Do I really need to go into this one? Okay, what’s so scary about a Disney movie? Maybe the fact the film starts with Dorothy being locked in a sanatorium due to her obsession with Oz is a good indicator of where we are going with this film. The doctor in charge of Dorothy planned to administer electrotherapy to Dorothy, but before lightning, thankfully, there’s a power failure. Dorothy is rescued by a mysterious girl with a warning and the two escape. The girls being chased, run into a river where Dorothy floats away on a chicken coop, unable to save the other girl (and we literally don’t know her fate for, like, the whole movie)! Dorothy then awakens, back in the now-almost destroyed Oz, along with a talking chicken companion, Billina (literal hero).
Setting out on the broken yellow brick road, their journey begins. Along the way, Dorothy meets her new companions — Tik-Tok, a mechanical servant of the Scarecrow (now the king of Oz), Jack Pumpkinhead, an anthropomorphic tree-like chap with a pumpkin for a head (kinda cute, but still terrifying as a kid) and Gump, a flying/talking moose head…yeah. Then there’s also the villains — first up, the Wheelers, the blundering and incompetent henchmen on wheels. They are eerie, weird, and far more terrifying than the flying monkeys from the first film. Then there’s Princess Mombi — spoiler alert, HER HEAD COMES OFF!! But don’t worry, she has plenty more in her chamber, just lined up on stands waiting for their turn… Plus the Nome King, who is the main antagonist and just a massive jerk TBH. The overarching darkness of the movie, kicked off by the Victorian asylum, is really what seals this film as just being terrifying as a kid. As an adult, I love it though. Fairuza Balk really was the perfect choice for this version of Dorothy; just slightly off, not as cheery and whimsical, but still full of fantasy, albeit dark, dark fantasy.
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