Yet another cheap 'n cheesy early 80's "Alien" rip-off produced by Roger "King of the B's" Corman! This given alone is more than enough reason to proceed with caution and keep your expectations to a minimum. Then, during the opening credits sequence, your first impressions are most likely to seep to an even deeper level, as the first five minutes are a headache-inducing and utterly pointless compilation of confusing and hectic images that make no sense at all. But please do your best to struggle yourself through this crappy opening, because "Forbidden World" does eventually get interesting and worthwhile. Well, in all honesty … it's crap from start to finish! But hey, at least it's tremendously entertaining crap! We're in the darkest regions of outer space, somewhere in a distant future, but there's no menace of aliens this time. The cool-looking monster on the VHS cover is mankind's own little mistake-creation, spawned on a spaceship where the crew was actually trying to discover new types of food sources. Now they're up against a continuously growing monster that somehow understands English, yet dramatically misinterprets the meaning of the verb "co-exist". Lone space ranger Mike Colby (Jesse Vint) is called to the rescue, but he doesn't really contribute anything, except having sex with the female crew members on board. What a guy! Another scientist member of the expedition eventually comes up with an admittedly creative (but totally ludicrous) plan to destroy the monster. Naturally, I can't reveal anything about the denouement, but rest assured it's 100% original and hilarious. The cinematography is dreadfully dark and unclear, presumably to camouflage the ultra-cheap and tacky set pieces and make-up effects. The monster is very cool, though, and the killings are amusingly gross and bloody. The aforementioned "co-exist" scene truly priceless and any horror fan with a slight sense of humor will LOVE that moment. Alan Holzman didn't have any experience directing movies back in 1982, but he does a fairly adequate job and admirably prevents his cast from going over the top. Following good old Roger Corman traditions, there's some great sleaze and nudity to enjoy and also the dialogs are imbecilic but fun. Highly recommended in case you can tolerate B-movie cheapness.

I first saw this in the late 80s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently on a fast forward mode.

The movie has a lousy sex scene mixed with a lousy 'cannot make out wots going on' kill scene.

Dawn Dunlap's nudity is the only saving grace. She looks more like a younger Denise Richards.

The fight towards the end with the alien looks as if the guy is fighting a bull or something but that too is ruined with shaky cam n reddish flickering lights.

Were the end flashback scenes required?

Roger Corman produced this film and although his movies almost always made money*, they always were made with minuscule budgets. None of them are what anyone would consider high art, but a few are masterpieces of inexpensive cinema. This one, however, is pretty much like most of Corman's films--super-cheap, kind of cheesy and a bit dumb...but also almost entertaining enough to keep your interest. After all, if the story (a re-working of ALIEN) doesn't keep your interest, the film tossed in quite a bit of gratuitous nudity to keep your interest!

When the film begins, there is a really crappy space battle that looked very, very dated for the early 80s. Following this, the captain of the ship arrives at a research station where some sort of accident has occurred...though the leader of the station continually downplays the seriousness of it. They've created some sort of super-organism and although folks seem amazingly complacent, it soon starts wiping out folks on the station. Can they stop it in time or are they all doomed to be entrées for this creature?

ALIEN came out in 1979 and looks a billion times better than this film. Heck, several other sci-fi movies of the 70s look a lot better than this one. But it does sport two women who love to take their clothes off for no discernible reason other than to distract the audience from the overall crappiness of the movie. The overall effect is anything but artful and isn't particularly good...but folks wanting to see a lot of flesh should be satisfied. Otherwise, not a film most folks would want to watch and would do a lot better just watching ALIEN.

By the way, 're-working' is also occasionally a nice way to say 'blatant ripoff'.

*Corman's only money-losing film (out of over 400 credits) was reportedly "The Intruder" (starring William Shatner). Sadly, this was among the best films Corman ever made and yet it lost money and some god-awful ones made money. A great example of the phrase "life ain't fair".