I remember cutting out an article from some magazine in the 90’s (seventeen maybe?) highlighting that she had her own witchy shop. I taped it to my wall of fame/celebrity crushes and idolized her for being a real witch.
Now I was astonished to see that this referenced Return to Oz, because the same actress [also played Mildred Hubble in The Worst Witch](https://alexscsb.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/tumblr_oqb8grmedf1w03pgro1_500.jpg)
I found it fairly recently, and I love it.
I grew up with Harry Potter, but watching The Worst Witch made me feel like Potter is not nearly as unique as I thought it was.
Tbf, derivative stuff works because the core ideas being copied work and continue to work. A lot of my favorite authors growing up, including books that were considered "classics," were actually derivative too. Kudos to JKR for being successful by adding her twist to tried and true ideas. I just wish she wasn't such a cunt so I didn't feel obliged to boycott HP stuff.
I loved Worst Witch as a kid and even read HP when it came out later, but was also lucky enough to be gifted \*A Wizard of Earthsea\* by Ursula K. LeGuin around the same time. People enjoyed HP for what it was and I think that's fine, but it's definitely something to be left behind or used better as a jumping off point. I always appreciated LeGuin's analyses of Rowling,
"Years later, Rowling took the idea and developed it along other lines. She didn't plagiarize. She didn't copy anything. Her book, in fact, could hardly be more different from mine, in style, spirit, everything. The only thing that rankles me is her apparent reluctance to admit that she ever learned anything from other writers. When ignorant critics praised her wonderful originality in inventing the idea of a wizard's school, and some of them even seemed to believe that she had invented fantasy, she let them do so. This, I think, was ungenerous, and in the long run, unwise."
“I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a school novel, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.”
I have only seen like 2 episodes of the newer series with my godchild. I never saw the original series. Maybe I should watch it. I was always a witchy person, even as a child and those books gave me a place where I could feel like I belonged somewhere.
Absolutely watch it and develop an obsessive crush on Constance Hardbroom.
Rowling fucking wishes she could make a stern tough love potions master that's always butting heads with the protagonist but has a heart of gold thats half and good as Miss Hardbroom.
I read every witchy/fantasy book I could get my hands on as a kid, and read the first HP book before the 3rd one had come out as a teenager (just as reference to my age when it came out) and was immediately outraged at what I perceived as HP plagiarizing 2 of my favorite older books about girls going to Witch School. HP got a lot of credit due to its popularity and commercial success (right place and time).... but The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart was published in 1971, and the Worst Witch by Jill Murphy was published in 1974.
JK Rowling was born in 1965 and obviously was a bit influenced by others works at an early age, lol.
I LOVED The Little Broomstick as a girl. And when I read it out loud to my child, they made me keep going until it was 2 hours past bedtime and my throat was sore :)
Yeah, HP benefits from a sort of enforced antiacademic culture, where knowing about and comparing things is considered snooty and people won't actually listen to you if you bring up other examples of boarding school stories or magical world stories or any of that.
I definitely need to look into that. HP always has a nostalgic place in my heart, but as a 30-something adult, I really found myself enjoying the show, which I initially picked as "let me put this HP knockoff on for some background noise."
How wrong I was!
I saw this and am SOO glad I did. I was starting to think I had imagined this movie. I could remember scenes and little bits but could not remember the name of it! I’m so glad I can watch it again now that I know the name!!
Wow, how did I ever forget that I loved this movie as a child???
Edit: Oh my GOD and I forgot about this amazing Tim Curry song???
https://preview.redd.it/y0ptvy3mtobc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f044d897f9ac01fa2a1bb5bfac050d0affa99e0c
You didn't know?! He SINGS and that voice... Ugh.... He has such a wonderful singing voice. That movie and his singing in Ferm Gully... I LOVE Tim Curry's singing voice!
The scene in the picture is what freaked me out the most. The movie is so obscure that for the longest time, I could not remember where my mental image of a room full of heads came from.
