The Wonderful Land of Oz

This film looks like someone filmed a bad amateur theater production put on in the '60s. There are about three sets in the entire film, all look like theatrical sets and are dreadfully ugly. Everything is harshly lit with heavy shadows. The acting and singing is awful. How this could ever be taken as a serious film is beyond me.

This mess was actually advertised as having "So Many Thrills You'll Be OZIFIED." Stupefied is more like it. Made by slumming soft-porn schlockmeister Barry Mahon, and starring his talent-free son Channy, it's like watching Ed Wood's idea of a children's film. And even THAT'S too high a praise. Based on one of the later OZ books, it throws in several pathetic songs which would have stopped the 'narrative' cold--had there been one to begin with. Even the supporting cast hasn't the heart to liven things up by mugging shamelessly--all they do is recite their lines off cue cards, all the time looking as if they'd rather be anywhere else. And so will you, after about five minutes. This film was exhumed for DVD a couple of years ago, paired with (believe it or not) an even worse co-feature, Mahon's poverty-row rendition of "Jack And The Beanstalk." Filmed at a now-defunct Florida amusement park, called 'Pirate's World', it can't honestly be said that "Jack", awful as it is, makes "OZ" look good by comparison, but it IS even funnier. Watch both at your own risk!

OK, so this has its moments of "so bad, it's good", but they are much too few and far between. Try sitting through even the short version without fast-forwarding only if you are in need of sleep or seriously enjoy self-inflicted pain. Otherwise, fans of even the worst cinematic dreck should simply watch the 1st five or six minutes of this to capture the flavor of the fiasco, and then scan forward to scenes where new characters are introduced. Or better yet, look for the sampler reel currently available on youtube. "Highlights" of the film include the unbelievably horrible line readings of the lead child actor (the son of director Barry Mahon), the first poorly-timed "moo" of the paper-mache cow (actually just the head of a cow), the "why am I even here" lethargy of poorly-recorded "The Pumpkinhead", and - I suppose - the flying, talking reindeer and the "The Wogglebug". And, oh yes, the mini-skirted army of Gen. Jinjur, actresses that were likely borrowed from the cast of the two adult features Mahon was making (FANNY HILL MEETS THE RED BARON and FANNY HILL MEETS DR. EROTICO) around the very same time that this film was in production.

What can I say? This "movie" makes Robot Monster look like Citizen Kane. In Robot Monster, the acting was better, it had special effects (stock footage of dinosaurs and atomic explosions) and a memorable character, and more importantly, a coherent storyline. The Wonderful Land of Oz had NONE of these. Watch the Rifftrax version, frealin' hilarious.

This film is dreadfully painful to try and sit through. I watched it with the Rifftrax guys and even that didn't help too much. Burn this film.