I happen to have been in sunny Southern California hanging out at 4Ward production Studios when the studio founder Robert and Dennis Skotak had just received their complimentary copies of the films that they had worked on way back in the eighties in ‘Forbidden World’ and ‘Galaxy of Terror’. Why a lowly dude from Detroit whose only connection to the film industry is that he watches a lot of movies is hanging out at the studios of an Academy Award winning special effects team is a little complicated, but there I was actually holding the Skotak’s Academy Award that they won for ‘Terminator 2’. Heavy that thing. I had to let them know that I don’t assign any value to awards arbitrarily assigned by politically motivated committee’s but it is still an impressive achievement. Note that I had watched ‘Galaxy of Terror’ before I met the Skotak’s and now I’ve watched ‘Forbidden World’ after I’ve met the Skotak’s, who are originally from ‘The D’, so my opinion may be a little biased this time around. Regardless, I imagine watching ‘Forbidden World’ when it was first released in 1982 might’ve been underwhelming to say the least, but watching it today, the nostalgia factor is through the roof and it is a far better film than ‘Galaxy of Terror’ despite the absence of worm rape.

Hardcore Space Mercenary Mike Colby (Jesse Vint) is in deep stasis and apparently he is also a psychic since he is having all kinds of flash forwards about all of the nudity that he is about to encounter in the next eighty or so minutes. Eventually Mike’s android buddy Sam awakens him just in time for a glorious space battle against… hell, who knows… but they’re dead now so let’s move on. Mike is excited because he is finally going home but The Man has other plans and reroutes Mike and Sam to some research facility where a serious problem needs fixing.

Once on the facility Mike meets the really professional sounding Dr. Hauser (Linden Chiles) and the completely slutty Dr. Barbara Glaser (June Chadwick). I don’t know if we can call June Chadwick a good actress or not but she has completely mastered that ‘I’m about to f@#k the s@#t out of you look’. Got it down pat.

We are a little confused right now because we don’t know exactly what they need Mike to do since the problem, that being the Metamorph, is safely locked away and doesn’t need hunting or anything. At least not yet. Soon though. We aren’t going to get all into the existence of the Metamorph but the concept behind it is pretty damned fascinating.

So Jimmy (Michael Bowen) is busy cleaning up the mess the Metamorph made when he does something really stupid that gets this thing, looking like an animated piece of liver, attached to his face. Jimmy is dead now. The good thing is that the wise Dr. Timbergen (Fox Harris) diagnoses Jimmy’s death as ‘Brain Trauma’. Of course to the untrained eye the fact that there’s a huge hole in Jimmy’s head coupled by the fact his brain is missing would lead the layman to assume he had perhaps died of electrocution or botulism, but it’s a damn good thing super smart Dr. Timbergen was there to make the proper diagnosis.

Jimmy’s might be dead but quite honestly who cares because Dr. Barbara is massively horny which leads to her and Mike getting down. Seriously, there were going at like dogs in heat. Jimmy’s girl Tracy (Dawn Dunlap) is sad because Jimmy is dead, being that Jimmy was her man and all, and as such Tracy has a mourning period which last about forty five minutes because after Mike is done with Doctor Barbara it is Tracy’s turn. Unfortunately Mike can’t completely close that deal because the Metamorph is loose and causing a ruckus. Dr. Hauser wants his creation spared, Mike wants to blow it all to hell, Dr. Barbara wants to ‘communicate’ with it, Bryan (Raymond Oliver) the Black Guy is doing everything in his power to die stupidly and Tracy will scream and scream and scream some more. She would scream so much on so incessantly that we were hoping that someone, maybe Mike, would stick something in her mouth to get her to shut the hell up.

What kind of movie is ‘Forbidden World’, formerly title ‘Mutant’ directed by one Allan Holzman? Well Tracy and Barbara had to discuss some serious stuff in regards to saving everyone’s lives, and what better way for them to discuss this situation than to soap each other up and take a shower together? That made total sense to me. Yes, ‘Forbidden World’ is a substandard ‘Alien’ Rip-Off but where ‘Galaxy of Terror’ tried to get deep on us and taking into consideration that we are not all that intelligent, thus the majority of that depth left us being mostly confused… ‘Forbidden Planet on the other hand keeps it nice and simple. The old school special effects which consisted of a lot of goo, gore and vomit were outstanding, the acting was appropriately terrible, the situations were completely nonsensical and the action was virtually non-stop only interrupted to insert some completely unnecessary nudity. In fact the same way Mike flash forwarded about all the tail he was about to get when the movie started, it then flash backed to the all the tail he did get when the movie ended. Outstanding.

No sir, ‘Forbidden World’ isn’t what we could classically call a ‘good movie’ the way the movie it rips off, ‘Alien’, was a good movie but I didn’t see Sigourney Weaver and Veronica Cartwright soaping each other up in a shower plotting their way out of their terrible situation. So in way ‘Forbidden World’ is actually better than ‘Alien’. In a way. Kind of. Depending on how you look at it.