Forbidden Zone

Forbidden Zone (1980). Dir. Richard Elfman.

I had no idea. Having never heard of this film before I got the chance to see it was by far the best experience of my entire week. I still am not quite sure how to describe the experience of watching the movie, I mean it’s easy enough to cite some of the influences like Cab Calloway, early Fleischer cartoons, German Expressionism like Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, etc. But, that doesn’t convey the ways that this movie, in all its awkward fucked up splendor, caught ahold of my brain.

It’s like being tuned into a new reality, a totally new way of thinking. It’s the kind of place you’d love to visit, but not live. This is a film OBSESSED with the reality of artifice. From the flat cardboard sets to the semi-clad actresses, to the glaring fakeness of make-up, to the animated sequences that blend non-chalantly with the cartoonish ‘reality’.

This is the film that every ‘cult’ film wants to be, every off-kilter musical, every trashy gender-subversive John Waters wannabe, every syncretic pop-kitschual is just dying to inhabit this film’s vomit-bag.

I suggest if you’ve ever wanted MORE weirdness when watching Little Shop of Horrors, or the Rocky Horror Picture Show, or for the characters of Jodorowsky’s El Topo to break into song instead of into ritual, then this is your final destination.

Rent this film, ignore the detractors, ignore the cover art, ignore the OINGO BOINGO, ignore the Herve Villachez, ignore your taste, ignore that alarm bell ringing *racism*, *racism*, because these are beside the point. This is image, this is childhood shredded on the razors of adolescence, this is the disruption of difference by taking it into extremity. Why do you feel uncomfortable?