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!
13 Reviews
eh?
Fuzzbomb22 July 2003
OK, This might actually qualify as one of the worst filsm I have ever seen - and I was SO looking forward to it, too, being as huge a fan of the thirties' Oz and also Return to Oz...
God no. Leave it alone. Awful sets, awful acting, a papier-mache cow (believe it or not - not a reason to watch it!!!) and unlistenable sound add up to something less than the sum of it's parts.
The only remotely interesting part is General Jinjur and her army of short-skirted chicks. But even those aren't worth the admission price. Even if the admission price is free.
Water your plants instead.
God no. Leave it alone. Awful sets, awful acting, a papier-mache cow (believe it or not - not a reason to watch it!!!) and unlistenable sound add up to something less than the sum of it's parts.
The only remotely interesting part is General Jinjur and her army of short-skirted chicks. But even those aren't worth the admission price. Even if the admission price is free.
Water your plants instead.
One of the worst things I've ever seen.
midnightcub14 October 2019
Shocking!
Bobs-91 June 2003
Viewing this film left me utterly dumbfounded. I was truly shocked that anybody, at any strata of the movie business, could have produced it and managed to have it released. The plot is described hilariously in meticulous detail in the "External Reviews" section here, so I won't recount it all. Suffice it to say that I've never seen so brazen a display of non-talented "talent" as that on display in this alleged entertainment. It was a joy! Definitely bad in the good way, if you're inclined to watch cinematic dreck for its camp appeal.
The juvenile hero of the piece was Channy Mahon, the son of its producer/director, Barry Mahon. On hearing his first line delivery, my jaw dropped in disbelief. Imagine the sort of monotonous, comatose recitation any average schoolchild will deliver when forced to read aloud in class. Now administer half a bottle of Nyquil to that same child, wait an hour, demand another reading, and you'll get some idea of what young Channy Mahon's line delivery was like. Priceless. He did look cute in that Eddie Munster outfit, though.
The adult cast ranged from merely competent to embarrassingly awful. The sets were apparently made of painted cardboard and plywood. The costumes were, on the whole, surprisingly decent. The songs oh the songs! You'll want to travel back in time, in "Back to the Future" fashion, just to prevent their conception and Channy's as well (sorry Channy, I know it wasn't really your fault).
This is an epicurean treat for afficionados of bad cinema. To those looking for actual entertainment in the conventional sense, steer well clear!
The juvenile hero of the piece was Channy Mahon, the son of its producer/director, Barry Mahon. On hearing his first line delivery, my jaw dropped in disbelief. Imagine the sort of monotonous, comatose recitation any average schoolchild will deliver when forced to read aloud in class. Now administer half a bottle of Nyquil to that same child, wait an hour, demand another reading, and you'll get some idea of what young Channy Mahon's line delivery was like. Priceless. He did look cute in that Eddie Munster outfit, though.
The adult cast ranged from merely competent to embarrassingly awful. The sets were apparently made of painted cardboard and plywood. The costumes were, on the whole, surprisingly decent. The songs oh the songs! You'll want to travel back in time, in "Back to the Future" fashion, just to prevent their conception and Channy's as well (sorry Channy, I know it wasn't really your fault).
This is an epicurean treat for afficionados of bad cinema. To those looking for actual entertainment in the conventional sense, steer well clear!
Robot Monster is Citizen Kane
toddholmes-8888327 July 2022
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.
Keep your finger on fast-forward and you might survive this atrocity
PKazee17 February 2014
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.
This trip through Oz is a bit on the cheap side.
Aaron137515 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Yes, Oz, the place you think of when you think, purple cows with oversized nostrils, little boys who are little girls, but not really and where all the protagonist walk as if they had their kneecaps blown off in Vietnam. Such a magical film that really shows us nothing at all. I mean, we were apparently in a world that was supposedly all purple and it absolutely was not all purple! I will say, it was not as bad as that Thumbelina film the same director made, but it definitely isn't one to go searching for to view unless you are a fan of Rifftrax.
The story has a boy named Tip whose evil witch stepmother is going to turn him into a statue after he made a pumpkin headed man to scare her. She brings that to life and Tip and Jack flee so that they can find refugee in the Emerald City which is about to be attacked by girls. Soon we have everything resolved and almost nothing really done to resolve it.
