Moviegasm: Return to Oz

Hi Gasmii!  P-Baby back again, as it is that time of the week where I unleash my dementia on all you unsuspecting readers.  As you all may know, every week I agonize over what movie to subject my musings onto and every week I tend to turn towards my Book O’ Crappy Movies to find it.  Well, this week is no different, though instead of agonizing, I knew exactly what movie I was after.  Let me back up and explain…

Hard at work on a Sunday afternoon, my coworkers and I discovered a small, dusty 3-drawer filing cabinet that looked as though it hadn’t been touched since 1995.  Being the nosy, procrastinating bunch that we are, we of course shirked our work responsibilities in exchange for exploring the cabinet’s contents.  Upon opening the top drawer, we happened upon this little treasure.

Of course we found a Wicked Witch of the West doll with drag queen eyebrows and a busted ass weave.  I immediately assumed control of Lady Elphaba Tropp before the rest could get their grubby little hands on her.  How did she get here after suffering such a painful and horrible death at the hands of a bratty, sequin-shoe wearing bitch?  Where is her broomstick?  Are the flying monkeys okay?  WHO IS FEEDING THE MONKEYS?  Oz must have gone to hell in a handbasket after that haughty, entitled sparkle-bitch Glinda took the reigns.

The whole point of the story, Gasmii, is that today’s recap will be the Disney bastard child Return to Oz, starring the slightly frightening Fairuza Balk before she got all spirit-invoking, foot-dragging, bat-shit crazy.

As the movie opens, a tiny violin plays sad, daunting music as we zoom in on Dorothy, unable to sleep even though it is the middle of the night.  Aunt Em checks in on her while Uncle Henry contemplates an ad in the paper for electroshock therapy to heal their niece.  We hear that it has been six months since the tornado incident that tore everything up and introduced our dear Dorothy to a psychotic technicolor world of midgets, witches, and grown men that find a little too much pleasure dressing up like scarecrows and lions.  A shooting star flies by which Dorothy sees through the window.

The next morning, Dorothy races out to the barn.  I am sad to see she traded in her cute cap-sleeved blouse, checkered dress, and glossy ringlets for more conservative garb in dingy flesh tones and a pair of ratty pigtails.  Tim Gunn would not approve.  She’s also traded Toto for a chicken named Bellina that refuses to lay eggs.  I don’t approve on the sheer fact that Toto may love hot dogs more than me and that, my friends, is an impressive feat.  So basically, in a nutshell, this Dorothy sucks.

At the barn Dorothy discovers a key on the ground which appears to spell the word Oz on the top part.  Dorothy runs in excitement to Aunt Em to show her they key and tells her it was sent to her on a shooting star.  Dorothy has failed to learn a major life lesson at her tender young age, the lesson being ”Know your audience.”  She might want to save her shooting star psycho babble for the diary since Aunt Em is taking her in for a little zappy zappy mind meld appointment later that day.  Aunt Em tells Dorothy to cut the Oz shit and go get ready.

The two head off down the road and arrive at their destination.  Dorothy starts to tell the doctor about the Lion, Tin Man, and ruby slippers and even as a devout fan of The Wizard of Oz, I have to admit she definitely sounds as though she’s not playing with a full deck.  Dr. Worley shows Dorothy a machine resembling a face and tells her it will be able to help her with her sleeping issues.

Aunt Em leaves Dorothy in the hands of the doctors office and takes off back home.  Dorothy is reassured by Nurse Wilson, the head nurse, that everything will be fine.  Yeah, like I’m going to believe a word that obviously evil bitch says.  She gives Nurse Ratched a run for her money, though it may not be fair to compare the two as the severe black get up may be adding to her Satan-esque appearance.

Dorothy is shown to her room which is minimalist in amenities and shortly thereafter is greeted by a random, young, blonde girl holding a jack-o-lantern.  The girl gives Dorothy the jack-o-lantern as a gift but disappears quickly after the sound of a storm approaching startles the two.  Dorothy is left alone in her room listening to the rain fall.