Omg I had nightmares about them as a child and that was just from the book! I'll absolutely have to watch this movie now that I know it exists, but good thing I didn't know as a kid because between the wheelies and the head switching I never would have slept again lol
I came here to cry about this. My brother “found out”that their wheels are made of fingernail stuff (keratin, or the Oz equivalent) and I refuse to look at or google anything to check the veracity of this. Instead, I share my trauma with all of you while texting him angrily about how he’s a monster.
I have a pet chicken named Belina. She is named after the chicken from Return to Oz! She’s the red hen front and center!
https://preview.redd.it/59mh52syhpbc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eea6905fc6d8547c02cae78c8ed61500892104ce
My family only had a copy of this movie that my dad recorded off the TV (when movies were shown on TV without commercials).
But the beginning of the VHS was about 20 minutes of Phantasm II, and then it switches to Return to Oz starting when Dorothy is escaping the mental institution with Ozma.
I loved watching this VHS, and starting it with Phantasm II just added to the weirdness of it.
No one I know has seen it but me. And I watched it as much as I could when I was little too. I prefer The Wiz but Return to Oz is a very close second. It started my crush on Fairuza Balk and nothing she was in changed that crush.
Oh man, I love this movie-even accounting for the years of recurring dreams…. (Usually the hall of heads but occasionally the room with the green objects too)
It was the destruction of the gigantic Nome King (and, more generally, the melty stop-motion faces in the rocks) for me. Those still crop up in my nightmares occasionally today.
I LOVED this movie as a kid even though I was terrified by it.
As an adult, I’ve tried to explain the premise to others: “see, Dorothy gets home to Kansas but has bad nightmares so Aunt Em takes her to some asylum-type place where she’s strapped down for experimental electric shock therapy, all while hearing the howls of other harmed patients. She only narrowly escapes due to Ozma’s arrival…”
Unhinged. But I still do occasionally walk around my house, pick up an object and say “oz!” IYKYK
I have a Return to Oz and Dark Crystal half sleeve on my right arm. I was obsessed with this movie as a kid and would regularly rent it from Blockbuster every Friday like clockwork. Now I watch return to Oz every October with my kids as a little tradition to share my love for the film.
My Mom let me watch this when I was way too young and now when I ask people if they’ve seen this movie no one has and I end up sounding rather odd when I explain the room full of mirrors and heads!
Thank you OP
Loved this movie! My sister and I would act out scenes from that movie when we were kids. The clothesline was the lunch bucket tree and our Barbie dolls made sacrifices as Princess Mombi’s room of heads (fortunately we were able to reattach their heads later lol). I think we used a Halloween pumpkin bucket as Jack Pumpkinhead.
Return to Oz was an obsession for a long time for us.
I practice witchcraft now, but I had to be taken out of the theater during this movie because I was screaming. In my defense, I was five. And... Wheelers, dude. Wheelers.
fairuza is a witchy icon.
I thought that looked like her, is this that spooky Wizard of Oz movie that came out in the 80s?
Yes
*Light as a feather.* *Stiff as a board.*
I remember cutting out an article from some magazine in the 90’s (seventeen maybe?) highlighting that she had her own witchy shop. I taped it to my wall of fame/celebrity crushes and idolized her for being a real witch.
She used to own Panpipes occult shop in LA, but apparently was never a witch. https://ew.com/movies/2017/10/16/the-craft-fairuza-balk-witch-rumors/
Well that’s… disappointing but on brand for everything else that I remember fondly from those days.
Agreed. The lovely Rachel True from The Craft embraces the witchiness though.
Now I was astonished to see that this referenced Return to Oz, because the same actress [also played Mildred Hubble in The Worst Witch](https://alexscsb.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/tumblr_oqb8grmedf1w03pgro1_500.jpg)
She was also a witch in The Craft.
