen, Doris. Frenchy’s brother, Flash (with the “help” of their animalistic grandpa), unsuccessfully attempts to rescue Frenchy, while the Queen and the Princess try to kill Frenchy with what looks like an electric dildo, until the fuse blows and stops them, anyway. Meanwhile, Squeezit Henderson, Rene’s brother and resident butt-monkey, also launches a rescue, but ends up getting captured by the Devil and his minions (played by Danny Elfman and the Mystic Knights, respectively). He makes a deal with the Devil for Frenchy and Rene’s protection in exchange for the Princess. At this time, the Queen plans to toss Frenchy into a cage of over-sexed wild men who will rape her and throw her into a bed of spikes afterwards. Just then, the Old Queen who Doris forcibly replaced and who had met up with Flash earlier, cat-fights with Doris while Rene willingly gives herself to the men. Just as Doris kills the Old Queen and tries to kill Frenchy, King Fausto stops her, telling her that the Devil will kill the Princess if Doris kills Frenchy. Gramps Hercules knocks out Flash (they had both come with the king, or more accurately were forced to), and Ma Hercules, who had come looking for her kids, sees Flash knocked out and thinks that he is dead. She shoots Doris, assuming that Doris had killed him, and Doris dies in Fausto’s arms. Shortly thereafter, Fausto crowns Frenchy as his new Queen and the Forbidden Zone inhabitants proclaim their plan to conquer the entire Galaxy.
The way I would describe this film’s style is “John Waters meets The Fleischer Bros.” John Waters was known for making very campy, very low-budget films that featured deviant topics such as murder, rape, incest, cannibalism, and even good old shit-eating (e.g. Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living). The Fleischer Bros, on the other hand, were animators that often employed wacky and surreal elements to their work as well as a prominent jazz soundtrack (see Bimbo’s Initiation, Minnie the Moocher, Swing You Sinners). Whether or not these were influences (though I believe the latter was), I noticed a lot of similar elements from their works in this film. The film employs a very campy acting style with exaggerated expressions and line-deliveries. The characters are very outrageous and intentionally unrealistic, with child characters (i.e. Frenchy, Flash, Squeezit, and Rene) being played by obvious adults, a machine-gun toting schoolteacher, a man with a frog’s head, an almost entirely nude princess, two bald boxers in assless chaps who mostly speak gibberish, a random gorilla, and to top it all off, the devil himself……oh yeah, and one or two blackface characters and an old Jewish stereotype (I’ll get to those later). The film also makes use of animation, mostly drawn and cut-out with hints of pixilation. I found the incorporation of these styles to greatly aid the vibrant and crazy feel of the film. One of my favorite bits is a scene transition that uses pixilation to clear the actors off the set, cut-out to dispatch the background, and drawn dice to create the floor pattern that the next shot fades into. Creative usage of mediums like that shows a vision that is not limited by the budget yet also knows how to use what they have (plus, I have always been a fan of mixed media in visual arts). The usage of black and white and the very stage-y look of most of the settings also seems to recall the early days of film-making in general, back when film was considered a novelty and people were experimenting with what could be done with the medium [films like A Trip to the Moon or The Haunted House (1908)]. Richard Elfman has made a colorized version in recent years, though I would recommend viewing it in its original form first, as the black and white look of the original really brings the whole style to life.