Nurse Wilson comes knocking soon enough and tells Dorothy to come with her.  Dorothy gets strapped to a gurney and wheeled to a room where Dr. Worley hooks her up to the machine from earlier and places headphones over her ears.  Right now, I’m trying to figure out who at Disney bought off on the pitch of Dorothy being on the receiving end of serious mental health treatment 15 minutes into a children’s movie.

As he flips the switch to turn on the machine, the power goes out due to the storm.   Nurse and Doc leave the room to go fix the generator, leaving strapped in Dorothy alone in the dark.  The anonymous blonde girl of pumpkin-giving fame is back and releasing Dorothy from the gurney, telling her the two need to get the hell out of there stat.  As the girls run down the stairs, Nurse Wilson comes up from the basement and sees the two making an escape.

The girls flee into the woods as Nurse Wilson comes shrieking after them.  The blonde falls into an overflowing river and as Dorothy reaches her hand down to pull her out, Nurse Wilson catches up behind her.  This prompts Dorothy to jump into the river as well.  Dorothy grabs a nearby floating crib and climbs in to wait out the storm.  Nurse Wilson is going to have a hell of a time explaining this one to Aunt Em.  “Yes, may I speak to Em please?  Unfortunately, I’m calling with a little bit of bad news.  It seems Dorothy is not doing so well at our facility.  There is a high probability that she drowned in a nearby scenic river.  While I’m quite sure she is doing just fine, I just wanted to call and make you aware of the situation.  Have a splendid day.”

The next morning, Dorothy is still floating in that crib though the storm has subsided.  Apparently Bellina has managed to locate Dorothy sometime in the night.  Bellina has also located her ability to talk and the two realize that they are no longer in Kansas…again.

Dorothy stands up and sees that the river the was originally floating in has now completely dried up.  In the distance she sees a green land of trees and decides that she’s back in Oz which means the dry patch of land her crib is currently sitting on is the Deadly Desert that surrounds Oz.  So, I’m noticing a trend here.  Every fantasy movie has some sort topographic feature that causes harm if you touch it.  Labyrinth was the Bog of Eternal Stench.  Now it’s the Deadly Desert that threatens to turn anything that touches it to sand.  The Neverending Story boasts the Swamp of Sadness.  While I was tempted to say that the Swamp of Sadness is for pussies, I just remembered this scary ass motherfucker that also stalks the swamp trying to eat people.

Dorothy makes it to safety via rocks in the sand to green grass, but she is not alone.  Eyes in the rocks spy on her activity.  Dorothy doesn’t give a shit who sees her right now because she’s about to chow down under a lunch pail tree.  I always always always wanted the lunch pail tree to become a real thing.  I still do.

The eyes in the rocks report back to what appears to be Satan due to a booming voice and red fiery flames though I doubt Satan really cares what is going on in the Land of Oz.  He’s got bigger fish to fry, like impregnating Mia Farrow and possessing bratty kids.

Down the road a ways Dorothy finds her old house that was blown away by the tornado.  Dorothy points out her kitchen and bedroom and Bellina is all, “Hey D, shut the hell up and let’s find some corn.”  Dorothy spots the yellow brick road next to the house, only now it is all torn up and broken.  She starts running frantically down the road, wondering what could have caused such destruction to her wonderful Oz.  Satan gets told of Dorothy’s progress on the yellow brick road but Satan’s not worried because his baddest bitch Princess Mombi will handle things.

Dorothy runs right into what used to be the Emerald City only all the occupants have been turned to stone, including her BFFs the Tin Man and Cowardly Lion.  A threatening graffiti message warns of something called The Wheelers and Dorothy has no idea who they are.  She sure as shit is about to find out.

A masked Wheeler approaches and I immediately recall the fact that these dudes made my six year old ass shit my pants the first time I saw them.  My description will not do these crazy bastards justice, so behold.

Side note:  Awesome video game screen shot.

