Return to Oz (1985)

At some point in the early eighties someone in Hollywood (possibly Stephen Spielberg) decided that the children must be made to suffer.

I don’t know what it was, but the eighties were an absolute Golden Age for media ostensibly aimed at children that seemed “aimed” more like you’d “aim” a psychological terror campaign against an enemy army.

And atop any list of eighties kid’s movies guaranteed to traumatise your little angels you’ll find 1985’s Return to Oz a movie that I never saw growing up, presumably because my parents knew that if they tried to take me to it the cinema would never not smell of piss again.

My wife, however, has seen it and has kindly agreed to watch it with me…

“Hahaha no she hasn’t. Fuck off.”

‘Till death do us part my ass.

Alright, what is this thing anyway?

1939’s The Wizard of Oz is regarded by many to be the greatest movie Disney ever made, which tears them up inside because they didn’t actually make it. L. Frank Baum’s been dead a long ass time and if you want to make a movie based on his Oz books you just knock yourself out because they’re all in the public domain. But so much of what people associate with the Oz story comes not from the books but from the movie, which is still owned by MGM. Which means you gotta be real careful when making your own movie that you don’t impinge on any of the unique elements of that film like the ruby red slippers or the famous dialogue or Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West or else MGM will send the big lion around to eat your feet.

Of course, Disney would love to make their own direct sequel or remake to the Wizard of Oz but they can’t because a certain company lobbied hard and dirty to ensure that movie copyright in America lasts until roughly the heat death of the universe.

Ah karma. Sweet as mother’s milk.

Anyway, that’s more or less how we got Return to Oz. It’s a sequel based on an amalgamation of two of Baum’s later Oz books that the filthy Oz casuals among you probably didn’t know even existed. And rest assured, if it is shamelessly aping an older film, it’s definitely not Wizard of Oz.

Unrelated image.

It’s 1899 and Dorothy Gale has returned to Kansas and is living with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in the half-finished new house that they’re building after the old one got sucked up by a tornado. Now, this movie was actually a Disney co-production with MGM so you could argue that it’s actually a sequel to the 1939 film. But if that’s so, this creates a bit of a continuity problem. Who can spot it?

That’s right/you idiot (delete as appropriate), in the original film, the house never actually gets blown away. Dorothy just dreams it does and when she wakes up it’s still there in Kansas.

Look, it’s the house.

Anyway, things aren’t going so well. The Gales have had to let their hired hands go (he was there, and he was there, but now they’re gone) and are trying to work the farm on their own while repairing the house. To make matters worse, Dorothy hasn’t been sleeping since she came back from her little magical killing spree and is no good for farm labour. She finds a key in the barn with the word “Oz” on it and is convinced that her friends want her to come back. So Em decides to take her to see Dr Worley, a shrink who runs a sanitorium assisted by his nurse, Wilson.

Worley, who seems like a kind old gent, suggests to Em that he leave Dorothy with them for the night so he can subject her to electrotherapy and Em is all “yes, nothing suspicious about that” because a night at home without the kids is all any of us want.

Director Walter Murch had never directed a film before this one and, after its miserable critical and box-office reception, he never directed another (don’t feel too sorry for him, he’s one of the most respected editors and sound designers in the history of film who worked with George Lucas, Orson Welles and Coppola amongst others). And I do want to give him credit here, he is absolutely not trying to ape the original film’s visual style and what he’s created is frankly gorgeous. The scenes on the farm in Kansas have a beautiful muted, autumnal feel and the scenes in the sanitorium are a genuinely great use of location to create escalating dread.

We start off in Doctor Worley’s office and it’s all quiet and homey like visiting your local GP.

But slowly as we move from location to location things just start feeling more off.

So by the time Dorothy is strapped to a table in an asylum during a thunderstorm listening to the other inmates screaming in terror it feels like watching a dream slowly slipping into a nightmare. And yes, I guess “to create escalating dread” is an odd phrase to show up in a review of a movie aimed at children, but eighties whaddyagonnado?

