What the heck, I’ll give it a shot.

How bad could it be?

Guys I’m not ok

Do tell

Oh jeez where to begin

Ok, First of all, Dorothy Gale is played by a young Fairuza Balk.

These pictures do not do justice to the raw Traumatized Child energy she brings to this role.

A bit of plot: Dorothy Gale won’t sleep. She’s always talking about Emerald Cities and Talking Scarecrows and Ruby Slippers. At her wit’s end, Aunt Em decides to commit her to the sanitarium for electroshock therapy.

Disney made this.

It is strongly implied that her journey back to Oz is a hallucination caused by the electroshock treatment. Herr Doktor flips the switch, lightning flashes, and the supernatural part of the movie begins.

Ok. So. Dorothy gets to Oz by almost drowning in a flash flood. She rides to safety in a produce crate with one of her family chickens.

This is where one of the core Uncanny elements of the film first appears; this movie does not share continuity with the 1939 Judy Garland film.

It is a much more faithful adaptation of L.F. Baum’s Books, but despite being a sequel both objectively and canonically, it really just pretends the ‘39 film doesn’t exist.

They land in a desert that turns people to stone called the Deadly Desert. They get food from a Lunch Pail Tree. The chicken can talk. The Scarecrow is King of Oz, allegedly.

But, like,

Here’s her house from the first movie.

The one that landed on a witch? Right smack dab in the middle of a whole dang Munchkin Village?

There was literally a whole song and dance!

Where did the Munchkins go, you might ask?

Well, while Dorothy was away,

There was an Apocalypse.

OZ HAS FALLEN

And this is where we meet the nightmarish Eldritch spawn of Roller Disco and David Bowie:

The Wheelers

Alright. The fucking Wheelers.

I don’t-

What is-

What these pictures don’t convey is that, as they move, they make the exact same sound the gurneys in the sanitariums make. The Wheelers are played by the same actors who play the orderlies. Oz is the sanitarium.

Now, let’s discuss Jack Skellington Pumpkinhead

This is one of the Good Guys

He’s just a guy. Like, really, very much, Just A Guy of a character. His entire personality, such as it is, is comprised of

His mom ends up being this girl:

We’ll get to her.

I had this fever-dream memory of the Army of Oz in the Hall of Ornaments from when I was a kid as well and I gotta say it’s kinda nice to finally put that memory in some kind of context. A horrible, terrible, awful context, but a context nonetheless.

One and the same, friend.

I LIVE TO PLEASE

Ahem. Sorry. Anyway.

So. I mentioned an Apocalypse.

Behold! The citizenry of Oz!

They have been turned to stone by the evil Nome King! Why, you ask?

For stealing his Emeralds, of course!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I forgot to introduce The Army of Oz, affectionately referred to as Tik-Tok!

This guy

That’s… apparently the whole army?

He’s spring-wound. Has 3 winding keys: one for moving, one for talking, and one for thinking. At one point his thinking gears wind down while his action and talking gears are still tight and he creates a lot of trouble. He has a… spin attack…

I really don’t know what to make of him to be honest.

Ok so like fully half of what makes The Wheelers so unsettling is the audio so I found a clip:

Hospital gurney noises and echoing, mocking laughter. The way it’s cut doesn’t help. Nor does the… craft store kitsch of the Wheeler outfits. I genuinely have no idea what they were going for. David Bowie vibes, a little bit, but not in a good way.

Oh this film. This isn’t even the end of it.

This is one of the few films that tried for, and managed to succeed for the most part, at capturing the same sort of dark magic of films like Labyrinth, the Dark Crystal, or the Secret of NIMH. That time when some creators were willing to tell stories to children that reflected the darkness that we already saw in the world.

It’s got some problems, but Return to Oz is honestly great. I also never felt like it was patronizing me when I watched it as child, which seemed like an awfully hard ask for most movies.

Yeah this is absolutely of its era, when it comes to terrifying 80’s children’s films.

I used get dad to rent this film for us when I was 8 or so. Mostly because I knew it was the only film my tough little sister was visibly scared of. Children are brutal.

This breakdown doesn’t even touch on Mombi, who scared the living daylights out of me. She is played by the same actress who plays the nurse at the sanatorium. And she is the reason the citizens of Oz up there are missing their heads. She keeps the still living heads locked in glass cabinets in her palace and swaps them out for her own head depending on her mood.

There is a later scene where all the heads are screaming as Dorothy makes a run for it. Mombi’s original head bellowing ‘Dorothy Gale!’ It is genuinely disturbing. I love this film so much.

I’ve never heard of this movie before, and all I can think now is

WHAT THE FUCK

It has been such a long time snice I saw this. I remember reading the books and being terrified of it. Because this is part of more than one book.

I love this movie! WAY better than the first OZ movie, I wanted a Lunch Pail tree SO BAD as a kid.

Karliene wrote a great song about it too!

Scissor Sisters also used it as inspo!

I love this movie so much. It’s weird as hell, but also really charming. Plus the visuals can’t be beat.

oh i loved this movie as a kid!