It was like something out of The Usual Suspects (a movie that, ironically, does not scare me) as I gasped, and a flood of horrible memories whomped me upside the head. (I didn't drop my coffee mug in slow motion, though, which is good, because then I would have smelled like the inside of a 747 for the rest of the day.) Return to Oz, for those of you who don’t know, is a little-known sequel to The Wizard of Oz. It is also what one might call a PSYCHE-SCARRING EXPERIENCE, despite bearing the innocuous PG rating. I very distinctly recall seeing it in the theater with my best friend at the time when we were maybe six years old, which is, you know, a great time to see Dorothy get threatened with imprisonment and then beheading.
Now, it’s difficult for me to provide a complete plot summary, because then you’d be skeptical. And why wouldn’t you, considering that you’d be reading my (VERY ACCURATE) descriptive phrases, such as “magical, sought-after talking chicken,” “flying sofa with moose-ish head attached,” and “looming danger of being turned into some sort of gemstone ornament, yes, really.”? Instead, allow me to share with you some highlights of this beloved treasure of a childhood film:
- Dorothy -- who is now a little kid, for some reason? Even though this movie is set AFTER the events of the first one? Wha? -- is having trouble sleeping, and is taken to an insane asylum for overnight electroshock therapy. As you generally do with insomniac children.
- There is a desert that TURNS YOU INTO SAND IF YOU STEP ON IT.
- Everyone in Oz has been turned to stone, and the place is trashed. It’s some creepy Pompeii shit, is what it is.
- There are evil Wheelers; half men, half...squeaky shopping cart...things?
They're scarier than my description is making them out to BE! And that picture! No really, I--okay, you know what? I'm going to have to find a video to prove my point. Now, ignore, if you will, the comic relief of the aforementioned talking chicken -- specifically said chicken’s voice-- and imagine the horror of seeing this as a small child. Or hell, even NOW. (You’ll note the frozen-in-time stone people throughout):
- I’ve saved the best thing for last, and by “best” I mean “pants-crappingly awful, POSSIBLY WORSE THAN ANYTHING EVER GIRD YOUR LOINS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.” I refer, of course, to Princess Mombi, who’s technically headless, but don’t fret, because she has a room full of SCREAMING REPLACEMENT HEADS THAT SHE CAN POP ON AND OFF LIKE DAMN BUMPITS, because that is a thing that is enjoyable for kids to watch:
Obviously, you'll be needing the video here, too:
I'd attempt to end this post properly, but I may have wet myself. So indulge me, please, and, tell me: what was the scariest/most scarring movie you saw as a kid? I need the distraction, you guys! I may never sleep again.
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66 comments:
Only you could turn such a terror-filled movie into light-hearted HILARITY. And you didn't even mention the pumpkin-headed stick man whose head falls out of the flying moose (they called the moose a GUMP, right?) couch and is almost lost forever! And the removable head pumpkin man is a GOOD GUY.
Messed. Up.
I never saw that movie- thank goodness. It looks messed up! My scariest movie was Stephen King's It. That clown still freaks me out just thinking of it. Between Ronald McDonald and It's clown, I could do with a worldwide ban of clowns. Too creepy!
I never saw that movie, but Nightmare on Elm street scared the crap out of me, too. I made my mom buy me a cross necklace to sleep with...
...and did sleep with it on and off for nearly four years.
That movie is right up there, but for me the scare came from Fantasy Island, and one particularly nasty episode in which a clown from hell came to the island? WTF? I dunno. But it was terrifying.
THANK YOU for this. i can't wait to not sleep for the next week. just kidding! i actually liked return to oz but i think i'm confusing it with a similarly frightening live-action alice in wonderland...in the end, alice has to climb over a big formal dining room table to crawl through the looking glass over the fireplace mantle? or oh god how about that creepy live action snow white from the late 80s? creepy yet i liked it.
i was (and still am) terrified of the wolf that's frozen into the wall in the neverending story. you know, the one that jumps out snarling?
oh my gosh. the room full of heads creeped me out so much as a kid. in fact there are still many times that a picture of it runs through my head at random times and i just get the shivers. who thought that one was a good idea?
I remember that movie! I don't know why it didn't freak me out more. I was terrified by a PBS show about this man who made masks and he had a room full of fake heads and wigs and mirrors. My friend was a pansy and she made me sleep near the mirror that night.
Oh my god, I TOTALLY remember that movie! It completely freaked me out as well, I have no idea why it was marketed as a children's film.
My all-time scariest movie, even still to this day? E.T. Everything about that movie just terrifies me... and I'm 28.
