Month: July 2023

Horror Junior: Return to Oz

I was a child of the 1980s, and I first saw Return to Oz on a Sunday night as the weekly Disney family movie. I was excited to see it as a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, but I was not expecting it to be so scary. The witch with the replaceable heads was freaky and surreal, and I loved it. I had never seen anything like it.

I rewatched the film this past week for nostalgia, not thinking it would be as intense as I remembered. Oh, no. It was intense. The movie began with poor little Dorothy narrowly escaping electro-shock therapy to discourage her imagination. It was terrifying.

The other frightening scenes were equally as scary today. I liked the story of this movie more than The Wizard of Oz, both then and now. Also, as an adult, I have read L. Frank Baum books from the Oz series, and I better appreciate how Return to Oz captured the threatening and sinister tone of his storytelling.

Murch, Walter. Return to Oz, Buena Vista Distribution, 1985.

Horror Cinema: The Bye Bye Man

The premise of The Bye Bye Man is similar to Candy Man, where saying a villain’s name makes him appear. For this reason, I went into the movie with low expectations. I was happily surprised to discover a movie with spooky ghost scares and dramatic mental instability between characters that was shocking at times.

One scene in particular that had a lasting impression was when the protagonist defiantly drove headlong into what he thought was an illusion. I was really rooting for him to overcome the insane hallucinations caused by the villain, but the result turned out to make me feel awful in a way that I want a horror movie to make me feel.

Image from Basement Rejects

The movie had a great sorority-slasher feel mixed with ghostly jump scares. The narrative kept me captivated, and I was impressed by this gem.

Title, Stacy. The Bye Bye Man, STX Entertainment, 2017.