Film review: Return to Oz (1985)

For some reason, I bought this some time ago, and then when Frederick was watching the original Oz yesterday I was motivated to get it out and we watched it finally.  It's...different.  It's good, I'd say, and in fact I think it's a good deal better than the more heralded Labyrinth (which we also watched for the first time comparatively recently), but I'm not sure it's a kids' movie.  It's instructive to compare it with Wizard.  I imagine it's a lot closer to the books, because I understand they were fairly dark, and it certainly is that.  Also the girl who plays Dorothy was ten at the time, which seems much more appropriate than Judy Garland's late teens.  Anyway, here's the plot in very condensed form.  Things are looking bleak chez Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, about six months on from the events of the original film: Dorothy can't sleep, her Uncle has yet to rebuild their house and is clearly malingering even though he's recovered from his broken leg.  Em has decided to take him to a doctor who uses electricity to fix brain problems, who turns out to be played by Nicol Williamson (Merlin in Excalibur, and, if there were any justice, as famous as Anthony Hopkins), with a nurse played by Jean Marsh. 

As this follows the pattern of the previous film, as you can imagine, they also play dual roles in Oz, later, with Williamson as the Nome King and Marsh as the wicked witch Mombi (both excellent in their Shakespeare-trained way).  Another element where I imagine this is closer to the books than the classic film is that it is never revealed whether or not Dorothy is dreaming all the Oz stuff.  Her Aunt certainly thinks so (part of the motivation for taking her to the shrink) and Dorothy can point to no evidence proving the real existence of Oz.  Anyway, the early part of the film is Dorothy being dropped off at the doctor's to spend the night, and at one point strapped to a gurney and about to get electro-shock "therapy" when lightning strikes the asylum and in the ensuing chaos she is freed by a mysterious older girl.  After hearing the moans and screams of "damaged" patients hidden in the basement (told you it was dark) they go on the run from the scary nurse in the rainstorm and get swept away in the flooded river.  Dorothy clings to what looks like an old crib but the other girl is lost, apparently drowned.  When Dorothy wakes, she has been joined by her pet chicken Billina, whom we saw earlier at Auntie Em's house as Dorothy was warning her that if she didn't lay an egg soon, she'd be for the pot.  Her presence (despite the absence of Toto, who was also left back at Em's house for the trip to the doctor) can only be explained by the fact that she dug up a key in the farmyard, which Dorothy interpreted as from Oz, but Em insists is an old key from the house that was blown away in the first film.  Anyway, Dorothy and (the now talking) Billina are, of course, in Oz.  But it turns out to be an Oz in ruins (which I think I would have found very disturbing, had I been the (presumed) target audience of this film, a child who loved the original), the Yellow Brick Road and Emerald City all tumbledown and, worst of all, the inhabitants, including the Tin Man (now called the Tin Woodsman - again, loyalty to the books?) turned to stone.  Oz is also overrun by the Wheelers,

who chase Dorothy and Billina into a little room (opened by the key Billina found) where they find a mechanical man called TikTok, who has three keys to wind up his mind, his mouth and his actions (laying the groundwork for a joke where Dorothy explains that it is quite common for humans to talk when their mind isn't working). 

 Later additions to Dorothy's New Crew include a character with a carved pumpkinhead called Jack Pumpkinhead,

and a sofa with a stuffed and mounted "gump" (moose?) head attached to it and sprinkled with magic dust to bring it to life.  Later horrors include Mombi's hall of replacement heads

and the Nome King's palace where doors appear after the rock has turned into multiple writhing hands.  Small wonder that this film always comes up in lists of "most traumatizing scenes in a childhood movie," or "nightmare fuel".  But I like the fact that it's a chicken that saves the day.