Eeeeeek! Was that a G-rated movie?? No wonder you were traumatized. That's horrible stuff. For me it was Jaws, in the fourth grade. I wouldn't even take a BATH after that. Drove my parents crazy. We took beach vacations and I wouldn't go in past my ankles. To this day I will not go in the ocean past waist-deep because of that movie.
SYBIL is the only movie that made me afraid to be in the dark at night - I can't even write something clever and funny about it, it still upsets me...
LOL I remember seeing that movie at the cinema when I was younger too, the headless lady definitely freaked me out but not as much as the hands in Labyrinth.
I can't remember why but in the film Sarah is dropped into a tunnel thing full of hands that makes faces and talk at her. Blerg, that really creeped me out every time I saw it! Luckily David Bowie as the goblin king more than made up for it!
I never saw this movie, partly because I remember seeing the commercials and being all indignant because this movie is a bastardized mash-up of the second and third Oz books. What? You didn't know there is more than one Oz book? OH YES.
I owned the first four as a box set, and this movie has elements of The Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. The Land of Oz is kind of a messed up story, but is not even close to as scary as the movie. The pumpkin head guy and the couch are in that one. The chicken, the sand, the headless woman and the Wheelies are all from Ozma of Oz.
But I am GLAD I never saw it because, Dude.
definitely Ghostbusters - the library scene.
You can imagine that I never saw this because the original Wizard of Oz gave me horrible nightmares and I refuse to let my children watch it. Yes, I know one of them is 15. Yes, I have let them watch select R rated movies. No, Wizard of Oz and those damn flying monkeys are not playing in our house.
This is a terrifying film! To compound the fear, I also had it as a story tape and book, and I remember being freaked out by the stills photo of Mombi in the room with the heads. I think the scariest part by far is the electroshock therapy - when the nurse STRAPS DOWN Dorothy onto the bed and pulls the lever down on that massive machine - well, let's say it still chills me to the bone to think that a little girl could be abandoned by her loving aunt to such a freaky place.
You're never going to believe this, but I actually OWN that movie! And yes, it terrified me as a child. I think it was supposed to be more based on the actual books than the original movie was... either way, it was more PG13 if you ask me!
And there are so many other crazy things... cross dressing gnome king, a tree-hugger type question of whether or not said gnome king really DID have a point when he said that the emeralds were actually his and the people of Oz stole them from him, a cracked and destroyed yellow brick road, TRAMAUTIZING! :)
Gremlins. Without a doubt. I still refuse to watch it and I *HATED when Furbys became the NextBigThing. Because DUDE - SAME ANIMAL.
So yeah. I feel your pain. Though have to be honest, never saw Return to Oz as a child, and now I kind of want to watch it as an adult, and because I think it will be TRIPPY!
labyrinth was my movie of fear. omg- David Bowie's makeup alone is terrifying. However it's not one of my favorite movies as an adult to watch when I'm feeling all silly and want a muppet-esk dance break.
I think Dorothy is a little girl because she is a little girl in the books. (I read somewhere that the producers of the Wizard of Oz originally wanted Shirley Temple for the part of Dorothy, but that could be just one of those internet rumors.)
IT is a movie that completely freaks me out - in that the clown is horrifying, and it's also just a horrifying messy wretched campy version of King's book. (Yes, reading the book will keep you awake for a week, but at least you are not seeing the dude from Night Court in your book induced night mares.)
Hmmm I'd have to say Babes in Toyland. Freaked me the hell out. Although Labyrinth and Gremlins were both super scary.
dark crystal!
I TOTALLY forgot about this movie! How awful! This will tell you how old I am but the scariest ones for me were "The Firestarter" (Little Drew is all "Back off, BACK OFF!" and the scary guy with the wierd eye?) But the scariest? I can't even remeber the name....they threw all the children down this sliding pit into fire. One child was chosen at random. They were looking for a child with a special tattoo "sign". Some king did not want to be replaced. Do you know this one? IT WAS HORRIBLE!
I think the heads in that movie were the creepiest part. I'd forgotten about its horror until I read this post, and then of course I remember hiding under my covers with a flashlight for a week because it was SO FREAKY.
The Dark Crystal is another one. It was just so, well, creepy.
*shudder*
I have never heard of Return to Oz, but I may have to rent it now. And seriously, yes those heads!
Oddly, to this day, the movie that makes my skin crawl is Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Something about Gene Wilder freaks me the hell out.
And the Johnny Depp verison? REFUSE TO SEE IT. Because just the previews FREAK ME THE HELL OUT.
Ok, I am VERY GLAD that I never saw this movie as a kid, because, holy crap. I love the Wizard of Oz, and that might've ruined it for me.
