I've been renting a lot of bizarre movies lately. The title here is a line that the guitar player sings in Izo. I liked the line. The movie...Well, let's just say it makes your head hurt. It's a mind blasting, terrifying samurai movie. There's no such thing as continuity, the camera changes scenes without warning. Each different scene is usually a different time period, but that doesn't mean much. Izo fights samurai on a busy street, modern riot police in Edo-period Japan, and those Edo-period policemen in modern Tokyo. There is a plot, but finding it and watching the rest almost kills you. And then there's the sex scenes...I don't think they could be more wooden or less believable if one or both of the parties involved were dead. Yes, I am aware that Izo is supposed to be the vengeful spirit of a guy that's killed at the beginning, so technically he is dead. The Guitar Player is one of the few people who appears almost as often as Izo and doesn't get killed. And the movie ends with what I've called "the Japanese ending" (I usually refer to Shadow of the Colossus as having this ending). That is, Izo gets reborn. Then he hyperages to his original age. It's seriously messed up.

Then I rented Forbidden Zone. Well, it was better... Still bizarre as all get out. Then again, it was a vehicle for the Mystical Knights of Oingo Boingo (yes, that Oingo Boingo). Danny Elfman had the distinction of being one of very few characters who wore pants in the whole movie. And then there was the copious nudity. The Princess of the Sixth Dimension was topless for the whole movie. And, like a Mel Brooks film, it was sort of universally demeaning. I can't imagine working on a movie like this. But it was entertaining enough. Especially when Danny Elfman as Satan had one character's head chopped off. Despite this, Squeezit managed to be in the rest of the movie, as a head flying around on chicken wings. While Izo made you feel like you were on drugs (and not very nice drugs), Forbidden Zone was like watching someone else on drugs. But hey, it had a music video for "Private Life" on the DVD too, so that was great, as I do happen to like Oingo Boingo, though I wasn't around for their Mystical Knights period. Someday I need a DP comic where Danny Elfman is called back into action to stop some sort of horrifying monster in a manner only Oingo Boingo could accomplish.

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