Forget “Psycho.” Never mind “The Exorcist.” This Halloween, skip “Halloween.” Instead, cue up a little horror called “Return to Oz.”
Yes, Oz, as in “Wizard of.” Yes, Oz, the adorable and beloved children’s book that became an adorable and beloved movie. Which someone apparently watched on acid, and then wrote this.
As our story opens, it’s six months after the tornado. Dorothy apparently went back in time when she returned to Kansas, because it’s now 1899, she’s dressed like Laura Ingalls, and she lives in the Little not-yet-completely-rebuilt-after-the-tornado House on the Prairie. She’s also plagued with insomnia, so Aunt Em does the logical thing and drops her off at a spooky house where a doctor plans to cure her with electro-shock therapy.
So there’s cute little Dorothy in her cute little Half-Pint pioneer girl dress, strapped to a gurney and about to get her brain zapped, when a thunderstorm causes a power outage. Another little girl helps Dorothy escape, and together they fall into a raging river and are swept away. Dorothy wakes up in the “deadly desert” with a talking chicken. She realizes she must be in Oz, because animals talk there, so she picks up the chicken and steps carefully on some well-placed rocks to cross the deadly desert into Oz proper. Then it gets weird.
The recession has apparently hit Oz, because the place is run-down, there are no munchkins in sight, and the yellow brick road is in bad need of some stimulus funds. Dorothy and the chatty chicken nevertheless head up the shovel-ready yellow brick road, and along the way they realize that most of the inhabitants of Oz have been turned to stone, including her old pals, the lion and the tin man. The place is also over-run with “wheelers” – evil clowns (and aren’t they all, really?) with wheels for hands and feet. She needs some sidekicks, so she picks up a copper wind-up robot who looks like Wilford Brimley. Then it gets weird.
Her search for her old scarecrow buddy leads her to a princess with a gallery of interchangeable heads. Sounds handy – one of them is bound to be having a good hair day, right? But in practice it might not be so practical. At one point it’s suggested that she only has the memories of whatever head she happens to be wearing. I mean, you’d NEVER find your car keys.
Anyhoo, the princess takes it into her head – her current one, anyway – to lock Dorothy up so that when she grows to a suitable size, her noggin can be added to the collection. In lock-up, Dorothy gets another sidekick in the form of a stick man with a carved pumpkin for a head. Dorothy escapes, goes to the princess’ hall of heads and steals the magic powder that brings inanimate objects to life. With the help of robot Wilford and Pumpkinhead, she takes down a stuffed moose head, attaches it to a sofa, adds big palm fronds to the sides, sprinkles the whole thing to life and makes it fly. Dorothy, robot Wilford, chatty chicken and Pumpkinhead all escape in the flying moose-sofa. Then it gets weird.
They fly to the mountain of the Gnome King, who has imprisoned the scarecrow. He’s ticked off because he considers all the gemstones in all the world to be his rightful property. I mean, who does the think he is, the CEO of de Beers? Occupy Gnome Mountain! Mr. “I get all the sparkly rocks” Gnome King was ticked off about all the emeralds in the Emerald City, so he locked up the scarecrow. Plus he has those ruby slippers, too. He’s wearing them, which looks kind of drag-queeny on a king who’s essentially a pile of rocks with a face.
Dorothy & company may be able to free the scarecrow if they can guess which one of the items in the king’s trinket collection he’s been turned into. If they guess wrong, they get turned into ornaments too. One by one they head into the king’s big room of tchotchkes, never to return. Dorothy goes in last, correctly guesses that the big fat green emerald would be, you know, the king of the Emerald City, and poof, it turns into the scarecrow. They figure out the other green ornaments must be their pals, so they turn them back into robot Wilford, moose-sofa and Pumpkinhead. Then it gets weird.
The evil princess shows up in a chariot pulled by the wheeled evil clowns, blathering about “Ozma.” The Gnome King puts her in a cage, then realizes Dorothy has guessed correctly and freed the scarecrow and her pals. He doesn’t care for this turn of events, so he tries to eat Pumpkinhead. But hiding in that hollowed-out jack-o-lantern is the chatty chicken, who’s so distressed by this turn of events she lays an egg, which falls into the mouth of the Gnome King. In the single most unbelievable plot development – yes, more unbelievable than the flying moose-sofa – eggs turn out to be poison to gnomes, and the big rocky king dies. Or melts. Or smelts. Or something. Dorothy grabs the ruby slippers, no doubt thinking “Hey, I’m always grabbing these things off some dead evil creature,” and they skedaddle.
The ruby slippers have the amazing power to transport them all to the Emerald City and tie up all the loose plot points. The Oz inhabitants who were turned to stone are suddenly whatever they were before – people, lions, tin men, whatever. The evil princess is there, too, still in her cage. “Ozma” turns out to be Dorothy’s little pal from the psych ward, who was the queen of Oz before the wizard showed up. The evil princess had imprisoned her in a mirror and Dorothy pulls her out. She gives Ozma the ruby slippers and asks to be sent back to Kansas, because damn, she’s had all the “WTF?” one person can take.
Dorothy goes back to the Little now-more-finished House on the Prairie and is reunited with Aunt Em, Uncle Henry and Toto too. She can still chat with Ozma in her mirror. Just in case that ending should strike you as a little too normal for this fevered acid-dream of a movie, Ozma is holding the talking chicken, who’s helping her rule Oz. Or laying eggs to poison gnomes. Or something. The End.
Did I mention this is a Disney Movie?
