CORMAN'S EXPERIMENTAL FOOD HUNGERS FOR YOU!

Shout! Factory has unleashed an invasion of Roger Corman Cult Classic titles this month, many appearing on DVD and Blu-ray for the first time and loaded with all-new bonus features. Corman built his career directing 50 films and producing over 350 on the foundation of truly independent filmmaking, sidestepping the restrictions of Hollywood's studio system to promote the creative talents of many leading directors, actors and writers. Making the most out of low-budget sensational films spanning a wide array of action-packed, titillating genres and concepts, Corman and his legacy of talented proteges made an indelible mark on filmmaking history of the latter 20th century and continue blazing trails today.

The latest library of Roger Corman Cult Classics include six new DVD/Blu-ray titles which fans of indie cinema and rare releases will definitely want to add to their collection.

Roger Corman revisited the ALIEN-copying well again in 1982 by producing FORBIDDEN WORLD, cashing in on the sci-fi/horror hunger in theaters and unleashing a famine-ending experimental creature on the scientists who created it. On the remote planet Xarbia, the genetically-engineered Subject 20 has mutated with human DNA and begun a deadly life cycle of its own, and what was meant to feed humanity now begins feeding on them.

An intergalactic bounty hunter Mike Colby (Corman veteran Jesse Vint) is diverted to solve the crisis and solve the mystery of Subject 20, although he first falls into bed with one of the scientists (June Chadwick). Well, you've got to eliminate the suspects somehow! As another science team member gets attacked by the mutating creature, its slimy, bloody effect slowly turns the victim into gelatinous goo while keeping it alive — but why? Because it makes the gory makeup effects more disgusting, of course, and that's the main reason for making FORBIDDEN WORLD.  That plus a couple of gratuitous nude scenes, one between the female scientists showering off the globs of slime that was their former co-worker, and another interrupted seduction of Colby in the sauna when the creature attacks to interrupt the exploitational mood.

Nevertheless there are more than a few moments of gallows humor — one dare not consider them comedy — amid the increasing body count in the science station. Some laughs are intentional while others aren't, but they do attempt to vary the pace and tension of the otherwise simple, straightforward kill-the-monster plot.  This just as well since neither Colby nor the science team are very good and devising a plan to kill Subject 20, which continues attacking and dissolving victims at will. In fact, it's only out of sheer desperation and a chain smoking habit that Dr. Timbergen (the live-wired Fox Harris) realizes the best way to kill the human-juicing monster is to feed it a poisoned human.  I'll leave the details of this solution for the viewer to discover, but it sure makes our bounty-hunting hero look ineffectual at his job.

The minimal cast is rounded out by Dawn Dunlap as the sauna-loving ingenue/lab assistant, Linden Chiles as the lead scientist more concerned with his experiment's success than his colleagues' survival, and Michael Bowen as the archetypal First Victim. You'll also spot THE RIGHT STUFF's Scott Paulin as a lab associate whose penchant for voyeurism and a glowing yo-yo-like toy are inexplicably daffy — basically he's more monster chow with dialogue.

The creature effects, which don't really resemble those in ALIEN beyond their general intent, range from the creepy to the implausible as Subject 20 gets larger and begins nesting in the base command center. Eventually viewers realize that the reason they never get to see the full monster in its own one-shot is not to preserve its mystery, but that it can't exist as a self-contained creature effect. Consequently the bloody attacks on the science team appear either as disembodied POV shots or as unfortunate blunders by humans who get too close to Subject 20 so it can kill them with minimal effort. Unlike the terror-filled Ridley Scott horror which inspired it, FORBIDDEN WORLD's main dilemma is bizarrely simple to solve in the end by spoiling Subject 20's food source, and game over.  Unfortunately for the film, the gore effects of its victims always outshine the monster's own mutating form, which deflates the horror (and drama) considerably, letting the exploitational aspects of it to stand out rather bluntly and thus deflating their dubious value.

Tim Curnen's script merely goes through the paces of an ALIEN-knockoff without generating any of its own steam, despite the plot's backstory of a galaxy-wide famine threatening humanity's existence. Such desperation is neither embodied by the characters nor fully exploited for their dramatic motivation to create and harvest Subject 20 as a potential moral conflict. Director Allan Holzman makes the most out of the little Corman budgeted for this film, though I suppose it's a bit easier to visually create a sense of claustrophobic tension when the sets are already small by Hollywood standards.

The Blu-ray and DVD editions of FORBIDDEN WORLD duplicate the same content in their respective formats: Disc 1 offers a new anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) transfer from the Inter-Positive film elements, presenting the R-rated theatrical cut for the first time in standard or high-definition; a contemporary interview with Roger Corman; making-of interviews with cast and crew including director Allan Holzman and composer Susan Justin, and actor Jesse Vint; a special effects featurette with artists John Carl Buechler, Robert Skotak, Tony Randal and R. Christopher Biggs; a poster and still photo gallery; the original theatrical trailer; and a few other New World title trailers. Both Blu-ray and DVD editions offer the never-before-seen Director's Cut of the film, originally titled MUTANT, presented on standard-def DVD and in full frame 4:3 ratio with audio commentary by director Allan Holzman. The MUTANT version may suffer a bit in visual quality since it's unrestored and not optimized as well as the theatrical cut, but fans are encouraged to give Holzman's original vision — containing more moments of dark humor than Corman would tolerate — a try for comparison if nothing else.

This is one of the least original and successful titles released in this batch of Roger Corman Cult Classics, as its ALIEN-knockoff inspiration and execution offer little more than their intent to ride the coattails of Ridley Scott's 1979 hit.  With points deducted for flat drama and rather limp horror content, but points won for Shout! Factory's 2-disc presentation of such rare Corman goods which will please devotees, FilmEdge rates FORBIDDEN WORLD: 2.5 STARS.

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