Horror Hour with the Hannas: A Horror Movie Review Comedy Podcast · The Hanna’s

Bonus Episode: Interview with Elijah J. Alvarez, Director of "Dorothy: The Haunting of Oz"

·28 min·1 clip

The film centers on “Gen Z student athlete” life, NIL money, and sports injury pressure.

1. Horror Hour with the Hannas talks with Elijah Alvarez about Dorothy, The Haunting of Oz, a horror version of The Wizard of Oz. 2. Hannah Hanna and Matt Hanna host, and Elijah Alvarez appears as the film’s writer, director, and producer. 3. The conversation asks how a Wizard of Oz horror movie can also tell a story about Gen Z college athletes. 4. Alvarez says the film is “completely horror,” with “a lot of gore” and a vignette structure similar to Weapons. 5. He says the story is centered on a college campus with many characters and distinct roles. 6. Alvarez says he grew up in Los Angeles and went to movies throughout childhood. 7. He says Avengers was the movie that made him realize people actually make films. 8. He says Heat by Michael Mann pushed him further because of its dialogue and craft. 9. He says he started making short films around age 14. 10. Alvarez says he first saw The Wizard of Oz around third grade, when he was about eight. 11. He remembers the wizard’s huge green form in the Emerald room as “nightmare fuel.” 12. He says the film’s scale makes Dorothy and the other characters feel small while Oz feels huge. 13. Alvarez says his first horror movie was Get Out, which he saw at 17. 14. He says Get Out showed him that horror can use metaphors to address racism, microaggressions, and society. 15. He says he talked with Reese Frank Waterfield, the director of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 1 and 2, for advice. 16. He says his version highlights the modern internet and the “ipad baby era” of his generation. 17. Alvarez says the student-athlete angle includes NIL money and the pressure of injuries that stop a sports career. 18. He says Angela Cervantes, his 22-year-old makeup artist from Los Angeles, designed the witch with him over seven months. 19. The interview has a casual, joke-heavy rhythm, with Hannah Hanna and Matt Hanna reacting to his references and pitch. 20. Anyone interested in public-domain horror, student-athlete stories, or practical makeup effects should listen; viewers wanting a spoiler-light summary of the plot may skip.

As heard by us

A concise interview traces internet-era college anxieties through a gory Oz reworking.

Horror Hour with the Hannas frames Dorothy: The Haunting of Oz as a college-campus spin on The Wizard of Oz, with guest Elijah Alvarez presenting it as a bluntly horror-first project: gory, crowded with characters, and built in a vignette-like shape.

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Why you'd press play

You want Oz rebuilt for the internet-and-college era, with gore on the syllabus.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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