Forbidden World

In the tradition of the movie “Alien” by Ridley Scott, producer Roger Corman brought the story of the enemy alien to a new, bloody level in 1982. Never before has a science fiction film been so dark and threatening. UCM.ONE releases this film “Forbidden World” (also known as “Mutant“) in HD on the label M-Square Classics and restores it as a limited media book with DVD and Blu-Ray together with a 16-page booklet in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Synopsis

On the planet Xerbia, a group of elite scientists are working to solve the problem of a galactic famine. They are trying to develop a living being from human and extraterrestrial stem cells that can replicate the cell structure of anything it eats. But the created mutant is anything but a soulless heap of cells. He is a highly developed, super-intelligent eating monster that is now mercilessly beginning to decimate the scientists and the crew of the outpost…

About director Allan Holzman

The film career of Allan Holzman, born in Baltimore, began in film editing, which he learned at the legendary Roger Corman Film School. Corman then hired him at New World Pictures, where Holzman edited “Candy Stripe Nurses” (1974) and Jonathan Demme‘s “Crazy Mama” (1975). In 1977 he was hired by Universal Pictures as the editor for “Checkered Flag or Crash” and he went to the editing room for Fantastic Films‘ “The Amsterdam Kill” (also 1977) and Modern Film Effects‘ “Mad Pilot” (1980) until Corman finally entrusted him with his first feature film direction in 1982. Holzman said about his debut as a director:

“There was no script. Corman only gave me one instruction: ‚You have four days to write, produce and shoot an eight-minute opening sequence for a space movie. You get an astronaut and a robot if you need inspiration. I always wanted a kind of “Lawrence of Arabia” in space…‘”

“Forbidden World“, where he also did the editing besides directing, was judged as much too cheap and brutal by the critics, but one year later it received three Saturn Awards: “Best Low-Budget-Film“, “Best Make-up” and “Best Special Effects“. Today, his first work is often mentioned in the same breath as Roger Corman‘s 1981 “Alien“-rip-off “Galaxy of Terror“, as the “Master of Recycling” Corman reused some of James Cameron‘s original sets for the film. In addition, footage from Corman’s “Star Wars” interpretation “Battle beyond the Stars” (1980) was incorporated into the film. From the mid-1980s to early 2000s, Holzmann only directed six more feature films, and since the turn of the millennium, Holzman has focused on directing documentaries. Film editing remains his hobby.

New World Pictures – The fantastic trashy worlds of Roger Corman:

Producer, actor, director, screenwriter: Roger William Corman was born on 5 April 1926 in Detroit, Michigan. He began his remarkable film career, after studying engineering at Stanford, initially as a messenger for 20th Century Fox and went to Great Britain shortly afterwards to study English literature at Oxford University. Finally he returned to Hollywood wirking as a literary agent and co-produced his first film “Highway Dragnet” in 1953. Although he was not mentioned by name, Corman also was production assistant under William F. Broidy, working free of charge to gain experience, and Corman had himself written the script and sold it to Broidy for 2,000 dollars. This money motivated Corman to produce more movies and laid the foundation for his career as a producer. With the money for the script in his pocket and thanks to the financial support of some friends, Corman produced the first movie of his own in 1954: “Monster from the Ocean Floor” was finished for just 30,000 dollars and made 850,000 dollars at the box office. His directing debut followed a year later with the Western “Five Guns West“, and especially in the 1950s and 1960s Corman was extremely productive as principal director at AIP. They first put him on the director’s chair for “Machine-Gun Kelly” and “Teenage Cave Man“.