The film's climax is a bit of a twist as it turns out that the true heir to Oz is Ozmandia and that she is hidden within Tip. It is explained to Tip that he isn't becoming a girl and that they are two separate beings and when Ozmandia returns he will become a part of every boy. Translation: Tip, once she comes back you dead. Nice sugar coating it Glenda!
So the film was pretty bad and that guy playing the bug person was extremely freakish looking. There is no real antagonist to the piece as the witch is not in it much or much of a threat and the Ginger girl is just stupid. There are some things in this film that would also be in Return to Oz as they do bring out the characters from the book here, but I suggest just watching that film as it is much more enjoyable and not done on the cheap!
The story has a boy named Tip whose evil witch stepmother is going to turn him into a statue after he made a pumpkin headed man to scare her. She brings that to life and Tip and Jack flee so that they can find refugee in the Emerald City which is about to be attacked by girls. Soon we have everything resolved and almost nothing really done to resolve it.
The film's climax is a bit of a twist as it turns out that the true heir to Oz is Ozmandia and that she is hidden within Tip. It is explained to Tip that he isn't becoming a girl and that they are two separate beings and when Ozmandia returns he will become a part of every boy. Translation: Tip, once she comes back you dead. Nice sugar coating it Glenda!
So the film was pretty bad and that guy playing the bug person was extremely freakish looking. There is no real antagonist to the piece as the witch is not in it much or much of a threat and the Ginger girl is just stupid. There are some things in this film that would also be in Return to Oz as they do bring out the characters from the book here, but I suggest just watching that film as it is much more enjoyable and not done on the cheap!
A lifeless and exquisitely wretched take on Oz..... L. Frank Baum would be so proud.
Idiot-Deluxe18 April 2017
Yep, this is about as bad as it gets..... let me state right from the start that there is absolutely NOTHING remotely wonderful about "The Wonderful Land of Oz", except for when it's over.
As you've undoubtedly already guessed this dismal, low-budget, amateur production is based upon the universally popular literary creations of author L. Frank Baum and at the same time The Wonderful Land of Oz is also one of the worst movies ever made, as it possesses absolutely none of the legendary charm or appeal that the Wizard of Oz brought to the screen 30 years earlier. But why is that? Well having seen it only once (once was more then enough!) I can sight several reasons, such as...
The star of the film is Channy Mahon, the director's 11 year-old son (nepotism?), in his one and only acting role, who obviously had no talent for acting and he looks and sounds completely disinterested throughout the movie and every single one of his lines sounds flat and completely lifeless - his character is a total bore. Next up and perhaps even more atrocious is the film's dismal sense of art direction and ultra low-budget production values, which is undoubtedly best exemplified by the films terrible looking sets and that is where the film scores most dismally - it's woeful set designs. To be blunt about it - some high school plays have probably had better looking sets then what's seen here, as every single set that's featured in The Wonderful Land of Oz is a cringe-worthy eye-sore; all of which are painfully cheap looking, ridiculously small in scale and look as if they were constructed out of paper mache or sagging cardboard. It's a real toss-up as to which is worse: the acting or the set work. But to be fair they did do a bit better of a job in the costume department - with the exception of the Tin Man (cheap thin-gauge steel and a silver leotard). The overall sound of this film (or at least the segments what weren't overdubbed in post-production) tends to sound thin and "barren", as if the soundstage's walls where paper-thin or more likely it can be blamed on inadequacies in the sound department. All this visual and audible splendor is topped off with some music that sounds vaguely Wizard of Oz-ish.
What of it's plot? Well when the acting is as terrible (from all involved) as it is in this movie, the plot doesn't really seem to matter too much, but essentially their "following the yellow brick road" (or at least this movies pathetic equivalent of it) they're en route to Emerald City - if that's what you want to call it. Whew! What a LAME set! What I noticed is that because so little happens due to the characters actions (or inaction) in any given scene, that the films characters essentially give in and simply tell you what's going on with endless lines of lame, half-wit dialog, again lifelessly delivered in one tediously pointless scene after another "Glinda The Good" being the worst offender of them all. What's sad is that they actually think they're being funny..... however, if you have more then three brain cells it should register as nothing other then tedious, pointless, sub-amateurish drivel. And if you make it to the end you'll notice that the entire Land of Oz seems to inhabited by no more then 20 to 25 people (yep, this movies a real sparse fantasy) and most of those 20 to 25 people form the ranks of an all-female "army" who appear to be wearing drum majorette costumes. Whose leader they encounter wandering around out in the woods, carrying baskets full of sandwiches and with this encounter yet another terrible song comes to life - and if that doesn't sound lame enough to you relax, because just moments later you'll bare witness to her "arming" her loyal and fearsome fem-army with knitting needles! Seriously.
