I'm pretty sure J.K. ROWLING must read Kindertrauma every day , so I must pose one question specifically to her: J.K., is there anything you'd like to say to the class about where your ideas for the HARRY POTTER series came from?….No?… Anyone you might want to tip your wizard's hat to as acknowledgement for inspiration?… No, really?… Are you sure? It's O.K., you're allowed to be influenced by others…No, nothing? O.K. J.K, we'll just let it go, but I must say I'm very disappointed in you. Now that that's not settled, let's talk about THE WORST WITCH whose synopsis can be read on the back of any of J.K.'s HARRY POTTER books. THE WORST WITCH stars born outsider and traumatot legend FAIRUZA BALK (RETURN TO OZ) and is as impervious to critique as it is to human understanding. It may be grossly unprofessional, feature alarmingly sub-LIDSVILLE flying sequences and gamble on the assumption that a viewer can withstand dual roles AND a MUSICAL NUMBER by one CHARLOTTE RAE, but when all is said and done, it makes that other child training in the black arts seem like he has an enchanted broomstick stuck up his ass. Why is THE WORST WITCH the best movie that takes place in a magic school for kids? Because it actually has magical powers! POTTER's movies may be 3 or more hours in length, but I guarantee WITCH's mere 70 minutes will have you wondering if you have been watching it for days! Plus it has a message, which as far as I could make out was something like, "Keep sucking at what you suck at, but suck at it in your own sucky way!" Unlike most films aimed at kids, here we are not advised to gain power through acquiring a ROWLING-esque money pile or by being flashier than our peers. Real power comes from passively shrugging off adversity, having the ugliest cat in the room and intuitively knowing who deserves to be transformed into a pig or a snail. I don't really don't know how to describe TIM CURRY's sanity stealing musical interlude, you can either watch it HERE or take a cheese grater to your eyeballs, I'm not sure if there is a difference. To sum it all up, J.K. ROWLING is a dirty plagiarist with no conscience, CHARLOTTE RAE is even more certifiably insane than previously understood, TIM CURRY has the power to burn a permanent hole in your retina, and budgets of over one thousand dollars are for chumps. Keep doing what you're doing folks, eat, sleep, go to work, pay your bills, if you have not experienced THE WORST WITCH you will go to your grave unenlightened, having lived only half of a life. Sure that four-eyed POTTER may receive all the attention and laurels but in my backwards spell book WORST is best!
Jeez, in that still Tim looks just like Booger from Revenge-o-th'Nerds… Â Not sure I want to brave looking at the video. Â Who could've imagined him as more confusingly disturbing than Frank N. Furter!?
Ok, I broke down and watched it. Â Damn. Â Gotta say I disagree on the budget of this film though – those chroma-key video mixing boards from Radio Shack probably weren't cheap back then. Â And they must've spent a pretty penny to get Andrew Lloyd Weber to write the music…
"Anything can happen on Halloween" should be a halloween standard. Besides being inordinately concerned with toads hiding in guitars and gremlins destroying video tapes from London to Tokyo, It warns that your dentist might suddenly turn into a queen. Here are the masterwork's lyrics,….
Can you believe this is the second time in one day Return To Oz has come up in my life? Must be a sign. I've never seen it, but I sure want to now.Â
More like, Fairuza Hott! I like 'em freaky looking…don't you judge me!
Oh, and Tim fucking rules…WTF with the whole, "has anyone seen my tambourine?!" Genius. I will be posting that video in October…you can bet on it!
Mr C,
You must see RETURN TO OZ ! It's such a great movie and freaky as hell. Fairuza may be the coolest person alive. She was in a "masters of horror" A while back and I recommend that as well. It was directed by Larry Cohen and it's called "Pick me up"
Just how cool is Fairuza? She played a vampire in a ZZtop video that's how cool!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSHhAkVreiw
(Has anyone seen THEIR tambourine?)
And who can forget her in THE CRAFT?
Luv' goes out to the punky Mrs. G!
SBD, Oh my gosh! You are right! Tim Curry does look like Booger! I was expecting him to belch in the video.
Yup, Tim's nothing if not versatile although he does seem to have a singular gift as a traumatizer – between ANNIE, IT, LEGEND, ROCKY HORROR, et. al., and now this movie, he's done a lot of damage!
Sbd,
Yes! Thank you for reminding me about this movie.
"Anything can happen on Halloween!!!"
OK, I got ahold of this movie and watched it.  Wow. Now, what I think happened was the producer read the books and thought, "This would make an excellent porn vehicle!"  But then before the principals were cast somebody goofed and hired actual child actresses so they scrambled to un-pornicize the script but kept the porn crew – porn cameraman, porn sound recordist, porn makeup artist, porn editor, porn director.  Only I think there was a further snafu and nobody told Tim Curry they weren't making a porn because, by God, he certainly does act like he expected someone to go down on him in each of his scenes.
Now I just need to watch RETURN TO OZ – been wanting to see it ever since it came out in the theater but somehow never got around to it. Â For more OZ lore I recommend reading A BARNSTORMER IN OZ by Philip Jose Farmer – very dark and cool – and Heinlein's NUMBER OF THE BEAST (if you can stomach Heinlein for more than a few hundred pages…)