Bookmonkey vs Hack/Slash: Day Eighteen

The Inevitable Wizard of Oz Crossover

The story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.
– L. Frank Baum in his Introduction to The Wonderful Wizard of OZ (1900)

It’s strange to think that this was the sentiment behind the story that became the film that gave me nightmares as a child. The Wicked Witch of the West, the flying monkeys and the initial “floating head” version of the Wizard shown in the 1939 MGM motion picture each worked effectively as nightmare batter for my young mind, and as a young boy with bad eyes from the start, very familiar with lengthy and painful eye examinations, Dorothy’s question to the estheticians in the Emerald City “…Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?” resonated with me in a way I’m certain was not the intent of the original author.

So In Hack/Slash #14: Over the Rainbow, Cassie and Vlad are attempting to track down a Slasher who is plaguing the film set of a remake of the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.

Now I’ll admit that at first glance perhaps no one immediately thinks that a horror-based story is going to inevitably crossover with either the classic 1900 L. Frank Baum novel The Wonderful Wizard of OZ or the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of OZ. But to be fair, the story, and especially the MGM film have become so influential in popular culture that I’ve seen it prequelled, deconstructed and even had that deconstruction turned into a musical. It has also been referred to in everything from the popularity of the quote, to reimaginings, and even a reference in the horror film Saw II.

Also the 1985 film Return to OZ may have one of the most terrifying sequences I ever saw in a film as a child.

So adding a Slasher-twist to the story is, in my mind, nothing short of genius. The story follows both two women on the set running from the Slasher (who has possessed the productions Tin Man and speaks only in lyrics from the classic “If I Only Had a Heart”) and Cassie and Vlad as they race to the set to put an end to the Slasher himself.
IMAGE USED
Hack/Slash of Oz Alternate Cover.  Retrieved online from http://www.newkadia.com/?HackSlash_The_Series_Comic-Book-Covers=1111127128

Bookmonkey Saw: Day 7

Saw II in a nutshell - everything I really liked about the first film seemed absent from the sequel.

Saw II in a slightly longer synopsis - a year after the events of Saw, eight people are trapped in a house and must make horrifying live-or-die-style choices to escape, while a police officer (and the father of one of the eight) captures and questions the jigsaw killer.  Although the film was not well received by critics, it did quite well and therefore another sequel was quickly ordered.

The original movie poster actually drew a bunch of media interest as it was banned by the MPAA - in the original picture (not shown right), it was apparent that the two fingers are severed.  The approved poster (as seen to the right), is therefore quite acceptable to put in the same theatres where kids were going to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire around the same time. (Quick side note, my oldest daughter is equally upset by both the banned and approved posters, entirely due to the ragged fingernails - apparently manicures are not that expensive and even severed fingers deserve a little extra care).

The story was originally written as The Desperate, by Darren Lynn Bousman (who would go on to direct Saw III and IV), but due to it’s inability to get green lit on its own, due to it's violent nature and being considered "...too saw-ish" (1) it was passed over until the sequel to Saw was green-lit and it was found that The Desperate could be adapted into a workable script.

Also I feel it is important to note that Saw II was a Canadian-American Horror film (as were the rest in the series, with Lions Gates Films partnering with the Ontario Production Services Tax Credit) so on behalf of my nation, sorry.

Eight months after the film was released, star Tobin Bell was nominated for an MTV Best Villain award (along with Voldemort from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Scarecrow from Batman Begins, The White Witch from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe) but lost out to Hayden Christensen in Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith for best on-screen villain.

The only thing I really liked about the sequel?  Just as Saw had a bizarre reference to Alice in Wonderland, Saw II does the same with The Wizard of Oz (the 1939 MGM film, not the original novel) when the Jigsaw killer informs his eight victims that “ The Clue to their [escape] can be found Over the Rainbow” 

Internet Movie DataBase. "Trivia" in Saw II.  Retrieved October 7 from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432348/trivia