Like the majority of low-budget films The Wonderful Land of Oz is a short film, clocking in at mere 72 minutes, however, do to it's bad acting, extremely lame plot, awful song sequences, vapid dialog, cringe-worthy visual presence and an overall pointlessly meandering nature it seems much longer then it really is. Here's some trivia for you, Barry Mahon, the director of this wretched little movie (who was mostly known for soft-core smut), also directed "Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny" three years later in 1972, yet evidently he found that film to be too bad even for his standards, because he went under the alias of "R. Winer" for that one. Names aside, all I can say is that, if you've seen both of those incredibly awful movies, I think you'll also agree that they BOTH look and sound as if they were created by the same director - who indeed, was gifted with the same "masterful touch".
!>>Cringe<<!
Mr. Mahon you are now on my ever-growing list of talentless and terrible directors. Congratulations!
As you've undoubtedly already guessed this dismal, low-budget, amateur production is based upon the universally popular literary creations of author L. Frank Baum and at the same time The Wonderful Land of Oz is also one of the worst movies ever made, as it possesses absolutely none of the legendary charm or appeal that the Wizard of Oz brought to the screen 30 years earlier. But why is that? Well having seen it only once (once was more then enough!) I can sight several reasons, such as...
The star of the film is Channy Mahon, the director's 11 year-old son (nepotism?), in his one and only acting role, who obviously had no talent for acting and he looks and sounds completely disinterested throughout the movie and every single one of his lines sounds flat and completely lifeless - his character is a total bore. Next up and perhaps even more atrocious is the film's dismal sense of art direction and ultra low-budget production values, which is undoubtedly best exemplified by the films terrible looking sets and that is where the film scores most dismally - it's woeful set designs. To be blunt about it - some high school plays have probably had better looking sets then what's seen here, as every single set that's featured in The Wonderful Land of Oz is a cringe-worthy eye-sore; all of which are painfully cheap looking, ridiculously small in scale and look as if they were constructed out of paper mache or sagging cardboard. It's a real toss-up as to which is worse: the acting or the set work. But to be fair they did do a bit better of a job in the costume department - with the exception of the Tin Man (cheap thin-gauge steel and a silver leotard). The overall sound of this film (or at least the segments what weren't overdubbed in post-production) tends to sound thin and "barren", as if the soundstage's walls where paper-thin or more likely it can be blamed on inadequacies in the sound department. All this visual and audible splendor is topped off with some music that sounds vaguely Wizard of Oz-ish.
What of it's plot? Well when the acting is as terrible (from all involved) as it is in this movie, the plot doesn't really seem to matter too much, but essentially their "following the yellow brick road" (or at least this movies pathetic equivalent of it) they're en route to Emerald City - if that's what you want to call it. Whew! What a LAME set! What I noticed is that because so little happens due to the characters actions (or inaction) in any given scene, that the films characters essentially give in and simply tell you what's going on with endless lines of lame, half-wit dialog, again lifelessly delivered in one tediously pointless scene after another "Glinda The Good" being the worst offender of them all. What's sad is that they actually think they're being funny..... however, if you have more then three brain cells it should register as nothing other then tedious, pointless, sub-amateurish drivel. And if you make it to the end you'll notice that the entire Land of Oz seems to inhabited by no more then 20 to 25 people (yep, this movies a real sparse fantasy) and most of those 20 to 25 people form the ranks of an all-female "army" who appear to be wearing drum majorette costumes. Whose leader they encounter wandering around out in the woods, carrying baskets full of sandwiches and with this encounter yet another terrible song comes to life - and if that doesn't sound lame enough to you relax, because just moments later you'll bare witness to her "arming" her loyal and fearsome fem-army with knitting needles! Seriously.
Like the majority of low-budget films The Wonderful Land of Oz is a short film, clocking in at mere 72 minutes, however, do to it's bad acting, extremely lame plot, awful song sequences, vapid dialog, cringe-worthy visual presence and an overall pointlessly meandering nature it seems much longer then it really is. Here's some trivia for you, Barry Mahon, the director of this wretched little movie (who was mostly known for soft-core smut), also directed "Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny" three years later in 1972, yet evidently he found that film to be too bad even for his standards, because he went under the alias of "R. Winer" for that one. Names aside, all I can say is that, if you've seen both of those incredibly awful movies, I think you'll also agree that they BOTH look and sound as if they were created by the same director - who indeed, was gifted with the same "masterful touch".
