Excerpt from piece on The Wizard of Oz, Christmas, and horror

Thursday 12/11/25

I've been writing my ass off the first week and a half of this month. Excerpt from this morning's new piece about The Wizard of Oz, Christmas, and horror. Compare it to Salman Rushdie's soporific, naked emperor twaddle from his volume on the movie in the BFI's Film Classics series, now headed up by our friend Rebecca Barden, with much to come in these pages detailing her discriminatory ways.

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Why does The Wizard of Oz feel like a Christmas film? It’s magic laden. And we’re not talking about the legerdemain prowess of the Wizard himself. Christmas is a time of magic. When a cold, still night, on one of the shortest days of the year, may feel charged with the possibility of worlds that don’t normally overlap doing just that to the person able and willing to let go of what they think they know, and…venture. And bear witness to visiting spirits. The best art is itself magical. That doesn’t mean sorcerers and dragons. We’re talking that which is beyond our world, and that shines a light on it nonetheless. You could say, because of.

There isn’t a more magical film than The Wizard of Oz and there isn’t a more magical day than Christmas. So there you have it. As for horror: Who has ever watched The Wizard of Oz and failed to find themselves terrified during portions of it? Just as It’s a Wonderful Life contains the scariest horror film of the 1940s, The Wizard of Oz features a cadre of moments that constitute the stuff of some of our earliest screen-related nightmares, with Victor Fleming going full (imaginative) throttle, a director unwilling to stint on scares.

They begin early with the potential murder of the little dog Toto courtesy of the dreaded Miss Almira Gulch (Margaret Hamilton, who’s going to play another part here soon enough). Did you ever have a neighbor whose visage in a window made you want to run back to the safety of your yard? Have you ever forgotten their silhouette?

Then we have Dorothy trapped outside, alone, as a deadly storm kicks up. She could die, her family could die. Seemingly seconds later, she’s in an empty house that is ripped off of the ground and tossed through the air en route to obliteration, but instead happens to land on a witch, which triggers the appearance of the ultimate wicked witch.             

If you’re of a certain age, this is when you first want to hide under your seat. Come to think of it, you can be any age. Dorothy is a young girl far from home. A home that may no longer exist. With probably no way of getting back. And you thought your first day at a new school was hard.

But our fear journey has just begun. That fear will be offset by friendship, loyalty, love. Kind of sounds like life, doesn’t it? If we’re lucky. Dorothy is blessed with friends in Oz and is also a true friend herself. The Yellow Brick Road—which looks so bright and beckoning at first—has a knack for turning menacing. The sparkle fades. Shadows darken it. Weeds grow in cracks. Are we still going the right way? The trees come alive—but not always, just in spots.

For all its color, darkness is present throughout The Wizard of Oz. At Christmastime, we tell ghost stories. Or we once did. Some still do. The curtain between worlds isn’t as thick as normal. It has some give. You can push a hand into a different time, place, plane while the veil remains against your skin. The same as we feel like we’re leaving a world behind—as part of an elongated crossing over—the further Dorothy gets from the house that killed a witch.