aw man where to start. Easilly hands down the trippiest movie ever made. So many flat out random things happen yet somewhere in between all these occurrences there still lies a plot. I cant really recall how i was able to follow what was going on but it happened. There are so many crazy bizarre characters you just cant turn away. King Fausto creeped me out and his wife was hilarious. Awe man watching this with my girlfriend we kept just looking at each other and saying w....t.....f. The weird cross dressing teacher with the weird lips what the heck was that all about. I honestly can not get over this movie it was so insane, is there anything remotely like this out there? i think not and if there is i need to know about it. Originality at its weirdest.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson once said, "It never got weird enough for me." With all respect and love to that late-great Gonzo God, I wonder if he would eat those words following a viewing of this. This is truly one of the weirdest movies ever conceived, shot, executed, whatever-ed. But it's brilliance is in the fact that amid its chaos and delirious mayhem is that it's not really all that incoherent. It may not be any more or less crazy a piece of avant-garde experimentation than a super-obscure picture like Pussbucket. The difference, I think, lies in professionalism. In a small way I'm reminded of Russ Meyer; Richard Elfman is a very careful director with his camera, never making a shot unintentionally out of focus or deranged in masturbatory terms, and with his production designer (if maybe it was just him and his wife who also financed the picture) create madness that can't exactly be called shoddy in production value. Like it or not, and I can imagine people definitely NOT liking this, there's some art going on here.It's also the kind of movie you can't peg down. I was laughing mad throughout, almost convulsively at one other step after another in the 'plot' (and yes, there is one, once checked into the 'Zone' and the 6th dimension and the annals of the Queen and the family going through the zone), but is it entirely a comedy? Actually - yes, it is. But what kind of comedy? There's a sensibility that borrows heavily at times from those delightfully insane cartoons from the 1920s and 1930s (Un Iwerks' obscurer shorts come to mind), but only at times like bits in that classroom singing old songs.There's also characters in black-face (yes, black-face), obvious caricatures of black people and Jews, a little person (the actor from Man with the Golden Gun), a guy with a giant frog head and a suit, and Satan. Did I mention it's a musical shot in black and white and that it's also like if Rocky Horror Picture Show wasn't likable for its badness but was genuinely f***ed-up as a true cult hit? Enough trying to explain it- this is cult in the sense of Eraserhead or Ichi the Killer, or even one of the real old-school guards of the avant-garde like Jack SMith. You really do have to see it to believe it, and understand how much of a mix of forms and styles work its way into it, of the obvious and joyfully exaggerated "characters" (just between that one Queen with the hair and the little guy it could be enough, but then what about the little guy's new French mistress?), of the sudden title-cards, of the animations from time to time with most prominent example a travel down an intestine.Not to mention the music, which is some of the purest genius in the picture (this and Blues Brothers, both good for a double feature not too oddly enough considering one specific song I need not mention here, are great wacky musicals of 1980). There's two facets: the usage of old blues and show-tunes of the 30s, almost like speakeasy songs, and then the songs of Oingo Boingo, Danny Elfman's equally weird band he had before becoming a composer. Needless to say he composes his first time here, and it's a great training ground for the likes of other great scores in Tim Burton's pictures; his one appearance as Satan is a howler, though overall he matches up to what his brother has to offer as a filmmaker of verve and daring.How much you might respond positively to the daring of Forbidden Zone will depend on how seriously you take it. I don't think I got any profound life lessons, but if you can tap into the vibe of the picture then you got it made. It doesn't get much weirder than this, and I love it for it on whatever terms it makes as imaginative low-budget gonzo comedy.

This black and white cult classic is genuinely amusing. It's so bizarre and stupid throughout, and one can assume that's all Richard Elfman could be going for.This is obviously low budget, but it looks great anyways. The sets look great, even though most of them are obviously cheap backdrops and made of paper. The cheapness in all the sets is not what Elfman was going for, however if one didn't know this was shot on such a small budget, you wouldn't notice. The acting is hilariously over the top, making this hilarious in a purposely bad way. The music, by Danny Elfman, is really great. Many of the songs are catchy, and the instrumentals written for them are very original, which can also be seen in Danny Elfman's later music.The negatives in the film, are how stupid it is throughout. The plot is so dumb, as are many of the pointless characters, and it's hard to sit and watch these characters for the mere time of 73 minutes. But if you can stand nonstop morbidity and stupidity, you will like this. For me, this was a usually amusing mixed bag.My rating: ** 1/2 out of ****. 73 mins. R for language, violence, nudity and sexual humor.

I thought that HEAD by the Monkees and 200 MOTELS by Frank Zappa were horrible, self-indulgent wastes of celluloid made by pop icons...but I may have to re-evaluate them after seeing something even worse, namely FORBIDDEN ZONE. Obviously, from the comments on this thread, there are lots of people who find this dreck entertaining, but it is hard to fathom.Sadism, racism, profanity, vulgarity, even bodily function jokes...yes, all the stuff that drunk or chemically-influenced college boys might find amusing...they're all here in profusion. About the only redeeming factors in this movie are the 30s music tracks, the clever animation, and the references to 30s films and musicians.This film is an example of what happens when an inbred group makes a movie without any accountability or quality control. Avoid it at all costs. (Trivia bit: this is Danny Elfman's first score, and even here he is using Steve Bartek to help with his arrangements. Bartek did orchestration duty on many of Elfman's later "legit" scores.)