The Forbidden Zone

Danny Elfman is most famously known for his compositions for TV shows and movies, most famously the Simpsons, Pee Wee Herman's movies, Beetlejuice, Batman, Nightmare Before Christmas, and many others. He is also known for his band, Oingo Boingo, who wrote Nick Bate's favorite song:



Oingo Boingo started out as The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, a theater troupe who did stage and musical performances. Danny's significantly less famous and talented brother, Richard Elfman, directed and produced a theatrical version of their stage show titled "The Forbidden Zone" on a shoestring budget. I don't want to give away too much about the plot, one because it's too bizarre to explain but it's about a sixth dimension where all sorts of fucked up shit happens and is ruled by the midget from Fantasy Island. There's offensive stereotypes abound with blackface, trannys, and mystical jew magic. I wouldn't say it was so bad that it is good in more than it is an awesome completely bizarre and hilarious low budget movie that I highly recommend watching.



Tranny goes to the forbidden zone and gets captured by the always naked princess:


and of course, Danny Elfman steals the show as the Devil:


It was remastered in 2004 and available on DVD and there are rumors that the Elfman brothers are working on a sequel.

 

I've heard about Danny Elfman. I like this movie.

 

A guy on YouTube named Tom Sewell has some videos with rare photos and studio songs from their theatrical troupe days. Apparently he documented them for several years.

 

For some odd reason the Dilbert cartoon used an instrumental version of the Forbidden Zone theme song as its theme.

Dilbert. Weird.

 

I was going to write a thread for this but thank you for doing so.

This is my favorite cult film, period. It's wonderful and insane and offensive to everyone and I love every minute of it.

But how could you forget Susan Tyrrell's unabashed performance as Queen Doris?



Or the opening sequence set to one of the greatest expressions of musical joy ever?



(Perhaps I should make a thread on The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T...)

 

Queen's Revenge is my favourite Danny-less scene. Frenchie's face always makes me laugh (also, that accent isn't fake, that's how she really talks).

Another fun bit of trivia is that Matthew Bright (Squeezit/Rene) went on to direct the movie Tiptoes staring Gary Oldman as a little person alongside Peter Dinklage.

 

I have yet to see this movie, but I've owned the soundtrack for almost 20 years now.

EDIT: @flowers for sonichu: a couple of years ago, Richard Elfman ran a crowdfunding campaign to raise money towards a sequel, but I don't know if anything came from it. I suppose he could always go to his brother and say, "yeah, remember that band I let you take over that led to you meeting Tim Burton? How 'bout a check?"

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/forbidden-zone-2#/