They chase Dorothy down a hallway where she appears to be trapped.  The Wheelers slowly approach, stalking their pray.  Bellina reminds Dorothy of the key she found at the barn and Dorothy pops it into a key hole in the middle of the wall she’s up against.  The wall opens and Dorothy closes it behind her.  The Wheelers are quite displeased by this and are even more pissed about Bellina the chicken being in Oz.  The Wheelers are out of luck if they think capturing Bellina means ham and cheese omlets forever, since that bitch lays no eggs.  They roll away, but promise to return.

In the dusty room behind the wall, Dorothy discovers a round little robot named Tik Tok whose badge says he is a member of the Royal Army of Oz.  Tik Tok is a cute brass mustached guy who operates by way of wind up  handles located on his back.  Dorothy winds him up and Tik Tok comes to life.  It annoys me to no end that when I google image search Tik Tok, the first thing that pops up is this.

Tik Tok greets Dorothy and reveals that the Scarecrow locked Tik Tok in the room under orders to wait for Dorothy.  A little forward planning on the Scarecrow’s part?  That’s a guy I can get on board with.  Tik Tok tells Dorothy he will be her obedient servant from this point on and the three decide to open the wall and face the Wheelers.

Back outside, it is deceivingly quiet until the Wheelers finally show themselves again.  Tik Tok tells Dorothy to get the hell out of the way and kicks the Wheelers’ ass with some fancy arm twirling ninja shit and a lunch pail.  Tik Tok grabs hold of one of them and Dorothy demands to know what has happened to Oz.  We find out that the Nome King has turned everyone to stone and captured all the emeralds of Oz.  He also tells them that Princess Mombi is the only one who knows where the Scarecrow is.

Tik Tok forces the Wheeler to take them to Princess Mombi’s castle and upon arrival, they stroll right up to the front door and let themselves in.  Dorothy is going to regret that decision when she realizes the amassing of severed heads just around the corner.

Dorothy, Tik Tok, and Bellina find their ways into a decadently adorned room full of gold and mirrors, probably not unlike where Saddam used to hang out before he traded his digs in for a hole in the ground.

Princess Mombi is sitting on a couch in this room playing the mandolin and is actually quite pleasant despite wearing a cape made out of Edward Scissorhands’s well…hands.

Princess Mombi decides she needs to change into something a little more comfortable and leads Dorothy to her wardrobe of heads, switching from the nice one to her Snooty Bitch head.  The new Mombi decides that Dorothy’s head would be great to add to her collection and decides to lock Dorothy in a tower until her head ripens.  Usually if I want my bananas to ripen, I just leave them on the counter in direct sunlight.  Maybe I should send Mombi an email.  Anyway, since Dorothy surrounds herself with an eggless chicken and a robot that she forgot to wind up, Mombi throws her in the dusty tower and tells her tough shit.

Out of the tower window Dorothy spies the Nome King’s mountain lair off in the distance.  Her and Bellina shoot the shit for awhile until Dorothy notices a kindly pumpkin-headed fellow who thinks Dorothy is his mom.  Just imagine how absolutely terrifying it would be if something like this approached you on the street claiming to be the long lost baby you bundled up and mailed down the river.

Well despite having a rather alarming appearance, Jack Pumpkinhead is a pretty nice fellow.  Dorothy helps to put him back together again and Jack tells Dorothy that he was initially built to scare Mombi by his mom but after pissing off Mombi, she decided to put him in the tower, probably in an effort to ripen his head for some good old pumpkin pie.   Jack also tells Dorothy that he was brought to life by a magic powder called the Powder of Life that Mombi keeps stored in one of the head cabinets along with Mombi’s original head.  With this information overload, Dorothy’s hamster wheel starts spinning and she begins to formulate an escape plan.

Dorothy and Jack sneak out of the tower and go downstairs to rescue Tik Tok whose fat ass is just chilling out in the mirror room.  She winds him up and Jack and Tik Tok go back up to the tower to start piecing together the escape vehicle.  Meanwhile, Dorothy steals Mombi’s head cabinet key from around her neck while she sleeps and makes her way to the head wardrobe, which may actually be in my top 3 scenarios of what I imagine my own personal hell will look like.