So in the asylum, Dorothy is befriended by a mysterious blonde girl who tells her that Worley has patients locked in the basement who’ve been injured by the machine that he’s going to use on her. The girl helps her escape in the middle of the night and the two of them run out into a thunderstorm, chased by Nurse Wilson. They get swept away by a flash flood and Dorothy clings to a chicken coop that goes floating by.

Dorothy passes out and wakes up on the chicken coop in a lake in the middle of a desert down one blonde girl and up one chicken which was in the coop. She names the chicken “Billina” and realises that she must be in Oz when the chicken starts talking to her because animals only talk in Oz.

Of course, that does raise the question as to why Toto didn’t speak to Dorothy the entire time they were in Oz.  

“She knows what she did.”

Dorothy and Billina go exploring and find Dorothy’s old house. Dorothy shows Billina where she killed the Wicked Witch of the East, presumably so the chicken knows not to fuck with her. She also finds the broken remains of the Yellow Brick Road and decides to follow it to the Emerald City, which she reaches in the next scene.

Think about that. Dorothy and one chicken are able to reach the Emerald City from Munchkin Land in around the a tenth of the time it took her with the “help” of the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion.

Dead fucking weight, the lot of you.

In the Emerald City they find that everyone has been turned to stone, even the Lion.

“Lawyer up.”

Dorothy searches for the Scarecrow who she left in charge of this place because he seemed like a different kind of politician. Then she gets found by…the Wheelers.

HELLO.

So these fucking cackling carbon-neutral Cenobites seem REALLY interested in getting their hands on Billina. Dorothy flees with Billina into the ruins of Emerald City and meets Tik-Tok.

I’m too old, okay? I’m too old to make a Tik Tok joke. I don’t know the memes. I don’t even know what it fucking does. Here, have a dancing baby. Best I can do.

Fun fact. If that was a real baby it’d be 27 by now.

Tik-Tok is actually a mechanical man (one of the first in fiction, actually) who was the Emerald City’s one man army. And can I just say I fucking love all the props in this movie but especially Tik-Tok.

Dorothy winds Tik-Tok up and he proceeds to kick Wheeler ass like a steampunk Robocop.

“Perhaps you have a hearing problem?”

They capture a Wheeler who tells them that the Emerald City was conquered by the Nome King, who turned everyone to stone. He says that the only one who knows where the Scarecrow is is Princess Mombi so they’re off to see the Princess, the terrible Princess of Oz.

Mombi, in this movie, is played by Jean Marsh (who had something of a groove going playing evil royals in eighties dark fantasy movies). Marsh also plays Nurse Wilson in the same way that Margaret Hamilton played the Wicked Witch of the West and Miss Gulch in the original.

The character herself is an amalgamation of two character; Mombi the Wicked Witch of the North from The Marvellous Land of Oz and Princess Langwidere from Ozma of Oz in a way that’s honestly very effective. Langwidere in the original book is, well, she’s an antagonist sure but a relatively harmless one. She’s a vain, spoiled, headless princess who has a collection of heads of beautiful women that she swops out at will and wants to add Dorothy’s to her collection.

And Walter Murch said “Jesus Christ, that sounds terrifying, let’s make her a proper villain.”

After Dorothy refuses to give up her head, she, Bellina and Tik Tok are locked in a tower. There she meets a living Jack O’Lantern named Jack Pumpkinhead.

“And I…Jack! The Pumpkin King! Have grown so tired of the same old thing…”

Such a great prop.

Anyway, Jack asks Dorothy if she’s his mother and she says no because she’s 10 and that’s too young even in Kansas.

If she’s his mother and she says no because she’s 10 and that’s too young even in Kansas.

