Evillene is a nasty piece of work. An entertaining nasty piece of work, but a nasty one nonetheless. Her Villain Song highlights how she enslaved many Ozians to work in her sweatshop and how she'll snap at the slightest hint of bad news.
When Dorothy first arrives in Oz, and the Munchkins pop out of the walls and begin shambling towards her, hands outstretched, and repeating nothing other than "Toto" in high pitched voices. It's quite unnerving as a first impression of Oz.
The subway scene, from the growing puppets, sharp-toothed sentient trash cans and moving pillars.
The puppets are indubitably the scariest of the bunch. From their slinky noises slowing turning into a constant, grinding growl-like sound, to the uncanny way they jiggle and walk ominously without stopping. What makes them creepier is that at least we can tell that the trash cans wanted to eat the Scarecrow and the pillars closed in around Dorothy with the intent of crushing her... but WHAT were those giant living puppets going to do to them if the Lion didn't open the gate in time?!
Add insult to injury, at least the Lion kicks the asses of the trash cans and the pillars, on the other hand the puppets are an unbridled horror without payoff: they're last seen still roaming the subway, looking for prey...
You'd expect a Sinister Subway to be dark, decaying and covered in cobwebs, but it's instead clean and brightly lit, on the walls there's posters with stylized grotesque faces and the fact that it's all tidy but completely void of life (sans the murderous living objects) makes the subway an eerie "liminal space" nightmare that wouldn't look too out of place in The Backrooms.
While not visually horrifying, the Poppy Girls' attempt to kill Dorothy, Toto and the Lion can get an unsettling light when you really think about it: the Poppies are represented as streetwalkers that begin their attack by throwing a venomous dust at Dorothy and the Lion before guiding them into an opium den-like tunnel that poisons them into passing out, almost lethally. In other words, we're watching prostitutes trying to kill our heroes by making them overdose. And the movie was rated G.
Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West, is depicted in this film as The Grotesque, with Uncanny Valley Makeup that makes her look like some sort of hideous human-sized porcelain doll. Another creepy factor comes in the moment when she tries to take Dorothy's slippers. In the 1939 film when the Wicked Witch tried to do that, she simply got her hands zapped by some cheesy looking yellow sparks added in post and that was it. Here, when Evillene tries to touch them... her fingers painfully roll backwards.
The Tin Man getting his body pressed thin can look cartoonish enough to avoid being traumatizing... but the Scarecrow getting sliced in half onscreen with a buzzsaw is a rather unsettling visual, regardless of him claiming that he can't feel it.
Yes, Evillene's workers slaving at her sweatshop lair are very grotesque looking, but innocent people who celebrate the moment they're freed from her tyranny... but just look◊ at how grotesque they are!
Oz itself, which is now a Crapsack World filled with colorful, often malicious characters and places no better than the real-life gangland of New York in the 1970s, with none of the bright colors and idyllic landscapes one normally expects of the place. The Wiz was easily the creepiest Oz movie at the time until Return to Oz claimed that title.
The TV special
The Tornado Ballet has a frightened Dorothy get flung through the air while storm clouds, lightning, and funnels appear in the background. The dramatic score further increases the scare factor, especially when an unseen lady vocalizes a scream.
The Scarecrow, described in one review as looking like he escaped from an especially creepy Neil Gaiman story.
The Winged Monkeys of the original are changed into the "Winged Warriors," a gang of muscled, bouncing, arm winged, furry...things.Word of God says they could be gargoyles.
◊ at how grotesque they are!
