Forbidden Zone
Forbidden Zone
R | 15 March 1980 (USA)
Forbidden Zone Trailers

A mysterious door in the basement of the Hercules house leads to the Sixth Dimension by way of a gigantic set of intestine. When Frenchy slips through the door, King Fausto falls in love with her. The jealous Queen Doris takes Frenchy prisoner, and it is up to the Hercules family and friend Squeezit Henderson to rescue her.

Reviews
Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable
Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.
Sorpse 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.
MisterWhiplash 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.
Cristian Movies can take us to different kind of worlds, that is one of the variety of powers that cinema have, even, movies can take to us to the Sixth Dimension, and that is what "Forbidden Zone" do."Forbidden Zone" is an totally illogical movie, silly, sticky and funny, and , if this film have this kind of things, make it some difficult to some with a close mind. But those who loves fantastic, for nothing logical adventures, or some bizarre and entertainingly story this is THE movie. "Forbidden Zone" is the story of a place called the Sixth Dimension, which is reign by the King Fausto and the Queen Doris. There is a door who let you enter to this rare world, which locates it in the new house of the Hercules family. There is the beautiful "Frenchy" Hercules, a girl with a lot of curiosity. She decides to enter, and she don't knows the crazy adventure she going to pass."Forbidden Zone" is a wild and original movie, irreverent and totally rough, but is, of course, totally beautiful and artistic. This movie is like a story for midnight,it is a funny one, comic and very easy to digest, as is must to be mention that is a feast for eyes and ears. The music here is really awesome, just for called some as "One of these Days", "Pico and Sepulveda", "Witch's Egg", "Queen Revenge" and that big "Finale" (Writting for that great musician named as Danny Elfman). The scenario is like is a kind of mix of that old 50s and 60s Sci Fi movies (Noted this with the Black and White tone) with a comic book. "Forbidden Zone" got it all! Althoug that i found it really fun, i enjoyed too as art. This is a crazy artistic movie which tell us the story of a world full of strange situations, eccentric scenarios and elements (Some of the scenes in the long table and that candelabrum can be a certain example). I found it even more cozy than "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", another piece of crazy cinema, but the both have the merits. There are other characteristics as is the animation. God! That is another artistic quality, is, as i say, as a cartoon between the reality and the fictitious, that is what this movie is. You as a fan of fantasy and twisted but funny movies going to loved it.This is the "Forbidden Zone", a movie which going to take you to a different, strange place, full of extravagant situations, as its characters, and is exactly about that, is a view of a different illogical (In our context) world, but is maybe as in the "Pico and Sepulveda" Song, the reality, i mean in that world, Mr. Hercules told us "Pico and Sepulveda ... Where nobody's dream come true", but then, beyond in the Sixth Dimension, there something different, maybe is a place where dreams can be true, or at least be different to the rest to reality."Forbidden Zone" is about it ... is about fun, is about art, and is about passing a good time and is of curse a way to scape to another reality.*Sorry for the mistakes...well, if there any.
xredgarnetx You haven't lived until you have seen Richard Elfman's FORBIDDEN ZONE, a 1980 bizarre mix of ALICE IN WONDERLAND and Fleischer Brothers' cartoons, especially the early Betty Boop ones. A young woman falls into the sixth dimension where she is imprisoned by a rather sadistic king and queen. Some of her relatives go looking for her. Along the way, she and they meet all sorts of odd people and creatures, even odder than they themselves are, and almost everyone breaks out into old songs at one point or another, some of them performed in tongues other than English. My favorite involves two pug-ugly boxers in a ring and a dullish young man singing with someone else's superimposed mouth in the front of the ring. I am yet to make it all the way through this sometimes hallucinatory movie, but I shall someday. I understand Elfman's brother, Danny, plays Satan, which I can't wait to see. Interesingly, the sets are right out of a bad high school production, consisting of handpainted cardboard, some cushions and little else. Some sequences are animated in a herky-jerky style. Susan Tyrell is the sixth dimension's angry queen, and Herve Villachaize is the randy king. I don't know who's worse. In fact, the acting by all is abominable, but I suspect this was done on purpose. Why, I have no idea. For the faint of heart, be aware there are naked breasts on display as well as lots of ethnic humor mixed in with a very gay sensibility. Also lots of vulgarities are expressed. Seems to me ZONE would not have been out of place as a stage play in the old East Village days. Not for mainstream audiences.