The Wiz (1978 film) = Finished

The Wiz terrified me as a child.
That makes sense, because it is an unequivocally black science-fantasy body horror nightmarescape filled with the most disturbing, evocative imagery this side of childhood trauma.

A few highlights:

Dorothy finds the Tin Man trapped beneath his fourth wife. He rusts when he fires jets of tears from beneath his eyes. Haunting, painted caricatures of black minstrels harmonize in disembodied voices when Dorothy frees him, and he dances in the corpse of a fairground. Wooden faces carved into the side of a ship in the park crack open to join in the song.

Evillene the Wicked Witch of the West operates a literal sweat shop, covered in dripping moisture. The captives brought there have their manacles attached to their hands by a machine topped by an immense, blinking eye that drives the bolts into their hands.

Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion are drugged in a red-light district and taken through a tunnel of drugs and debauchery. They're deposited by a tongue-slide onto a dingy rooftop, where the Cowardly Lion is only woken by the bitter tears of a mourning Tin Man. Dorothy's body remains sprawled and comatose. After cursing all the gods in the universe, the cowardly lion tries to *commit suicide*.
Dorothy spends a musical sequence convincing him to find reasons to live.

Flying monkeys are grotesque muppets wearing bondage gear, motorcycles integrated into their very anatomy like the wings and faces of a seraphim.

The Emerald City is covered in sentient surveillance equipment, and nouveau riche citizens caught in an eternal dance that shifts color, tone, and clothing every time The Wiz gets tired of a shade. The Wiz uses a sonic cannon on the crowd at one point, shortly after a man emerges to ask Dorothy if she wants to "come to my place".

In her confrontation with Dorothy, the fingers of the wicked witch are bent backward with a sickening crack. The Scarecrow is cut in half with a buzzsaw.  The Cowardly Lion is hoisted by his tail, screaming in pain as the Wicked Witch prepares to throw Toto into a boiler spurting flame. The Tin Man is crushed by a giant steam press while screaming "Don't worry Dorothy, I'm just a hollow shell!" After her defeat, you hear the Wicked Witch drowning in her own juices within the throne that is revealed to be a toilet bowl.

The appearance of the Good Witch is cosmic. Blue cherubims float in an eternal void of glittering stars behind her.

In a subway, the quartet is cornered by a mad peddler who has been stalking them throughout the film. Toys drop from his chest of trinkets and bounce with an unerring rhythm, increasing in size and charging towards the terrified group. The Tin Man goes on to be electrocuted, the Scarecrow is chewed by dirty trash cans who have grown organic fangs, and Dorothy is cornered by subway pillars that have wrenched themselves from their moorings, only to be saved by the Cowardly Lion at the last moment.

This is the combination of The Wiz. Body horror, and dances amongst the fresh hells unveiled. Diana Ross cringes, writhes, and screams at every new terror. Some sequences have music and filming more reminiscent of a slasher film than childhood adventure...and that's why this movie is so creatively inspiring.

No, The Wiz is not for children. I don't know who the hell it IS for, to be honest. That said, the imagination shown here is unlike...anything else out there. It's worthy of study. You're better for having gone through the gauntlet, and it only could have been realized by the black direction and leadership (originating from a musical by a black dude) that helmed this movie. A sequence near the end of the film displays this essential blackness better than anything else.

After Evillene dies, her captives peel off their own skins - the skins of their enslavement - and drop them to the floor. The skins erupt into flame, and this beautiful parade of black bodies cartwheels across the screen in the sweat of that fire.

A celebration of the beauty that is us.

This application of the black perspective to sci-fi/fantasy deserves a whole lot more attention. I mean, the results speak for themselves. The movie is written, directed, and produced by white guys, but there is no denying that it is black - and better for it.