Meanwhile, Tik Tok’s thought process needs winding up and he starts giving Jack incorrect instructions and since Jack’s head is a pumpkin, he’s an idiot by default, stalling their building plans slightly.

Dorothy locates the cabinet containing the Powder of Life and the Evil Bitch head of Mombi’s.  Mombi wakes up and starts howling after in her manly evil voice while Dorothy  runs back into the mirror room.  In the mirror room she notices a reflection that leads her to the right hallway to head back up to the tower.

The Idiots Three and the Chicken finish up their escape vehicle which is made out of some big leaves, a couch, and a moose head named Gump.   They sprinkle the Powder of Life on him and he bursts awake just in time to fly everyone out the window and away from the seriously pissed off Princess Mombi.  It would be so incredibly awesome if I had me some Powder of Life and could bring to life my Potato Head collection and have them clean my house when I’m at my grown up job all day.  Alas, between Dorothy and Mombi, that powder shit is on lock down pretty tight.

Realizing the escape, Princess Mombi flies into a rage and wakes up the Wheelers, telling them they better start rolling their happy asses after them.  We also see back at Mombi’s mirror room that the blur in the mirror from earlier is named Ozma and used to be some princess of Oz that was banished into the mirror when the Nome King turned everyone to stone.

Gump flies them through the night and in the morning, everyone wakes up to chaos as Gump’s horribly constructed body is starting to fall apart.  They all start falling through the sky but land right on top of the Nome King’s mountain.  Wow, that sure was lucky.

One of the Nome King’s rock minions spies the crowd that has formed on the mountain and reports back to him that Dorothy and the gang are knocking on the door.  The Nome King decides to make an appearance and his booming voice demands for the group to tell him why they are at his mountain.  Dorothy asks the Nome King to release the Scarecrow and put the emeralds back into the Emerald City.  He of course laughs in her tiny face and tells her she’s a moron.

Dorothy informs  the Nome King if he doesn’t do as she asks then she will conquer him and force him to give them back.  Dorothy, you are with a moose head, a pumpkin scarecrow, a chicken, and a fat robot.  How are you ever going to force anyone to do anything?

The Nome King laughs at her threats and cracks open the ground, causing her to fall deep into the mountain.  Turns out the Nome King is pissed because he owned the emeralds to begin with.  He also says he didn’t steal anything since the emeralds came out of his rocks.  He tells Dorothy that he transformed the Scarecrow into one of his collectible items and then disappears back into the rocks.

Dorothy, feeling defeated, starts crying against the wall, insisting the Scarecrow didn’t actually steal anything.  The crying brings out a soft side in the Nome King as he reappears and comforts Dorothy, patting her on the head.  He brings Jack, Gump, and Tik Tok down into the mountain as well to cheer her up and tells her they are going to play a little game.

Princess Mombi yells at the Wheelers to find out where they all went.  She’s also frantically searching for her steroids to pack as homegirl appears to be in the midst of some serious hormone treatment and is completely roid raging.   She demands they take her to the Nome King.

The game of the Nome King says that each of the guests has a chance to go into his shrine of collectibles and has 3 guesses to put their hands on an item and say Oz.   After each guess, they take a shot of tequila.  If the item is the Scarecrow, it’ll change him back to his regular form.   If it changes, they finish the bottle.  Everytime Dorothy looks earnestly at the Nome King as if she expects him to just comply with her wishes, take a half shot.  If after 3 turns they haven’t found him, the guesser will be transformed into an item as well.   They accept the offer and Gump is off to make the first guesses.  While he is in there, the  Nome King shows his hospitable side with refreshments.

A rumbling and flashing light go through the mountain indiciating Gump has guessed incorrectly and it is time for the next loser to take their chance.  Jack goes next and that smart bitch Bellina has been hiding in his head this whole time.  Perhaps I underestimated her.