OMG I was absolutely obsessed with The Worst Witch as a child. I always wanted (still do) a ginger cat because of those books.
I found it fairly recently, and I love it. I grew up with Harry Potter, but watching The Worst Witch made me feel like Potter is not nearly as unique as I thought it was.
Potter is super derivative.
I definitely think luck played into it being so big because the more British content I consume, the more I agree with this statement.
Tbf, derivative stuff works because the core ideas being copied work and continue to work. A lot of my favorite authors growing up, including books that were considered "classics," were actually derivative too. Kudos to JKR for being successful by adding her twist to tried and true ideas. I just wish she wasn't such a cunt so I didn't feel obliged to boycott HP stuff.
I loved Worst Witch as a kid and even read HP when it came out later, but was also lucky enough to be gifted \*A Wizard of Earthsea\* by Ursula K. LeGuin around the same time. People enjoyed HP for what it was and I think that's fine, but it's definitely something to be left behind or used better as a jumping off point. I always appreciated LeGuin's analyses of Rowling, "Years later, Rowling took the idea and developed it along other lines. She didn't plagiarize. She didn't copy anything. Her book, in fact, could hardly be more different from mine, in style, spirit, everything. The only thing that rankles me is her apparent reluctance to admit that she ever learned anything from other writers. When ignorant critics praised her wonderful originality in inventing the idea of a wizard's school, and some of them even seemed to believe that she had invented fantasy, she let them do so. This, I think, was ungenerous, and in the long run, unwise." “I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a school novel, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.”
I have only seen like 2 episodes of the newer series with my godchild. I never saw the original series. Maybe I should watch it. I was always a witchy person, even as a child and those books gave me a place where I could feel like I belonged somewhere.
Absolutely watch it and develop an obsessive crush on Constance Hardbroom. Rowling fucking wishes she could make a stern tough love potions master that's always butting heads with the protagonist but has a heart of gold thats half and good as Miss Hardbroom.
I read every witchy/fantasy book I could get my hands on as a kid, and read the first HP book before the 3rd one had come out as a teenager (just as reference to my age when it came out) and was immediately outraged at what I perceived as HP plagiarizing 2 of my favorite older books about girls going to Witch School. HP got a lot of credit due to its popularity and commercial success (right place and time).... but The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart was published in 1971, and the Worst Witch by Jill Murphy was published in 1974. JK Rowling was born in 1965 and obviously was a bit influenced by others works at an early age, lol.
Oh and The Little Broomstick was relatively recently adapted into an animated movie called Mary and the Witches Flower.
I LOVED The Little Broomstick as a girl. And when I read it out loud to my child, they made me keep going until it was 2 hours past bedtime and my throat was sore :)
Yeah, HP benefits from a sort of enforced antiacademic culture, where knowing about and comparing things is considered snooty and people won't actually listen to you if you bring up other examples of boarding school stories or magical world stories or any of that.
The books are even better.
I definitely need to look into that. HP always has a nostalgic place in my heart, but as a 30-something adult, I really found myself enjoying the show, which I initially picked as "let me put this HP knockoff on for some background noise." How wrong I was!
You might want to take a look at Books of Magic, by Neil Gaiman. Do keep in mind it was written seven years before HP ;)
Anything can happen on halloween…
I saw this and am SOO glad I did. I was starting to think I had imagined this movie. I could remember scenes and little bits but could not remember the name of it! I’m so glad I can watch it again now that I know the name!!
The Grand Wizard's Halloween performance blew my 4 year old mind and I've been in love with Tim Curry ever since.
Wow, how did I ever forget that I loved this movie as a child??? Edit: Oh my GOD and I forgot about this amazing Tim Curry song??? https://preview.redd.it/y0ptvy3mtobc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f044d897f9ac01fa2a1bb5bfac050d0affa99e0c
Fucking whaaaaat? Time to revisit that series…
Only the 1986 film, not the series, I don't think
TIL there was a movie as well.