Scariest movie from my childhood: a Twilight Zone movie where there was a gremlin on the wing of the airplane that only 1 dude could see, and everyone else thought he was crazy. (This is the original version of it starring, of all people, William Shatner. The one I saw was in the 80's and starred a very sweaty & anxious John Lithgow.) It absolutely terrified me, and I still get freaked out by windows at nighttime. All windows need curtains, and they must be closed by the time it gets dark. *shudder*
OMG! I don't think I've ever even heard of that movie! But I'm scared to watch it as a 32 year old, let alone as a child!
The scariest movie I watched as a kid was Creepshow. When Stephen King turns into a grass man. And that scary hitchhiker. It gives me nightmares just thinking about it now!
I've never heard of that movie, thank GOD! I started to watch the first clip you posted and had to stop it almost immediately. A movie that really freaked me out as a child as a well-known picture called "The Double McGuffin" (what?). All I remember is that Blair from The Facts of Life was in it and there was a hand in a box. When we got back home, I had to go to the bathroom but realized that nobody else was in the house yet, and I think I peed on myself a little. Now that I am looking up the film on imdb, I see that Ernest Borgnine was in it, and Orson Wells was the narrator. Wha???
Child's Play
Never Ending Story (THAT MOVIE IS AWFUL! AWFUL!)
Wizard of Oz
I accidentally saw part of IT when I was 10 or so and had to sleep in my mom's bed for a couple of days. Even today, I severely limit what I'll watch because I'm so nightmare-prone.
As for terrifying kids' movies - I remember some seriously creepy portions of The Electric Grandmother.
The Dark Crystal- THE DAAAAARK CRYSTAALL! So creepy. Forever.
I fully remember the weirdness of Return to Oz. The movie that freaked me out the worst was Pet Cemetery, though. The scene with the sick sister and her gnarled back...still gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Oh my gosh. Terrifying. My family and I were just talking about this movie and how incredibly scary it is! (Yet, as a child I watched it over and over again!)
I agree with the other commenters: Neverending Story, Labrynth, Stephen King's It (WTF, parents? Why was I watching that??), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the acid-trip tunnel with the chicken getting its head cut off!)
Also, Star Trek, Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park. When Jurassic Park came out I was in 6th grade and I fell asleep every night perfectly still so that the T Rex wouldn't be able to see any movement and therefore me. And I was just SOL with the velociraptors.
I have a brother who is 6.5 years older than me- I think that led to a lot of incidental TV/movie exposure that wasn't age appropriate.
GAH! that movie looks terrifying!! the WHEELIES??! OMG. making mental note to never, EVER watch it. ever.
this is weird, but the movie that creeped me out as a kid - and still does - was Pinocchio. yes, the Disney cartoon. something about the place (island?) where the boys turn into donkeys REALLY scared me.
Oddly, even though Mombi scarred the bejesus out of me, the I LOVED this movie as a child. My parents recorded it on VHS and I about wore that tape out. I used to play Deadly Desert around the swing set (can't touch the ground)! Of course, my favorite movie of all time, since the age of 14, is Silence of the Lambs so its possible that I am just deranged.
Poltergeist III scarred the shit out of me though. And the Neverending Story.
Puppet Master...didn’t work out so well considering I had about 20 china dolls lining my bedroom shelves. I don't know why or how I could watch such scary movies as a child and I can't even watch CSI as an adult. I'm glad you included the headless witch because I was going to have to add that to the horror of that movie. My God - how are we all not sitting in a corner sucking our thumbs as a result of the 80's crappy/horrifyingly scary movies we watched with glee as innocent children!
I was, thankfully, never exposed to this masterpiece before.
My scarring childhood movie was Cabaret. My parents apparently really wanted to see it and either couldn't find childcare or didn't comprehend the confusion this movie might create in my eight year old brain. All I remember clearly was that the Nazi bad guys killed the Jewish woman's dog and that was the saddest thing in the world to me, kind of still is. See? Scarred for life.
I loved The Wizard of Oz as a child and yet somehow never watched or so much as heard of Return to Oz. Which is a good thing because after watching those clips? I'm horrified. HORR.I.FIED. And I'm 31 years old. I can only imagine how much more screwed up than I already am I'd be having seen that as a kid! I think the movies that scared me the most were pretty much all the Stephen King ones, but particularly Pet Sematary. The image of Gage walking into the middle of the road with the truck barrelling toward him will never leave my mind, not to mention the freaky zombie demon he becomes, and then that scene where the locked-up handicapped sister comes rushing at the camera... ugh. Shit. I'm home alone, about to go get into the shower, and am now thinking about Pet Sematary. Thanks a lot, Metalia.
