For me, it was Return To Oz, the little known (and for good reason) sequel to.... ::drumroll:: the George Lucas classic The Wizard of Oz (released as Le Wizarde d'Oooze in France). I won't give away the plot, mostly because I do not recall it having one, but let me just say that this film haunts me to this day. The characters are terrifying, the sets are bizarre, and the action oscillates between entrancing and frightening. I have seen very few films that are so thoroughly saturated with hopelessness. Stephen King's It comes close in the hopelessness department, but It's intention is to be frightening, and it ultimately comes off as too self-aware.

(In terms of acidic overtones neither of these comes close to Zardoz, which remains an unparalleled tripfest that one must stand back in awe of, but it fails as an unintentionally scary film. For those unfamiliar with Zardoz, here's a partial synopsis: Sean Connery wearing a red Speedo flies around a dystopian landscape in a giant stone head, eventually coming upon a group of extras from a Woody Allenish Greek drama. For fear of losing my sanity, I have never watched Zardoz in its entirety)

Return to Oz stars Fairuza Balk, though the jury is still out on whether anything can technically "star" Fairuza Balk. The artwork on the film's box should logically dispel any notion of this being a children's film, though it is still marketed as such. I'll leave you with this succinct quote from Wikipedia "Many critics denounced the film as too disturbing or scary for young children"

 

I think the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory does a good job in the freaky department with those little oompa loompa bastards running around like damn lunatics.

 

Holy ****, ZARDOZ. THAT IS THE WEIRDEST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN. It was on the "sh*t movie channels that come for free" That movies a weird 70's, or 80's trip fest, they must have been on so much acid... It was like a buncha people in a colt, weird stuff that I could have never imagined was part of the plot. God that movie freaked me out.

Now there is one movie that tops that on unintentionally scary-ness that I saw on those same sh*t wierd movie channels, it was set at a rich guys house in California, he always held parties "He was the melester, freaky, power hungry" kind of character, I really had no clue what was going on, the plot was terrible. But the wierd guy ends up sleeping with another dude while on drugs, taking a sword from a "Knight statue" and cutting people into pieces, while screaming "I AM EXTRAVADOR" or however its spelled, creeped me out. Its gory and scary, really freaked me out. He played the most bazzare character I have ever seen. If anyone recalls what I'm talking about, please post the movie name... sigh @ the 70's and 80's... To many drugs man, to many drugs.

 

To be fair to Sean Connery, Zardoz probably didn't look that bad in screenplay form. The history of film is inundated with highly praised scripts that turned out to be flops. Likewise, Return to Oz probably looked like a slam dunk when the concept was pitched to Disney execs. And let's face it, the film didn't actually lose money. I probably shouldn't have brought up Zardoz, since its not frightening per se. About the only thing the two have in common is the fact that their writers, producers, directors would probably wave off criticism by saying "Aww, it was far too ahead of it's time!"

 

bubba hotep

kind of the same principle.. supposed to be horror, but its just funy as hell

 

i think i know what movies im gonna rent the next time im smoking salvia.

 

When did George Lucas do Wizard of Oz???

Victor Fleming directed it (with some help from others..) and Melyn LeRoy produced it.

Is there some LucasArts version out there?? [:-]

 

::sigh:: thats not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.... I guess I should probably clarify that The Wizard of Oz also was not released in France as Le Wizarde d'Oooze. But props to you on knowing who directed and produced it, cause I did not know.

Speaking of which, its been a while since I've watched it synced up to Far Side of the Moon, only saw the first 20 mins and it was quite entrancing. Everyone's probably heard of this, and there are some issues with synchronization, I dunno much about the details, but it made for a damn nice music video (and it didnt have to resort to shaking asses or 26" chrome rims in an attempt to entertain)

 

i'm going to go with a documentary i recently checked out called jesus camp. check it out if you get a chance. scary stuff.

 

is that the one with the uber-baptists bringing all the little kids to a camp and converting them to pint sized zealots?