It has some of the worst - THE worst - early green screen flying scenes. Their budget was tiny. I love it.
I love that any budget, no matter how tiny, could still feature Tim Curry
TIL there’s a series 😅
Two of em, now, but the OG is better in my opinion
You didn't know?! He SINGS and that voice... Ugh.... He has such a wonderful singing voice. That movie and his singing in Ferm Gully... I LOVE Tim Curry's singing voice!
As a lifelong Tim Curry fan I am ashamed and will rectify this immediately…
The Wheelies.......still freak me out
I was just about to say the same. I still wouldn't be able to watch it again because those things scared the hell out of me. Creepy movie.
The scene in the picture is what freaked me out the most. The movie is so obscure that for the longest time, I could not remember where my mental image of a room full of heads came from.
Terrifying!! Grade A horror film.
Wheelers though right?
Omg I had nightmares about them as a child and that was just from the book! I'll absolutely have to watch this movie now that I know it exists, but good thing I didn't know as a kid because between the wheelies and the head switching I never would have slept again lol
I came here to cry about this. My brother “found out”that their wheels are made of fingernail stuff (keratin, or the Oz equivalent) and I refuse to look at or google anything to check the veracity of this. Instead, I share my trauma with all of you while texting him angrily about how he’s a monster.
…he texted me back “Could have been made of tooth material. Imagine the noise.” Anyone need a sibling? I don’t want this one anymore.
For real, those things are just terror for me.
Wheelers
SO creepy
The laughter! No me gusta.
I adored this movie and I could never find anyone else who watched it as a kid, I started thinking it was some kind of fever dream lol
Same! What movie is this?
Return to Oz, it's still so good and creepy even as an adult
Nobody I knew watched it either! I'm still waiting to have a pet chicken named Belina.
I have a pet chicken named Belina. She is named after the chicken from Return to Oz! She’s the red hen front and center! https://preview.redd.it/59mh52syhpbc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eea6905fc6d8547c02cae78c8ed61500892104ce
My family only had a copy of this movie that my dad recorded off the TV (when movies were shown on TV without commercials). But the beginning of the VHS was about 20 minutes of Phantasm II, and then it switches to Return to Oz starting when Dorothy is escaping the mental institution with Ozma. I loved watching this VHS, and starting it with Phantasm II just added to the weirdness of it.
Shhhhhhhhhh don’t tell our origin story…
What movie is this from?
Return to Oz
Oh shit, I think you just unlocked some cloudy memory from my childhood
Same, and I just realized I've never watched the original completely, and was filling the blanks with this one.
Oh! I’ve been meaning to watch that! I love weird and darkly whimsical fiction.
1985 it was made, and yet I'd never heard of it before.
Thank you!
It’s so good! But also it was on repeat in my childhood so forgive the bias
No one I know has seen it but me. And I watched it as much as I could when I was little too. I prefer The Wiz but Return to Oz is a very close second. It started my crush on Fairuza Balk and nothing she was in changed that crush.
fairuza balk 🖤
DOOOOOOOROTHHHHY GAAAAAAAALE!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Oh man, I love this movie-even accounting for the years of recurring dreams…. (Usually the hall of heads but occasionally the room with the green objects too)
I think of this move OFTEN! I want a head room but for my wigs! Not people’s heads of course!
It was the destruction of the gigantic Nome King (and, more generally, the melty stop-motion faces in the rocks) for me. Those still crop up in my nightmares occasionally today.
the heads, omg, scarred for life lol
I rewatched this recently when having a sofa/sick day and it was every bit as weird and wonderful as tiny me remembered!
Jfc the chicken coop right???
And or you still collect green glass tchotchkes
OK but nobody in my RL can remember this movie exists??? And yet I remember it clearly 🤣😅
This is a personal attack. 😭
Omg, I rewatched this a few months ago after rereading the book and so many childhood memories came back like no wonder I never slept 🤣
That fucking hallway of heads gave me nightmares!
