We finally review Richard Elfman's triumphantly bizarre Forbidden Zone.
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| "I made a deal with the devil so I could write the score for Pee Wee's Big Adventure... and it worked!!" |
In 1972, years before turning to filmmaking, Richard
Elfman formed with his brother Danny (now a renowned film music composer) a
musical performance art cabaret known as The
Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, an elaborate theater act comprised of
over 15 musicians. In addition to
playing over 30 instruments including some built by the band members
themselves, The Mystic Knights of the
Oingo Boingo included everything from complicated costumes, whiteface and
clown makeup to oversized rubber props such as a dragon. Largely steeped stylistically in Cab
Calloway, Balinese gamelan and Russian ballet, with music dating back to the
1890s through the 1950s and a litany of their own original material, The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo was
an eclectic form of high end theater the likes of which was never seen before
or since.
After Richard passed the
reigns to Danny around the time his interest in film production intensified,
Danny found himself tiring of the time consuming physical labor of carting
around heavy props, instruments and assembling the show’s otherworldly set
pieces. With his desire to jettison the
overblown theatrics the group became known for, Danny downsized the band to Oingo Boingo and shifted the style from
cabaret to traditional rock and ska.
Although videotapes of The Mystic
Knights concerts and television appearances existed, Richard wasn’t ready
to completely let the cabaret troupe’s antics be forgotten, and thus began a
taxing labor of love that became one of the most celebrated midnight movie
sensations of all time, Forbidden Zone.
Originally conceived as a 16mm short musical film
consisting of 12 musical numbers before ballooning into a 35mm project with
many reshoots, Forbidden Zone is a
gleefully bizarre exercise in pure cinema.
Shot in black-and-white but also available in a director-approved (and
preferred) colorized version with a cast largely made up of The Mystic Knights, friends and notable
character actors including Joe Spinnell and Herve Villechaize (Fantasy Island), the film concerns a
household with a door leading to the Sixth Dimension and the Hercules family
members that fall through it or something like that. To try and decode the inexplicable, truly
surreal storyline is beside the point.
Much like the live shows, you are transported into an entirely new realm
that’s perversely odd, shocking, hilarious, and all around compulsively
watchable.
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| "Check out this set. No. I mean THE set." |
Burlesque, grotesque and
highly artificial with intentional stage play set pieces, the weirder and more
curiously offensive Forbidden Zone gets,
the more we can’t take our eyes off the screen.
The centerpiece of the film involves a demonic rendition of Cab
Calloway’s Minnie the Moocher with a
white-suited Danny Elfman as Satan, aka, The
Nightmare Before Christmas’ Jack Skellington in the flesh. Dancing and cavorting about like a wild man
with a crazed look in his eye and a wicked grin, you just know Elfman and Tim
Burton were destined to work together and even play off of each other’s unique
sensibilities and penchant for the zany.
Linking the numbers together are sophisticated hand-drawn animated
sequences that would make Terry Gilliam blush.
Much like David Lynch’s Eraserhead
or Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror
Picture Show, the only reason we know we’ve reached something resembling a
conclusion is when the picture simply ends.
Like any great work of surreal comedy, you could take any scene from Forbidden Zone out of context and they
will make about as much logical sense as they are put together into a 2 hour
film.
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| Related Article: Interview with Richard Elfman |
Over the years Forbidden Zone was performed as a live theater show with Richard Elfman’s blessing and talk of a crowdfunded sequel penned by Elfman has been in the works since 2009. While Forbidden Zone most certainly isn’t going to be all things to all people, provoking every kind of reaction from shock and confusedly raised eyebrows, it is so committed to the concept of pure theater and free cinema it achieves a kind of transcendence. Nothing like it has come before or since, and whether you love or hate it, you can’t help but laud The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo for showing the world just how tough life in the Sixth Dimension can be!
-10 out of 10 - Andrew Kotwicki
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