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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Forbidden Zone (Danny Elfman)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... only if you know exactly what you're getting into,
because you will encounter few musicals as maddeningly bizarre as this
one.
Avoid it... if you need some sensible, unoffensive music to play on a first date.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Forbidden Zone: (Danny Elfman) As the era of "The
Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo" was waning for the musical theatre
troupe in the late 1970's, original leader Richard Elfman was handing
off its future to his younger brother, Danny, so that he could pursue a
future in filmmaking. For his initial project, he conceived of
Forbidden Zone as a Mystic Knights affair that featured the acts
of his colleagues in the group, summarizing its surrealistic antics in
cinematic form before essentially saying goodbye. It took several years
to produce the movie, and it personally bankrupted him. Meanwhile, Danny
Elfman was transitioning the group into the subsequent "Oingo Boingo"
form while retaining only some of the original members. His intent was
to pursue more of a traditional band entourage that was easier to tour
with than the cabaret styled complexities of the Mystic Knights. By the
time Forbidden Zone was finished, its soundtrack formed something
of a tribute to both the previous and future iterations of the gang, its
musical format totally demented and intentionally senseless. It's guided
by an incomprehensible plot involving an underworld in the sixth
dimension called the "Forbidden Zone" that exists through a basement
doorway in the home of the Hercules family. The bizarre people
encountered in this realm illuminate all ranges of commentary in various
topics of race, gender, and other sociological aspects, some of which
quite offensive at the time. Throw a slew of terrible language and a
plethora of religious blasphemy into equation, especially with Danny
Elfman appearing as Satan, and you have pious types running for the
doors. Aside from its Monty Python-inspired animated sequences, the
production values of the film were meant to be hideous for humorous
effect (much of it is on par with a typical 1980's high school video
production, but definitely nothing you would have ever wanted to submit
for a grade in class), and the same could be said of its music. The
soundtrack is comprised of an equal combination of songs and score, some
of the songs original creations by Danny Elfman and all of the score
handled by him as well. One could say that this blend of outrage is part
new wave, part jazz, and part sheer insanity, but it was definitely
representative of the performing group at the time.
The vocals and instrumentals of Forbidden Zone are all afforded a juvenile and unsophisticated edge by design to match the ridiculously amateurish visuals, and to appreciate this score, you have to accept that countercultural approach as a feature rather than a detriment. Danny Elfman admits that he was flying blind when it came to writing his first film score in Forbidden Zone. Despite sharing a common appreciation of classic film music by Bernard Herrmann and others with group mate Steve Bartek, who quickly became his career orchestrator, there are basic tenets of musical construction that go unfollowed in this work. Aside from one minor, recurring love motif, there is absolutely no thematic continuity throughout, and the song melodies don't clearly carry over to the score cues. Nor do the score cues share common styling with each other, yielding a truly stream-of-consciousness kind of effort. The instrumental ensemble included the expected, standard rock band elements (guitar, bass, drums) and included flavors derived from the Mystic Knights like saxophone, flute, piano, trumpet, accordion, harp, and synthetics. A fair amount of carnival and school-yard sound effects is also employed, and when combining those random, child-appropriate noises with the distinctive guitar, synth, and reed-oriented tones of the group, you hear a pretty faithful preview of the composer's oddball mid-1980's scores that eschewed orchestras. The bouncing rhythms of "Hercules Family Theme" is one such foreshadowing. The noisemakers carried over to the two Pee-wee Hermann scores as well, especially in the maddening "Factory." His approach to the Oompa Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is teased in the deep male vocals of "Flash and Gramps." There are faint hints of Elfman's more dramatic tendencies in the faux-serious portions of this work, but they are brief. The thumping keyboarding and percussion of "Journey Through the Intestines," "Squeezit's Vision of His Sister," and especially the keyboard and piano solos in the shared motif of "Love Theme: Squeezit and the Chickens" and "Love Theme: King and Queen" show a glimpse of future melodrama. In other cases, the score cues are fairly unique, from the amusingly grungy guitar work in "Cell 63" to the 8-bit analog tones of "Chamber Music" and the explosively divergent jazz, action, romance, and chanting of "Battle of the Queens." As for the wild songs in Forbidden Zone, Elfman's own performance in "Forbidden Zone" is the lasting headliner, following a suspenseful synthetic opening with an Oingo Boingo faithful rendition that eventually became the instrumental theme music for the "Dilbert" television series, too. Elfman's only other really notable vocal performance comes in "Squeezit The Moocher (Minnie the Moocher)," where he plays Satan; this Cab Calloway piece clearly associates blues music with the underworld (assume what you will about the race connotations of that decision), and listeners will recognize the roots of the "Oogie Boogie's Song" in The Nightmare Before Christmas here. Lead actress Susan Tyrrell actually supplies the most engaging vocals in Forbidden Zone, her performances in "Queen's Revenge" and "Witch's Egg" more memorable despite being spoken half the time. The latter is actually quite a mesmerizing performance in the movie, and not just because of her manipulation of her breasts. The contributions by Richard Elfman's then wife, Marie-Pascale Elfman, are decent but not as enticing in "Queen's Revenge" and "Pleure," the latter a genuinely annoying French source-like piece with only accordion and voice. Other songs include the truly perverse "Alphabet Song," a centerpiece classroom scene in the film with impressively offensive lyrics that throws all boundaries of homosexual, transgender, and race conventions out the window. Other adapted pieces from the history of jazz include "Some of These Days," "Bim Bam Boom," and Yiddishe Charleston," which are each mangled as necessary for this context. Overall, Forbidden Zone is an admirable shitshow of a musical, its lyrics often sick and the sounds of farts and spitting never too far from the forefront. The music is stuck in an odd place in history, because it may not truly appeal to either the Oingo Boing crowd or Elfman's later film music crowd. That was the point of the film, certainly, but its cult status is something all its own and leaves this work as an extremely awkward way for Elfman to start his soundtrack career in retrospect. Given the composer's shift back to rock-oriented stage performances with his band in his later years, one has to surmise that the sound of Forbidden Zone is closer to his heart than that of Batman. The album for this musical has long been readily available and in decent sound for the era. Seek this one as a film score enthusiast only to appreciate its place in Elfman lore, because it will drive you mad. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 38:48
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a note from the composer about the score.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Forbidden Zone are Copyright © 1900, Varèse Sarabande and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 11/26/24 (and not updated significantly since). |
