Forbidden World
1982, US, Directed by Allan Holzman
Colour, Running Time: 75 minutes
VHS, PAL, Embassy, Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Stereo
Awakened from hyper-sleep by his artificially intelligent robot pilot, interstellar astronaut Mike Colby is diverted (following a brief Star Wars-inspired space battle with some token alien fodder and around 1% of George’s lunch budget) to a barren planet where a group of human scientists have set up bunkers to freely and ‘safely’ conduct experiments in genetic modification. They’ve requested his help to quarantine one of these experiments, where a fused life form is mutating out of control. What they actually fused it with they’re reluctant to say and Colby is hardly willing to comply with their wishes to contain the problem rather than simply destroy it, because in his eyes it is inexplicable and evidently dangerous. His first sight of the creature is in the laboratory where it has placed itself in an incubation unit while it gestates inside a cocoon. It’s not long before one of the overly curious assistants is placing his head right underneath it when he notices that it’s moving and, as sure as pigeons crap on your head, it’s breaking out of its shell and causing a permanent indentation on his face. Next thing the inhabitants know, the blob-like monster is on the loose in the complex and in between bouts of making love to the only two female occupants Colby has a bloody battle on his hands.
Crossing Alien with The Thing From Another World (we can’t really accuse it of ripping off John Carpenter’s remake as they were made pretty much simultaneously), this Roger Corman orchestrated sci-fi monster movie is not far from the bottom of the scale when it comes to production values, evident from the dated optical laser effects that are abundantly adorning the screen. Conversely prosthetics are extremely good and gruesome enough to make the squeamish cringe on the odd occasion. The creature in its fully grown form is a little too inanimate to cause much tension and things kind of fall flat at these points, on the other hand acting is competent and dialogue is surprisingly scientifically adequate, almost as if it’s been written by someone who was studying for a Biology A Level and quite convincing in its explanatory passages (delivered courtesy of the obligatory crazy scientist). There’s a bit of sex and nudity to keep the pace going (Colby is one lucky space traveller, let me tell you) and, later on in the movie, one of the primary characters is killed off to surprisingly emotive effect. There are a couple of humorous moments, such as when the two lady scientists are conducting an important strategic alien-capture discussion… while showering butt-naked and kindly washing each other down. Mention must be made of the music too: while it has obviously been produced on a shoestring there are occasions when it contributes to the onscreen action, the love making theme (used a couple of times throughout) being a particularly groovy highlight. This was editor Holzman’s directorial debut and there weren’t many to follow, but it’s not a complete waste of time and offers some enjoyment amidst its inherent limitations.
The Embassy video cassette was released in the early days following the introduction of the Video Recordings Act, something which was to spell both doom and delight for film collectors in varying measures - the former obviously because it forced films to have to be re-censored (sorry, ‘classified’) for video, for years causing things to be heavily cut even if they had already been chopped for cinema release, the latter because it later helped create a subculture of people who crept around film fairs looking for odd pre-VRA tapes that had missed the renewed wrath of the BBFC, for example the (genuine) ‘extreme’ version of Zombie Flesh Eaters. The VRA wasn’t good news but most people didn’t notice at the time (apart from the few ridiculously prosecuted under the new rules - muggers get lighter sentences these days), or didn’t care, and of course film censorship is of little concern in this day and age, though I notice New York Ripper has been one of the few flicks in recent times to be snipped by our beloved censors but did anyone really expect otherwise for Lucio’s Giallo/gore semi-classic? Looking at one or two shots in Forbidden World it seems to me like this tape might have been cut but I can find little evidence to support that idea - certainly the visceral stomach operation scene seems like it could be intact and that’s probably the strongest bit of the movie. It was released on good old Laserdisc many aeons ago but on DVD it has arrived only in Germany (as Mutant) to my knowledge, courtesy of Anolis Entertainment. That disc is, like this cassette, fullscreen but there is the rather cool extra of the entire music track accessible separately, a nice bonus considering the music adds quite a lot to the enjoyment of the film.