Oh my hell. That sounds horrifying.
The scariest movie I saw as a child was Dracula (I don't even know what version it was). I was about 6 and was petrified. To make matters worse the light in the stairway of our apartment building went out soon after, so when I would come home from play I would call out to my dad outside our balcony and make him shine a flashlight while I ran up the four flights of stairs to our apartment. At a dead sprint, feeling completely sure that Dracula was steps behinds me. Just thinking about that still gives me the creeps.
My mom took me and my brother to see Cujo when I was in middle school and he was in elementary school because we all loved Steven King and had read the book. Big mistake! I was totally freaked out and spent most of the movie curled in a ball with my back to the screen.
my mom let me watch poltergeist at the tender age of 5 or 6... and the image of the man swallowing the worm in the tequila bottle STILL haunts me. i've never watched it again!
Man, I had forgotten about this movie! It was freaky as hell in addition to being incredibly bizarre. The wolf on Neverending Story freaked me out when I was young, too. I used to be ashamed that I was afraid of E.T. but I just recently watched that movie again after years of not seeing it, and HELLO, it is still creepy.
Omg. Those videos were terrifying and I never knew this "sequel" existed. Its 4.52 am here in singapore and I think I'm gonna have nightmares):
Finally, I've found someone who shares The Fear! I freaking HATE this movie... yet, I will watch it over and over. The Wheelers gave my husband nightmares when he was a kid. And MOMBI'S HEADS! Holy frick. The part where Dorothy is reaching in to grab that powder stuff and the original ugly head is sleeping? OMG.
I feel so fortunate I was not aware of this movie as a child.
The original Phantom of the Opera movie scared me so badly as a child. I snuck out of bed and watched over the babysitter's shoulder.
Oh yeah, and Leprechaun. I've never seen it all the way through, but when I was about 10 I flipped through the channels and saw him under a truck about to grab some girl who was standing beside it. DIDN'T SLEEP FOR YEARS.
Okay, now I'm thinking of a ton more. I'm such a pansy.
My 3rd grade teacher read that one book, Taily Po to our class. It's about this evil scary cat thing that comes and eats an old man and his dog. !!!!! Reading that to your third graders? SERIOUSLY!?
This movie, BY FAR, is the scariest shiz evah!
A) when the power would go out my dad used to think it was hilarious to bellow DOROTHY GAIL like the room of heads. Umm not funny thanks.
B) My most awful nightmare memory is of a wheeler with a Freddy Krueger face that attacked me and decided to eat me to death instead of killing me, starting at my arm. Yep. That's what that movie does to a 6 year old mind. My heart stopped when I scrolled through your post and saw the wheeler photo.
Oh my gosh I remember this movie. SO scary! I recently saw a preview of the new Clash of the Titans movie, and was reminded that I watched that ALL THE TIME with my parents when I was a kid. I think it was permanently playing on HBO on Saturdays from 1983-1985. I was terrified of the witches, and thought about Medusa's snakey head whenever I was trying to fall asleep. WTF.
OMFG THE WHEELERS. Those things Freaked My Shit OUT as a kid. I actually jumped in my chair when I scrolled down to the picture of them in this post.
But the worst for me was always Jaws/sequals. THINGS IN THE WATER. We went camping all the time when I was young and I was SO SCARED of swimming in lakes, because THINGS MIGHT GET ME. It did not help that my parents would swim slowly after me humming the Jaws theme song.
The movie that scarred me for life was Watcher in the Woods - holy freaking heart attack. My parents somehow thought this was appropriate to show to an EIGHT year old, because it was from DISNEY (FOR THE LOVE!) - nevermind that it was Disney's first horror movie and was obviously incredibly, freakishly creepy and scary. Good gravy.
Whenever I'm feeling bad about my parenting skills, I'm just going to remember that my parents let me watch this.
I give you: THE TRAILER. DUN Dun dun.
Or this, even MORE creepy trailer
Ayieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I'm going to have to agree with watcher in the woods. It was Disney so I saw it at a birthday party. I couldn't look in a mirror for months after that and I slept with the covers completely over my head for the next year. I know my husband will disagree and say dark crystal was worse. But he also watched porn as a young child at a friend's house as it was in a muppet movie case. He remembers how the girl was screaming and getting 'hurt'.
Don't forget the Nome King and his obvious affinity for women's clothing. I still can hardly understand the hilarity of when he's wearing the red shoes, raising his eyebrows up and down suggestively and says, "Did you come back - for THESE??" and lifts his skirt.