He explains that his mother made him to scare Mombi, which worked, but then she got angry and used her “powder of life” to bring him to life which is definitely what I do with things that scare me. Dorothy sneaks into Mombi’s room and steals the powder to bring to life a sofa with the head of a moose called The Gump.

” Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!”

The Gump flies them out of the tower and they make a beeline for the Nome King’s mountain. The Nome King is played by Nicol Williamson, who also plays Doctor Whorley and is realised through…well, that’s complicated but for starters he’s a Claymation face made of rock.

The Nome King explains that all the emeralds that made Emerald City were actually dug out of his rock and so he took them back and kidnapped the King of the City, the Scarecrow, as punishment. Dorothy tries to explain that Scarecrow was just the new guy and that it wasn’t his fault. The Nome King offers the group a challenge:

He’s turned the Scarecrow into a small ornament. One by one, they can go into his collection and guess which ornament is the Scarecrow. Guess right, everyone goes free. Guess wrong, you turn into an ornament and it’s the next guy’s turn.

Dorothy agrees and one by one Tik-Tok, the Gump and Jack try and are turned into ornaments. By the way, Billina is hiding in Jack’s head so the Nome Kind doesn’t know she’s there which will be super relevant later on.

REMEMBER THIS CHICKEN.

Meanwhile, Mombi races to the Nome King’s mountain to warn him about the chicken.

With her friends gone, the Nome King shows Dorothy just how he became so powerful:

Given that MGM must have screwed Disney for every penny they were worth to use these, you may be looking at the most expensive slippers in human history.

Yup. The Ruby Slippers that fell of Dorothy’s feet when she was blown back to Kansas. The Nome King offers to wish Dorothy back home but, as she realisies this whole situation came about because of her losing the slippers, decides to enter the ornament chamber. She finds a green gem and guesses correctly. It’s the Scarecrow! Sorry, let me re-phrase that: IT’S THE SCARECROW!

Fuck that’s unsettling. Anyway, Dorothy figures out that the green ornaments are her friends and sets about freeing them one by one. Mombi arrives and the Nome King, furious when he learns that she had Dorothy imprisoned and let her escape, strips her of her powers. He then turns into a fucking NIGHTMARE and goes after our heroes. He catches Jack and is about to swallow him whole.

Y’know. For kids.

But Billina shits an egg into his mouth out of pure terror (did you remember the chicken?) and we discover why the Nome King is so scared of hens: he’s deathly allergic to eggs.

So he starts going to pieces like a frickin’ Nazi opening the Ark of the Covenant screaming “don’t you know eggs are poison?!”

Which of is ridiculous. While it has been established that eggs contain cholesterol, it has not yet been proven conclusively that they actually raise the level of serum cholesterol in the bloodstream.

“So. One of those egg council creeps got to you too!”

With the Nome King killed by random bullshit (an Oz tradition!) his magic is ended and all the statues in Emerald City return to life. The people ask Dorothy to be their Queen but there’s no place like home if you didn’t know. Then, the blonde girl from the sanitorium appears and turns out to be Ozma, the missing princess of Oz. Dorothy gives Ozma the ruby slippers and she tells her that she’ll be able to return to Oz whenever she wishes. Dorothy wakes up by the side of the river and is found by Toto and Aunt Em, who tells her that there was a fire at the clinic and everyone survived except Doctor Whorley, who burned alive trying to save his electro-therapy machine. How thoughtful of the movie to make sure we knew that.

“He burned then and he’s burning now, hon. Don’t you doubt it.”

***

Sometimes listlessly paced but absolutely gorgeous. Incredibly dark but fearlessly true to itself and unafraid to strike out on its own path. Is it as good as the original? Bite your tongue. But it’s definitely a strong movie in its own right. And Fairuza Balk is a fantastic Dorothy, you can definitely see why she had a long career after this.

This one goes in the “admire more than love” category for me but if you love it I absolutely see why.

NEXT UPDATE: 21 September 2023

NEXT TIME: Well, while we’re in the mood: