Review of Forbidden Zone (1982) by Brian S — 16 May 2010

Is There a Member of the Elfman Family Who Isn't Insane?

The funny thing is that I think Richard was doing a favour for Danny by getting him to score this. Oh, I'm sure it's also that he knew his younger brother was a fine and talented composer--he is, after all. He was getting his start in film, and Danny was getting his start in music, and why not work together? It is, notably, the first film for both of them. But Danny has done about seventy, and Richard . . . has not. Heck, Richard started a little band called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. (Richard's daughter-in-law, Jenna, is, I'm afraid, a Scientologist. But maybe there's hope for her anyway.) But about the only people who've even heard of Richard are the sort of people who are going to watch this movie in the first place. Oingo Boingo has dropped off most people's radar, assuming it was there in the first place, and while Danny is a four-time Oscar nominee, since he hasn't won yet, Richard hasn't even made it into an acceptance speech.

I have no idea what this film is about. There's this house, see, and in its basement is a portal to the Sixth Dimension. The family that lives in the house, the Hercules family, is as wild a bunch of degenerates as you'd find in a John Waters film. There's a school sequence for reasons I don't understand, including a bunch of black '70s gangster types, and about half the Hercules family attends the school. "French" Hercules (Marie-Pascale Elfman) is brought in . . . because . . . and does not fit in, so she goes back to the house and goes into the basement and into the Sixth Dimension . . . because. She is very popular with King Fausto (Hervé Villechaize), which rouses the jealousy of Queen Doris (Susan Tyrrell). And stuff happens. What? Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The Princess (Gisele Lindley) walks around topless through the whole picture, and prisoners in the Sixth Dimension wear mouse ears. Because.

Oh, I watched the whole thing. Now, okay, that's only about an hour and a quarter, but I watched it. The crazy intestinal opening to the Sixth Dimension? Check. The deeply disturbing dinner table sequences? Check. Danny's excellent turn as Satan? Check and double check. Great stuff, all of it. Except no, not really. I'm not even sure I'd list it as intersting. Visually striking? Sure. And, of course, the music's pretty good--though I don't think it's near as good as Danny's later work, and I don't even just mean what he's doing now. Even a few years later, when Boingo hit their stride. A couple of years later, when he met some young director by the name of Burton and hit it off. But the movie gives off the distinct impression of being weird for the sake of weird, not weird because the creators have anything to say. Or even weird because it's fun to them, as in [i]The Rocky Horror Picture Show[/i], to which it's been compared.

It's not even a particularly erotic film, for all it's filled with, well, things like the Princess's naked breasts. Danny feels somebody up at one point--I think his sister-in-law Marie-Pascale, but I'm not one hundred percent sure. King Fausto is supposed to be fixated on Frenchy, and Queen Doris is supposed to be insanely jealous of him, but it doesn't really seem to be anything more than formality, something to hang the plot on. I'm not sure Fausto even touches Frenchy, and if he does, it's not much and not for long. Mostly, she gets locked up in the cell with "all the king's other favorite concubines," but he doesn't touch any of them, either. There's a naked floating chandelier at one point (Kedric Wolfe, who also plays the school teacher), but it just doesn't do anything for me.

In short, maybe you need drugs. This, to me, is a great failing in a work of art. I'm told that drugs can enhance experiences, and yes, I've heard all sorts of stories about the great ideas people have while high on something. I've also been around some people who think they're [i]having[/i] those ideas. Maybe they are interesting when you're high. When you're not, they're stupid and annoying, mostly. There are exceptions, and I'll be the first to admit it. But great ideas are still great when experienced by someone with a clear head. Drug-inspired art and music only really works when it holds up sober. Drug-inspired science, of course, must hold up to the same standards as not-drug-inspired science. In short, if you have to appreciate it all on drugs, it's not worth the effort.