DUDE. WHAT does it say about my psyche that I absolutely loved this movie as a kid??? When I started reading your post, I was thinking "She's a pansy, that movie was not scary." And then I watched those clips. Uh, yeah. Those freaked me out NOW, but I don't remember thinking that it was scary as a kid. Huh?? Maybe it was all in the comparison. . .that my teenage stepsisters showed me nightmare on elm street when I was like 6? Yeah, talk about scarred.
As scary as Return to Oz was (and, man, that movie was CREE-PY. The room of heads, the asylum, the Nome King (with his face appearing in SOLID ROCK)? Meep! I did like the Lunchpail tree, though), like some other commenters, Watcher in the Woods scared the pants off me. My parents let my sister and me rent it because it was a Disney movie, and it took me WEEKS before I could go in the bathroom and not worry about seeing that chick's face in the mirror.
The other movie that freaked me out when I was a kid was another Disney one: Mr. Boogedy. I refused to go down to the basement by myself for a verrrry long time after seeing that movie. Disney: 2, me: 0.
Jesus.
H.
Christ.
I knew NOTHING of this movie and as I remember back to that lovely time about 10 minutes ago, I was a much happier person.
I read the original L. Frank Baum books, and I remember that book being very disturbing.
If you have wheels on your hands, how the hell do you wipe your ass?
I remember the Ewok Adventure movie being frightening as a kid because of that moat that has acid in it.
I was home sick from school one day, and they played Poltergeist III. So there I was, all tucked up with the phone next to my bowl of saltines and Sprite, and I flip through the channels only to be distracted by that crazy tiny lady with the turquoise necklace. Before I knew what I was looking at, I was scarred. JUST LIKE THAT. I didn't sleep for weeks, and I still have an irrational fear of parking garages. (shudder)
That Wizard of Oz sequel looks positively horrifying, Metalia! I won't watch the youtubes you posted for fear of nightmares.
(shudder)
I had NO idea about Return to Oz, but the original Wizard of Oz scared me right off the yellow brick road ever since I was a little girl.
And Nightmare on Elm Street? YES. Worst thing I ever did as a kid, was watch that movie. And not only because my best friend at the time LIVED ON ELM STREET.
Another movie I remember scaring me that I now really do love: The Labyrinth. Every time David Bowie was on screen I was watching through hands clasped over my eyes.
Oh, and have you watched Nightmare on Elm Street as an adult by chance? I totally did (sort of on accident) and it's pretty hilarious. Take THAT, Freddy Kruger.
Heh. This just proves that I was a weird, strange child. Return to Oz was my favourite movies as a kid and I used to watch it on repeat, quite like how my kids now watch Finding Nemo repetitively.
I totally remember that floating heads from that movie - they completely freaked me out. But the scariest movie ever? Definitely E.T. So many people my age (30) are still scared of it. Tried braving it again when i was older and I was doing fine till he got sick, and then it was all downhill again with the nightmares and fear of little weird aliens dressing up in my mother's clothes....
I hated this movie when I was a kid (OH the nightmares!), but I've often considered renting it as an adult to check out the costumes again. I remember that that was the part I had to focus on while watching it to not freak out!
The Jabberwocky in the live action Alice movies creeped me out.
Also the part in the Ewok movie where the kid gets trapped under the water...
IT is like holycrap scary. My friend and I sat and watched the whole thing and the return of IT sequel. We were seriously huddled up together on my couch hiding under a blanket watching it.
When you consider this was one of her earlier works, it kind of explains Fairuza Balk's oeuvre.
I had a terrible love/hate relationship with "Return to Oz". It scared the BEJEEZUS out of me, but I watched it incessantly for years. THe two younger cousin I went to see it with were strangely unaffected.
Many of the other movies that people mentioned scared me, too... but I kind of liked being scared sometimes, so they were hit or miss as to whether I found them 'fun scary' or 'turn it off, turn it off, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN IT OFF! scary'. Labyrinth (the HANDS, wtf!), the concept of the 'nothing' in Neverending Story STILL freaks me out (want some mean-spirited fun? Mention that plot point to someone who is tripping in university, then 'put them in a bubble'and watch them slowly fall apart), I was 25 before I could watch all of the Dark Crystal without breaking into a cold sweat...
But the most scarring thing I EVER saw as a child was this tv special about movie aliens that was hosted by Robin WIlliams. AS a HUGE Mork and Mindy fan, I totally defied my parents who told me the show would be too scary and I wasn't allowed to watch it, by sneaking out of my room and watching it over their shoulders while hiding in the hallway. My sneakiness was rewarded with literally YEARS worth of nightmares courtesy of clips of cheesy 50's era space horror films. Thanks, Mork. Thanks a freaking lot.
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