Nightmare Fuel / Wicked

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

For the books see here.

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• The Wizard's mechanical head contraption. Rather than the projection in the movie, it's a huge machine with clanging metal parts and glowing eyes. It was deliberately meant to be creepy and loud.
  The Wizard's Head:I. AM. OZ!!! I. AM. OZ!!! THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE!!!!!
  • The score calls for tone clusters in the low octaves of the piano, traditionally played with a flat palm or even a fist slammed down at random in the indicated area. The effect, especially at the immense volumes indicated, is deeply unsettling.
  • After Elphaba and Glinda escape with the Grimmerie, the Wizard promptly jumps behind the contraption and activates it to start barking out orders. The eyes are the last things to fade as the stage goes dark.
• The scene where Nessarose completely loses her temper after Boq tells her that he's in love with Glinda, and the result of her Magic Misfire: as he'd earlier explained that he "lost his heart" to Glinda the day he met her, Nessa makes sure he does. It's clearly an agonizing process, and he describes the experience as feeling as though his heart is shrinking.
  • The Reveal that Elphaba has transformed Boq into the Tin Man (so he could live despite lacking a heart) looks like something out of a horror movie. The music, along with Boq going mad from the revelation, really cements the mood.
  • The 2023 Brazil Non-replicate production leans even heavier into the Body Horror of Boq's transformation. In a flash of light, the spell kicks in and instantly transforms his body into tin, then the lantern and grate from Nessa's wheelchair latch onto his head and chest, all while he screams and flails around in agony. This production makes it crystal clear that the process is horribly painful.
• "March of the Witch Hunters". The chorus part is a frenetic Dark Reprise of the "No Good Deed" motif, turning Elphaba's own music against her. The Tin Man briefly teeters on the edge of psychotic, then leaps straight into it just before they start to sing. Madame Morrible is in full flight, certain of victory, and genuinely terrifying in a way we haven't seen before. Completing the picture, the ensemble have loud, high-register harmonies under the melody line, creating a 'wailing', 'howling', very primal and aggressive effect.
  • Glinda confronts Madame Morrible, pleading with her to stop the Witch-hunters and how the rumors surrounding Elphaba have gotten out of hand. It's then that she realizes the truth of Nessarose's death. Madame Morrible snaps back at her that she has just as much blood on her hands, as she was the one who unwittingly suggested Nessarose be used as bait to draw Elphaba out. The horrified look on Glinda's face as she flees says everything.
    Glinda: No, that's not how it happened! Madame, we've got to stop this, it's gone too far!
    Madame Morrible: Oh, I think Elphaba can take care of herself.
    Glinda: But Madame, something's been troubling me… about Nessarose, and that cyclone.
    Madame Morrible: Yes, I suppose it was just... her time.
    Glinda: Was it? …Or did you—?
    Madame Morrible: (sharply as she leans in close to Glinda) Now you listen to me, Missy. The rest of Oz may have fallen for that "Aren't I Good" routine, but I know better. YOU'VE WANTED THIS FROM THE BEGINNING! AND NOW YOU'RE GETTING WHAT YOU WANTED, SO JUST SMILE AND WAVE, AND SHUT UP!!! (Glinda exits) GOOD FORTUNE! GOOD FORTUNE WITCH-HUNTERS!
  • Not helping is that the song ends invoking the creepy march that the Winkies march to in the 1939 film.
  • Boq's transformation into the Tin Man isn't just physical. As a result of Nessarose shrinking his heart and Elphaba's subsequent transformation of him, he's gone from a sweet and shy young Munchkin who was deeply in love with Glinda to a mechanised puppet, who is being gas-lighted by a fanatical racist, ready to kill Elphaba for what she did to him to the point that he has to stop himself from saying her name. Making it worse is his trying to force the Cowardly Lion (who Elphaba and Fiyero rescued as a cub in Act I) to tell them "what she did to (him) in class that day. How (he was) a cub and she cubnapped (him)!"
    Tin Man: It's due to her I'm made of tin!
    Her spell made this occur!
    So for once I'm glad I'm heartless!
    I'll be heartless killing her!'
  • The choreography of the scene has the chorus slam their weapons into the stage floor between the lyrics "Wickedness must be punished!" and "Evil effectively eliminated!" with a loud BANG!, which is accompanied with downstage floor lights flashing on, illuminating their faces. It's one hell of a Scare Chord.
• An example of Fridge Horror: After "As Long As You're Mine," that screaming sound Elphaba hears before she sees the house... Is that supposed to be Nessarose as she's dying? Either way, it's chilling.