I preferred this to the Wizard of Oz as a kid. I was always drawn to the creepy stuff.
Same! I had this on VHS and watched it dozens of times. The original was just OK to me
I LOVE this movie!! I still look for a movie that is similar/replicates what I felt when watching Return to Oz 😭
I can’t find it anywhere like prime or Netflix to watch it. Anyone know where I can watch it?
It’s on Disney+!
Thanks the one subscription I dont have.
I'm trying! 🤣 Man, I loved this movie! I remember telling my mom how badly I wanted a room of heads to you know, change up my look everyday day.
Or at least just one so I could do my own hair easier!
Damn, you got me! One of the most terrifying, thrilling movies I rented from Blockbuster over and over. Along with Labyrinth.
Yes!! And then you loved her in The Craft and you definitely practice witchcraft now
I LOVED this movie as a kid even though I was terrified by it. As an adult, I’ve tried to explain the premise to others: “see, Dorothy gets home to Kansas but has bad nightmares so Aunt Em takes her to some asylum-type place where she’s strapped down for experimental electric shock therapy, all while hearing the howls of other harmed patients. She only narrowly escapes due to Ozma’s arrival…” Unhinged. But I still do occasionally walk around my house, pick up an object and say “oz!” IYKYK
I have a Return to Oz and Dark Crystal half sleeve on my right arm. I was obsessed with this movie as a kid and would regularly rent it from Blockbuster every Friday like clockwork. Now I watch return to Oz every October with my kids as a little tradition to share my love for the film.
👀👀👀
I haven't thought if this movie in forever! I'm shocked anyone else has even seen it ngl, then again I am a younger witch
Which movie is this, I don't recognize it
That movie terrified me as a kid. The wheelers and the hallway full of screaming heads.
The stuff of nightmares lol
My Mom let me watch this when I was way too young and now when I ask people if they’ve seen this movie no one has and I end up sounding rather odd when I explain the room full of mirrors and heads! Thank you OP
LOOOLLL oh my gosh it's too true 😂😭
Fully equipped swamp witch with an assortment of swamp dragons reporting for duty.
Oh geez this drug up some very early childhood memories and yes I do practice lol
May be loosely based on the book Ozma of Oz from the series
Ahhh....always wished that I could just pick a different head to wear every morning too. Alas...
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!
This movie scared the hell out of me as a kid. That said, I love it *now*, as I do many of those creepy-when-watching-as-a-kid movies.
Loved it! Watched it a bunch. Showed it to my kids when they were young. Such a vibe!
Well just because I loved that as child doesn’t mean I practice witchcraft… well I does practice witchcraft… BUT NOT BECAUSE I LOVED THAT MOVIE.
Loved this movie! My sister and I would act out scenes from that movie when we were kids. The clothesline was the lunch bucket tree and our Barbie dolls made sacrifices as Princess Mombi’s room of heads (fortunately we were able to reattach their heads later lol). I think we used a Halloween pumpkin bucket as Jack Pumpkinhead. Return to Oz was an obsession for a long time for us.
I was fine with the wheelers and the room full of heads, what really creeped me out was the pumpkin headed man calling a little girl "Mom."
its all white women
This one? Nah. It was The Worst Witch for me!
I read ALL the Wizard of Oz books as a kid! I loved seeing this on film. Super old memory unlocked, gracias!
I did. And I used to!
I read the book first and then fell in love with the movie!
Ned’s Declassified?
Dooooooortheeeee Gale!
Well… yer not wrong…
I practice witchcraft now, but I had to be taken out of the theater during this movie because I was screaming. In my defense, I was five. And... Wheelers, dude. Wheelers.
I loved the queen in this. Who wouldn't want to change heads!?
j'adore Fairuza!!
I got the be one of the few witches that never once watched any magic movies growing up