Mombi is racing her way to the Nome King’s mountain just as Tik Tok’s turn comes up to enter the room of collectibles and make his guesses.  Guess smarty pants Jack didn’t find the right items either.

The Nome King taunts Dorothy with questions as to why she came back.  She says she came for the Scarecrow and he asks if she actually came looking for her ruby slippers.  That’s not a good look for you, Mr. Nome.

The Nome King tells Dorothy that Tik Tok has stopped guessing and is standing in the middle of the room, so he sends her in after him to wind him up and then stay to make her guesses.  She finds Tik Tok  in the middle of the ornate room full of shit that I’d probably break if I came with 5 feet of it.

Dorothy finds Tik Tok but sees that he already wound up the whole way.  Turns out Tik Tok is more than just a pretty face and explains to Dorothy that he pretended to run down in order to get her into the room with him.  That way, with his final guess, she can see what he turns into and bring him back to life with one of her guesses.  As expected, Tik Tok guesses incorrectly and Dorothy is on her own.

Mombi finally arrives and demands to be seen by the Nome King.  The Nome King is pissed that Mombi was so inept at her one task of bringing Dorothy to him.  Mombi tells him that Dorothy is headed towards the mountain.  A day late and a dollar short, Mombino.  The Nome King locks up Mombi in a cage as punishment.

Dorothy picks some generic looking vase to waste her first guess on and of course nothing happens.  Yo, D, find something witha little more pizzazz for your next guess.  Well, she blows it again on a rock and has only one guess left.  For her last guess, Dorothy spins around and places her life in the hands of fate.  She closes her eyes and lands on a little gold bird statue.  When she opens her eyes, she notices a bright green gem right next to it and yells, “Oz.”  Dorothy found the Scarecrow!

The Nome King hears the Scarecrow’s voice and gets super pissed that Dorothy figured out the secret to his room of shit.  Using the idea that the Scarecrow’s item was green, Dorothy locates Gump.  Right at this time, the Nome King starts to have a temper tantrum and the walls of the room start to fall down around them.  In the chaos, Scarecrow spots a green vase that ends up being Jack.

The Nome King has taken his big boy pills and is now a giant.  He yells at Dorothy to stop guessing and decides it is now time to destroy them.  He grabs Gump’s sofa and eats it, targeting Jack as his dessert.  Can’t say I blame him because pumpkin pie is the shit.  Nome King grabs hold of Jack’s legs and holds him upside down in his mouth.  Just as it looks as though Jack’s a goner, Bellina shits herself out of fear, but instead of shit, it’s an egg.  Turns out the Nome King has some pretty serious egg allergies, because the egg poisons him.

He sets Jack down and disintegrates into a fiery mess of rubble.  In the rubble, Dorothy sees her ruby slippers and retrieves them as the rest of the room continues to fall asleep.  Once they are snuggly on her feet, she wishes for everyone in Oz to return back to how they once were, alive and well.  So either the girl child Dorothy has pontoons for feet or the Nome King has freakishly small feet for a jolly rock man.  Dorothy and all her buddies also appear back into an open field with Mombi’s locked up crazy ass next to them.

Dorothy realizes that they never found Tik Tok and says, “Oh well, he was kind of a dick anyway.  And he stole my lunch pail.  Tubby bastard.”  Nah, little D didn’t actually say that, but I could see it in her eyes.   A green medal on Gump’s antler turns out to be Tik Tok and everyone is back together again!  A parade and party ensues for Dorothy and friends for rescuing the city but she soon realizes she must return back to Kansas.

I guess Dorothy forgot that her only family members turned her over to an evil doctor for a lobotomy.

Regardless, in her last grand gesture, Dorothy rescues Ozma out of her mirror prison and reinstates her as the Princess of Oz.  There was some shit about Ozma and Mombi being enemies and stuff about 30 heads and a dead dad but none of that matters now.  Bellina also ditches Dorothy to stay in Oz, so Toto’s going to be pretty stoked about that.  Ozma sends Dorothy back to Kansas, but tells her she is always welcome back to Oz and will be watching over her.