The score and soundtrack for this movie is uniquely Boingo, full of odd new-wave-esque boings and chugs in manic compositions. The Factory theme is one of my personal favorites, being true to the feel that you would expect from that setting while still feeling off-kilter. The songs in the film are also very interesting, to say the least. The opening theme starts off with a low thumping bass riff before exploding into a raucous rock bit with an almost “theremin-synth” sound in the background, continuing into wonderfully demented singing from Danny Elfman and weird lyrics describing the danger of the Sixth Dimension while still maintaining a hint of humor (“The guards look scary but their clothes look really fine,” “Living without protection really sucks,” etc). Witch’s Egg is a very fitting song for Queen Doris, moving from commanding & dominant to swinging & partying to ominous & sinister, with maybe a slight hint of sadness at being unable to find companionship (which would make sense for where her character goes), but perhaps that’s just me. Queen’s Revenge sees Elfman dabbling with chant-singing, something that he would continue to utilize in Oingo Boingo (“Grey Matter,” “No Spill Blood,” “Wake Up, It’s 1984,” “Where Do All My Friends Go,” etc). The finale is the perfect ending number for this film, wrapping up the wild story, giving almost every character a chance to shine singing-wise, alluding to a potential follow-up (maybe), while also sneaking in some early Elfman-style “carousel choir,” which would later be used in the intro of the Beetlejuice cartoon series. In addition to these original songs, there are also reworked covers of and lip-synced performances of old songs from the 30s and 40s. Some, like Squeezit the Moocher and the Yiddishe Charleston, change the lyrics to better suit the plot. Others, like Le Petite Tonkinoise and Pico & Sepulveda, are literally just the characters lip-syncing to old recordings. Still others, like Some of these Days and Bim Bam Boom, are a hybrid of the two styles, which definitely floored me when the Hercules’ father flipped from gruff singing to Cab Calloway. I found the usage of these old tunes really added to the wild and absurdist feel of the film while also staying true to the blending of old and new styles that the Mystic Knights were known for. Overall, the music and songs in this film greatly enhance the film’s quirky vibe while at the same time tributing the old (30s/40s jazz, Mystic Knights) and ushering in the new (New Wave, Oingo Boingo, Elfman scores).
Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the more stereotypical characters in the film, such as the blackface-wearing pimp Huckleberry P Jones, the old Jew Mr. Bernstein, and the sexually deviant transgender Rene Henderson. The film, upon its original release, received backlash for these aspects, and I have no doubt that would still be the case today. However, Richard Elfman intended those depictions to be, as he puts it, “unabashedly politically incorrect, with something to offend everyone” (Elfman) rather than a racist or homophobic statement (it is worth noting that the Mr. Bernstein character was played by Elfman’s grandfather, who was actually just being himself in the role). I personally saw the film in the light he described, as it isn’t uncommon for certain forms of media to use stereotypes and the like for the sake of absurdist humor or even to mock how ridiculous the stereotypes are (e.g. Coonskin, Meet the Feebles, Drawn Together, Family Guy, South Park, etc). However, I can’t speak for everyone, as there are many that hold the viewpoint that any stereotypical depiction is wrong, even in an ironic context. I am also not a part of any of these minority groups, so I obviously can’t say for sure how these characters would be taken by those in said groups. Elfman himself has regretted the usage of blackface especially in recent years, saying “it was just one of hundreds of visual absurdities not at all important to the film and not worth it’s particular hot-button reaction” (Elfman). Ultimately, it’s up to the viewer to decide what they think about this element of the film, just know that the intent was closer to Drawn Together rather than Birth of a Nation.
Forbidden Zone is a wildly absurdist cult film full of strange characters, imaginative style and creativity, a fittingly quirky soundtrack, and a bit of non-PC humor for good measure. Being a cult film, it’s not going to be for everyone, but those that “get it” will definitely enjoy it. I’d definitely recommend it to fans of Oingo Boingo, as it perfectly captures their older Mystic Knights “surreal show-band” style while ushering in their oncoming “demented new wave” style, and even hinting at Danny Elfman’s later composing career. Also recommended for fans of 70s/80s underground films and old 20s/30s films/animation, since the film combines a lot of the quirky elements seen in both those eras. It is an incredibly unique film, and while there are a few other films with a similar concept or presentation (e.g. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phantom of the Paradise, Tommy), none have quite captured the same wild hybrid stylization that this film achieved.
Information sourced from:
- Beaudoin, Jedd. “Madness. Shame. Humiliation: Richard Elfman on Growing Up Absurd” PopMatters.com, 28 Oct 2015, https://www.popmatters.com/madness-shame-humiliation-richard-elfman-on-growing-up-absurd-2495490756.html
- Benson, Alex. “The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo: Danny Elfman’s Circus Theater Origins” Medium.com, 15 May 2018, https://medium.com/loopandreplay/mystic-knights-oingo-boingo-49f5170166a9
- Elfman, Richard. “FORBIDDEN ZONE and Political Correctness” DreadCentral.com, 2018, https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/273701/forbidden-zone-and-political-correctness/