• The scene in which Elphaba is tricked into giving Chistery wings. The transformation is played for all the horror it's worth, and then it gets ramped up to eleven when a set of back walls part open to reveal an entire cage full of Monkeys that Elphaba has just forcibly, accidentally and irreversibly transformed.
• Doctor Dillamond losing his voice. We never get any details as to what actually happened, and just the idea that the goat equivalent of a successful, middle-aged professor could give up something so important is really quite chilling. When you stop to consider the implications of whether or not he can actually remember being a sentient creature…things get even worse.
• Nessa taking away the Munchkin's rights just so that she can keep Boq with her. That's one horrific ruler to live under.
  • Nessarose's love for Boq starts out as sweet, adorable even. This is a girl who had been pitied her whole life for being "tragically beautiful" and probably never had a positive relationship with anyone except with her sister. But over the course of the musical we see Nessa become more and more obsessed with Boq to the point the poor lad runs away at the train station during the scene where Elphaba is leaving for the Emerald City. When Nessa excitedly shows Boq that she can walk thanks to Elphaba's enchanting her silver slippers, Boq tells Nessa that now that she's able to care for herself, he's going to Emerald City to tell Glinda how he feels for her. You'd think that Nessa would willingly let Boq go. Instead, she accidentally shrinks his heart, forcing Elphaba to intervene. The whole relationship, especially at the end, reeks of If I Can't Have You….
• "Something Bad" can be this for some, especially as Dr Dillamond begins bleating just as he and Elphaba are discussing the implications of Animals losing their ability to speak. This coupled with his clear reluctance to discuss the matter in front of Madame Morrible (and we later discover he has good reason) really manages to create an uneasy feeling about exactly how this incarnation of Oz is governed. It's subtle but still fairly horrifying to think about.
  • In the scene preceeding this, there are a couple of times where Doctor Dillamond's actions are Played for Laughs (such as him clopping his hoof against the floor like a Goat while shouting "CLASS!", even sounding like a bleating Goat). The first time he bleats "bad" is also known to evoke laughs. The second time? The audience is usually dead silent.
• The entire scene with the Lion cub. The sight of a (completely sentient) young animal in a cage (effectively the equivalent of caging a terrified child), Dr. Dillamond's replacement's sheer glee at the thought of Animals in cages never learning to speak, the clearly disturbed reactions from most of the students, the giant syringe...until finally it all culminates in Elphaba doing something to the rest of the students and the new teacher to make them all jerk about like puppets on strings and appear to have a collective seizure while she has no idea how to control it. It's genuinely a very disturbing scene.
• The scene where Fiyero gets dragged into the cornfield perched on a Guard's spear to be tortured, where he's doomed to transform into the Scarecrow. During this part, the backdrop turns a hellish red and black, and ends up looking like the cover of Children of the Corn.
• With the context of its presence removed, and only one vague throwaway line regarding its existence, the Clock Dragon can be very unsettling. Particularly the times when it starts to move, accompanied by glowing red eyes and smoke, and the fact that its movements are rather jerky.
• Some of the latter half of "No Good Deed" is decidedly unnerving in the hands of a talented enough actress (and singer). Kerry Ellis delivers "I'm Wicked through and through" like the powers of hell just came out of her larynx.
• Right at the start of "Defying Gravity", Madame Morrible is heard spinning the lies ala Josef Goebbels to the residents of Emerald City of how dangerous Elphaba is and that she's now a wanted woman. Glinda and Elphaba are seen trembling in terror as Morrible screams "THIS WICKED WITCH!" The sound design echoes the final word and it reverberates throughout the theater.
• One big Rewatch Bonus is the opening number of the musical; "No One Mourns The Wicked". The first time you hear it, it's a joyous and happy song about an oppressed group of people celebrating the death of a dangerous and very powerful most wanted criminal mastermind. You would think there is nothing out of place, isn't there? That is until you learn who Elphaba really was as a person; a kind, compassionate and caring young woman who only wanted to help those worse off than she was. Even with Glinda's attempts to get people to see "it couldn't have been easy (for her)" so they could see Elphaba as her friend...the chorus continues believing the lies they had been fed by Madame Morrible and the Wizard. What makes it worse is the fact that, prior to this celebration, Glinda had promised Elphaba that she'd keep the truth secret so she can be safe.

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