CGAA Miscellany: 'The Darkness Of 80's Disney'

There's a line of argument that says the Disney Studio lost its way in the 1980s, that it was struggling to modernise and seeking to chime with new audiences by embracing more mature themes. Arguably, it wasn't until 1989's The Little Mermaid that Disney rediscovered its story-telling mojo, ushering in a new 'golden age' of animated movies. But of course, 80s Disney gave us Tron (1982), which has since been reclaimed from its tepid reception and rehabilitated as a ground-breaking experiment in CGI and potential uber-cool sci-fi franchise-in-the-offing. In this era of the squeaky clean High School Musical franchise, Hannah Montana et al, I look back with increasing admiration at Disney's dark trio of live action films, beginning with The Watcher in the Woods in 1980, followed by Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), based on the story by Ray Bradbury, and Return to Oz in 1985.

The Watcher in the Woods, directed by John Hough and an uncredited Vincent McEveety, based on the novel by Florence Engell Randall, gave me the heebie-jeebies as a child. The original ending of the film - which pitched an otherwise gothic horror story into sci-fi hokum complete with insectoid puppet alien - was reshot following poor audience reception! It was Stanley Myers' creepy score and Bette Davis's witchy performance as Mrs Aylwood that did it for me as a nipper - and all those lingering shots of the woods. The trailer still works a treat even now!

The Watcher in the Woods (1980)

Meanwhile, Something Wicked This Way Comes confirmed all my childhood suspicions in regard to travelling fairs. Unlike everyone else (or so it seemed) who got over-excited at the prospect of fairs, circuses and carnivals arriving in town, I treated their arrival with apprehension. I simply never trusted all that temporary jollity and clownish energy. The 'dark carnival' of Something Wicked This Way Comes is an established motif - think Papa Lazarou from The League of Gentlemen and Tod Browning's notorious Freaks (1932) - as is the idea of a charming man eliciting Faustian bargains from unsuspecting townsfolk. The film's director, Jack Clayton also directed The Innocents (1961) - an adaptation of the Henry James novella, The Turn of the Screw (1898), one of the greatest ghost stories on film. In common with The Watcher in the Woods, Something Wicked This Way Comes suffered from a conflict of creative vision - this time between Clayton and Bradbury, who disputed the film's tone. (But no insectoid alien this time!).

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

And finally, Return to Oz, directed, improbably, by Walter Murch, better known as a film editor, and as the celebrated sound designer for Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). Return to Oz was the unofficial follow-up to the MGM classic and from the outset - with Dorothy being sent away to a grim asylum for electric shock treatment to cure her of her Oz delusions - it was clear audiences were in for something different. So many potent childhood terrors here, from the terrifying Wheelers to Mombi's shrieking, disembodied heads.

Return to Oz (1985)

What all three movies share is their continuing power to disturb and their certain riskiness of tone. They contain moments of undiluted horror and primal scenes; the haunted woods, the dark carnival, and a childhood haven, once safe, now ruined and dystopian. None of these films are perfect (The Watcher in the Woods is far from perfect!), but they are worlds away from the anodyne, preppy, brattish pap of the Disney Channel. Maybe it's just the nostalgia talking, but I'd argue that Disney's crisis of identity in the early 80's gave rise to some distinctive, idiosyncratic productions.