Last night, while browsing around the local multimedia emporium, I discovered that the classic underground film, Forbidden Zone, has finally been released on DVD. Oh joy! Oh rapture! I purchased a copy forthwith (fifthwith, even) and rushed home to watch it.

On the off chance that you're unfamiliar with this cinematic gem, it's a bizarre conglomeration of live-action, animation, and music that sprang forth from the creative minds of filmmaker/musician Richard Elfman (excruciatingly slow and gratuitous Flash site), and his brother, film/tv composer, Danny, who at that time was part of Richard's musical performance troupe called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.

The film stars everyone's favorite French midget, Hervé Villechaize as King Fausto, the ruler of an underground world that looks like a Max Fleischer wet dream. Fausto's sultry and insanely jealous wife, Queen Doris, is played by cult actress, Susan Tyrell, who reveals in one of the DVD's extras that she and Tattoo fell madly in love during the making of the film and went on to live in sin for over a year.

The quality of the DVD transfer is excellent, so the crisp cinematography and the remixed soundtrack showcase the surrealistic black-and-white imagery and Elfman's score brilliantly. The non-original tunes, like Nino Morales' Bim Bam Boom, Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher, and Pico and Sepulveda (by the mysterious Felix Figueroa and his Orchestra), lend an air of jazz-baby debauchery to the proceedings, that's totally appropriate for this wigged-out flick.

Mr. Bali Hai sez, "Check it out!"