Yes, RETURN TO OZ is a horror movie

In theory, Return to Oz is the greatest movie ever made. Consider this: You've got perhaps the most well-known movie of all time, which has survived decades being widely accepted as THE quintessential family movie, and some guy was presented with the task of producing a sequel. This guy, who I imagine has the biggest balls ever and is probably Sam Elliot, says, "Okay, I like the original, I understand they show it every Christmas and Thanksgiving, I know that this is usually the first movie kids ever see, but it's just a little too faggy. I say we ace the munchkin dance sequences and replace them with:

- Dorothy narrowly escaping electroshock therapy.

- Evil howling clowns with wheels for hands and feet.

- A desert that turns anyone who steps on it into sand.

- A queen who decapitates her victims. Also, make sure she collects the heads, and if you can, try to show her walking around without a head and have her try to take off Dorothy's head and put it on her body.

- A room where people who touch anything are turned into antiques forever.

- Scary, scary fucking living rocks.

Plus, how perfect is it that the little girl who plays Dorothy is Fairuza Balk, known for her role as lead witch in The Craft, as well as for just being her generally creepy self. This is how sequels need to be done: by taking out one thing that sucks about a movie and replacing it with about ten things that are bad-ass. All thats missing was tits. Honestly, at the rate they went at, I can't beleive they didn't work in a Dirty Sanchez or two.

I'm kind of cheating here because I saw this movie once when I was a kid, and I HAD TO LEAVE THE THEATRE. No bullshit. The sequal to The Wizard of Oz has actually been firmly established in my personal lore as one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. Having finally re-faced my fears, I can still say that it's alot creepier than today's fare, and certainly not for kids just as much now as it was back then.


I'm not sure what this Japanese subtitle translates to, but it's probably "HA! Now you prepare for ultimate super brain cook!"

Return to Oz made me long for a time when we all weren't a bunch of pussies. I was going to do a whole post on this topic, but for starters: we're all a bunch of pussies. You know how people see "shocking" movies like The Devil's Rejects and say, "there's no way a movie like that would've--or could've--been made twenty years ago."? Bullshit. One of my favorite examples is a rare NBC miniseries called Something is out There, that had more blood and rad face eviscerations than Alien Vs. Predator and Freddy Vs. Jason combined. The perfect example is A Clockwork Orange. I know A Clockwork Orange may seem tame compared to today's movies, but today's movies never would've existed if A Clockwork Orange hadn't set the precident. I don't believe some other movie would've eventually been made to set the precident, I believe a precident would never have been set. To rephrase, imagine A Clockwork Orange had never been made, and a movie producer in 2005 was given the script to A Clockwork Orange as we know it. It never would've gotten made without being toned down to one of the lamest things to ever make you roll your eyes and say, "man, that was gay." It would've joined the hundreds and hundreds of "that could've been good, but..." movies I've seen in the last few years, because executives are scared to take chances. They're scared, unwilling, and unable to dare to offend, due mostly to a split-second nipple sighting at a Super Bowl halftime show, which further infuritates me that the public finds nipples so offensive. I've found that when you try to make everyone happy, you just make more people pissed. There's no way in hell Return to Oz would've been made to day, considering that it's scarier than any horror movie I've seen since The Ring. And it for damn sure wouldn't have been marketed as a kid's movie, which it so shamelessly was in the '80s. Because today's kids are pussys. If you're reading this and you're under 10 and don't believe me, go call your dad a fag and see if he spanks you.

Viva la '80s.

Three Jason heads.