!>>Cringe<<!
Mr. Mahon you are now on my ever-growing list of talentless and terrible directors. Congratulations!
Hilariously Bad
jcolescla21 January 2022
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.
A bad childhood memory.....
lovenstein-8222419 June 2023
As with the now famous "Santa Claus" they would wallpaper
advertising for these things and show them as kiddie matinees
for unsuspecting customers. I remember this was done with
"Tom Thumb" as well.
I was one such victim at the Wilmette theater as a ten year old. I recall a parent a child where sitting in front of us, the Mom maybe expecting something like the original famous Oz film. The child became upset as there is something creepy about these films that is hard to put your finger on. They quickly left.
The unsettling ending, which now relates to current political controversies, comes from the original book by Baum. I was surprised to learn this many years after seeing the film.
For fans of very strange garbage only.
I was one such victim at the Wilmette theater as a ten year old. I recall a parent a child where sitting in front of us, the Mom maybe expecting something like the original famous Oz film. The child became upset as there is something creepy about these films that is hard to put your finger on. They quickly left.
The unsettling ending, which now relates to current political controversies, comes from the original book by Baum. I was surprised to learn this many years after seeing the film.
For fans of very strange garbage only.
Omg
Timothynorris1 February 2020
It's Bizarre To Say the Least
Michael_Elliott16 September 2016
The Wonderful Land of Oz (1969)
** (out of 4)
Tip (Chan Mahon) and Jack the Pumpkinhead (George Wadsworth) end up in the Emerald City where the poor Scarecrow has been overthrown by an evil woman. With the help from the Tin Man the group sets out to make the city great again.
THE WONDERFUL LAND OF OZ will never be confused with the 1939 classic but I must admit that I found it to be rather charming in its own low-budget, campy way. Director Barry Mahon made a number of sexploitation films in his career but towards the end of it he started making some kid movies. This version of the Oz tale is without question one of the silliest but it's fun, which is the most important thing.
Now, when I say the film is fun I'm not meaning it's some sort of classic because it's far from that. What makes this movie fun is the fact that it's a pretty nutty movie from start to finish. The costumes of the characters are certainly the highlight (or low-light) because they look rather silly but at the same time they're rather addictive simply because it adds a certain weird atmosphere to the picture. Jack the Pumpkinhead is a prime example and I really feel bad for the actor having to walk around with that large pumpkin on his head.
Chan Mahon, the director's son, takes the lead role and he certainly wasn't an actor. He messes up several lines and his line delivery is so slow that you can't help but be mildly charmed by the non- professional performance. The film obviously had a very low budget but this just adds to the rather bizarre atmosphere. The sets are certainly nothing special but this really just comes across as a bunch of friends getting together and filming a low-budget movie with what limited items they have available.
** (out of 4)
Tip (Chan Mahon) and Jack the Pumpkinhead (George Wadsworth) end up in the Emerald City where the poor Scarecrow has been overthrown by an evil woman. With the help from the Tin Man the group sets out to make the city great again.
THE WONDERFUL LAND OF OZ will never be confused with the 1939 classic but I must admit that I found it to be rather charming in its own low-budget, campy way. Director Barry Mahon made a number of sexploitation films in his career but towards the end of it he started making some kid movies. This version of the Oz tale is without question one of the silliest but it's fun, which is the most important thing.
Now, when I say the film is fun I'm not meaning it's some sort of classic because it's far from that. What makes this movie fun is the fact that it's a pretty nutty movie from start to finish. The costumes of the characters are certainly the highlight (or low-light) because they look rather silly but at the same time they're rather addictive simply because it adds a certain weird atmosphere to the picture. Jack the Pumpkinhead is a prime example and I really feel bad for the actor having to walk around with that large pumpkin on his head.
Chan Mahon, the director's son, takes the lead role and he certainly wasn't an actor. He messes up several lines and his line delivery is so slow that you can't help but be mildly charmed by the non- professional performance. The film obviously had a very low budget but this just adds to the rather bizarre atmosphere. The sets are certainly nothing special but this really just comes across as a bunch of friends getting together and filming a low-budget movie with what limited items they have available.
See also
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