1. Return to Oz (1986)
If you've seen
Return to Oz, you already know what part I'm going to bring up, don't you? I mean, let's be honest... you're terrified even thinking about it now, right? Disney's twisted '80s sequel to
The Wizard of Oz is, among other things, strange as hell... but there's one poisonous element in particular that makes this movie a truly gruelling exercise in kid-related disturbia. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... the Wheelers. I don't know who came up with the idea for the Wheelers originally, but I will say this: if their intention was to create a nightmarish creature that somehow tapped into an unrealised child-based fear of wheelchair mutant people, job well done. I don't know anybody who doesn't think the Wheelers are the epitome of nerve-wrenching nostalgia. Think '80s biker gang in a Police music video, as directed by, like, David Lynch or something. Fact is, though,
Return to Oz would be weird and strange even without the Wheelers: the plot has Auntie Em trying to put Dorothy into a mental asylum, only to have our beloved heroine escape to an Oz that mostly resembled a bombed-out country. Throw in an Evil Witch who collects severed heads, a transvestite Gnome King, and a collection of truly bizarre sidekicks (including a talking chicken), and this might just be the most disturbing children's movie ever made.
T.J. Barnard is an Associate Editor at WhatCulture. To this day, he has still never said the word "Wheeler" out loud. Just, you know, in case.