Forbidden World (1982)

Wonderful Movie

Truly Dreadful Film

Redundant and unnecessary.

As Good As It Gets

"Forbidden World" is a movie made for all the people who watched "Alien" and thought, 'man, what this movie could really do with is more sex and less scares'. There had to be at least a handful of people out there who thought that, right? "Forbidden World" is like a love letter to those people... I guess.It begins with some ridiculous "Star Wars"-esque space ship battle sequences, which turn out to be so out of place that it is not a surprise to read that Corman recycled this footage from some other movie. Then there is some classical music, reminding us of a certain Stanley Kubrick science fiction opus. But the movie soon settles down into "Alien" territory.People forget that one of the things that made "Alien" unique was that despite its science fiction setting it didn't have the hammy dialogue and acting that sci-fi is known for. "Forbidden World" copies that, with naturalistic acting and characters who, for the most part, feel like real people......Until the sex starts. The "hero" of "Forbidden World" is not what you'd call a typical science fiction protagonist, either. He's not a big strapping strong guy and he's not especially handsome. This makes it particularly weird when he gets it on with the movies only two females. The first, a doctor, positively throws herself at him. The second one, a younger girl, has a weird dalliance with the man in which our "hero" becomes positively creepy and almost antagonistic. He walks in on the girl naked in a steam bath. She covers herself and shrieks for him to get out and leave her alone. The camera cuts to his leering visage. She relents and he has sex with her. It all seems oddly coercive.The "monster" in this movie spends most of the run time just looking like a pile of mud. I guess you have to hand it to the filmmakers that they didn't rip off "Alien" even down to the purpose of its title: the monster in this film is not an alien, it's a genetically engineered lifeform. It only really becomes a fully fledged monster at the end of the movie, and you never really get a good look at it, which is funny. You got to see the monster in "Deadly Spawn" pretty well, and that probably had a much lower budget than this.I give "Forbidden World" a 7 because it is entertaining enough. For a low budget flick I found its sets surprisingly convincing, and its two starlets are beautiful, though the hero is weirdly skeevy.

In the distant future, a federation marshal arrives at a research lab on a remote planet where a genetic experiment has gotten lose and begins feeding on the dwindling scientific group.So, what do you get when you have an "Alien" ripoff written by Jim Wynorski, produced by Roger Corman, and with effects from John Carl Buechler? If you expected excessive boobs from Wynorski, you would be right. And if you expected a low budget from Corman, you would be right. A great monster from Buechler? Sure thing! Seriously, this is not a bad movie. Is an A-level science fiction film? Maybe not. It should not be thought on on the same level as "Alien". But that is not the point, if you know what you are getting yourself into when you sit down for a Corman flick. It is is gonna be fun, cheesy and entertaining -- just like movies should be.

Let me again rant about IMDb's policy of having to write at least 10 lines, when only 1 is at times more than suffice. Corman is responsible for movies way too cheesy and campy to be considered art, the only redeeming quality is the nudity. Extremely bad scripts and bad acting. What is more insufferable is that some actually believe movies that are so distasteful warrant a rating of more than 4, but then again some consider extremely poor scripts and portrayal of a part an art form, which explains the rave reviews of Abrams version of Star Trek script plots that are not fit for lining the bottom of a bird cage, Potboiler scripts are what movies like this have, anything with great Special FX and CG appeals to people who have no cinematographic artistic taste.

Take note all you horrible makers of today's movies. This is how you make a bad movie. You do not bring in a stupid 80's mall queen, make a film with monsters that are clearly not there, and you do not skimp on the gore and nudity! No, you make a monster out of stuff just laying around, you have young gals that look like they would be more at home in an adult film, and you have lots of gore and nudity like this film does! Is it a good movie, absolutely not, but it is certainly very enjoyable to watch. Though saying this one is absolutely not good may be being a bit to harsh as I actually enjoyed the story here a bit more than other "Alien" knock off movies of this era. Heck, I enjoyed watching his film more than "Alien 3", though that film was clearly better done this one was more entertaining and I was never bored. The film starts out kind of weakly though as dude and his robot pal have a pointless space battle. I do not know who or why they are fighting these people, I don't think it is our business. Once they go to the planet of Xarbia though things really pick up. The guy in the ship is some sort of problem solver and the problem they are having on this planet is that an experiment has gotten a bit out of hand. Killed a bunch of animals and has now retreated to a cocoon. Well it is not to long before it gets out and of course some idiot could have easily ended the entire movie by being a bit more careful, but then the movie would have ended even sooner than its very short running time of 77 minutes. Lots of gore ensues as the creature mutates forms from time to time and its purpose is soon to be known. During this time you get the typical scientist that does not want to harm the creature, but capture it and an even more laughable attempt at communicating with the beast. You also get lots of boobies from the two females at this little research place. Like I said it was a fun watch, the monster looks okay in some scenes and in others it looks bad, kind of like a blown up garbage bag. However, even when it looks bad it is there unlike so many computer generated monsters of today. The film could actually use a bit more time as they could have added ten minutes and had even more deaths and the death of the one guy trying to fix something was weak compared to others. The cast is all right, the lead guy being rather good. One of the females was super hot, the other with the more blond hair was just okay. Just wished they would make cheap movies like this instead of the boring stuff they do now. I am betting this is actually cheaper to make and a lot more fun to watch.