Interview: Elijah J. Alvarez on Dorothy: The Haunting of Oz

This week in the morgue, Gaz and Ken sat down with writer, producer, and director Elijah J. Alvarez to talk about his feature debut, Dorothy: The Haunting of Oz - a Gen Z-inflected horror featuring characters from Frank L Baum's The Wizard of Oz set on a college campus on Halloween night. Below is the interview in full. Elijah's talks about some unexpected inspirations, real world parallels and his plans for the future. 

On the Inspiration Behind the Film

Gaz Hames: Okay, welcome to The Morgue, with me, Gary, and Ken. Today, we are joined by a special guest to tell us about their new film, Dorothy: The Haunting of Oz. Welcome to the show, writer, producer, and director, Elijah J. Alvarez.

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.

Gaz Hames: No problem, man. So —

Ken Talbot: Yeah, it's really great to have you. I really, really enjoyed the trailer for Dorothy.

Elijah Alvarez: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, that's — pretty much that's the first teaser trailer for the film. I wanna have an official trailer out probably within the next month and a half, but that was the first footage for the movie that dropped, so I'm excited.

Gaz Hames: Yeah, it does look cool. Yeah, yeah, cool, we'll look out for that. So do you want to just tell us a little bit about the film?

Ken Talbot: It's great. Looks great.

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah, so pretty much, the synopsis for the movie is: set on Halloween night, a group of college student athletes that are dealing with athletic setback — while they're going through this, on Halloween night, the supernatural reincarnations of these classic Oz characters, such as Dorothy, the Witch, the Scarecrow, they all kind of run amok on this college town. It's set in the Bay Area, it's a Bay Area movie, and it's really kind of wild, because I really kind of took inspiration from American Graffiti.

Gaz Hames: Oh, wow.

Elijah Alvarez: And the way that whole film is this crazy ensemble cast of super young actors, before their adulthood, and you just see them — every scene is different cuts, they're in the car, then they're somewhere else — and I love that energy, and I was thinking, I want to put that kind of energy but into a horror setting, right? Just to elevate it, you know?

Gaz Hames: Yeah, that's a cool idea. I mean, it wouldn't be the first one I would've thought of as being the first inspiration for a horror movie. But yeah, I guess it fits in.

Ken Talbot: No, I was not expecting American Graffiti to come out of this interview, no.

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah. Okay.

Ken Talbot: Great inspiration.

On Following the Public-Domain Horror Wave

Gaz Hames: Yeah. So, there's been — I know over the last few years, there's been a bit of a surge of horror movies based on kind of public domain IPs.

Elijah Alvarez: Thank you.

Gaz Hames: We've had Winnie the Pooh, Pinocchio — was that... did Robert Englund do Pinocchio, Ken? Is that quite a new one? Yeah, Pinocchio: Unstrung or something. They're good for —

Elijah Alvarez: Mmhm.

Ken Talbot: Yeah, the new one, yeah, yeah.

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah. That was great. I loved it. That was so good. Did you guys watch it?

Gaz Hames: I think I've seen — I saw the trailer for it. I've not watched the movie.

Ken Talbot: Yeah. There's a great — you'll like it, guys — there's a great kind of, I think it's post credits where they go over the practical effects and stuff. It's very good. Yeah.

Gaz Hames: Oh, sick. Oh, yeah, I'll check that out.

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah. Yeah. **** yeah.

On the Story's Origins and Personal Stakes

Gaz Hames: I mean, I suppose it's kind of nothing new that people are doing public domain movies like that, because there's a reason there's a new Dracula movie out every year, right? But how do you approach coming to making a film about something like that? Did you already have an idea for a script based around the characters from Wizard of Oz, or was it like another script that you adapted to fit the IP — how did it come together?

Elijah Alvarez: Right. Yeah. So really, the initial idea was, okay, a Wizard of Oz horror take, that would be cool. The original drafts were totally different genres, right? Because my film — a lot of what I updated was about Gen Z. Before, it wasn't the case, but then once I went through that old draft, I was like, no, this has to feel super personal to me, right? For me to want to make it and stick to it. It has to feel like something I'm emotionally invested in, and not just a plot device concept where it's serving the story.

Gaz Hames: Yeah, sure.

Elijah Alvarez: So yeah, I'd say that was a huge thing. And also, because these public domain films are coming out with their horror adaptations, I really thought — okay, I have to really make something super different, but I love this idea of using these classic characters, something that's already been reiterated a bunch of times, that some people love and some people hate. But trying to make that kind of hook, and weave it into — the way I did it — where it's having fun in its narrative, but also, I want to talk about something more than just what the plot is, right? And I think a lot of that ties into the movie's themes of athletic injury, and what that causes for student-athletes. And honestly, that student-athlete part was a concept I had separate from the film, just thinking about —

Gaz Hames: Yes.

Elijah Alvarez: — okay, how do I want to express these emotions and feelings that athletes face, and tell it into a narrative? Because in media, you don't really see that covered, let alone in film. So I kind of wanted to just throw that in and be like, okay —

Ken Talbot: No.

Elijah Alvarez: — we can talk about different stuff, but still have fun with the horror, you know?

Gaz Hames: Yeah. Cool. Cool. Sounds very fun. Sorry, Ken.

On the Film's Central Character and Athletic Trauma

Ken Talbot: [inaudible] Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting. It's definitely something that I'm interested in specifically — especially, I know you guys in the US can get, there's a lot of pressure for young people in sports and it can be, you know, you're forced into this legacy and all, and what can happen post — you know, post-experience, post-injury. So I guess — before you go on for another question, Gaz — tell us something about your characters. What are they going through before they meet these properties?

Elijah Alvarez: Right. So, yeah — yeah, so pretty much, I'd say the main character — well, one of the main actors — his name is Lenny, and Lenny's story is really interesting. I took a lot of inspiration from past athletes who pretty much had the hype, because I think what's so interesting about my generation growing up is: let's say you're one of the top athletes in whatever sport you're in, and you're super young, under high school age, or even middle school age — you've got these kids practically getting documented since 6th, 7th, 8th grade, throughout their high school years. And if they're that elite, they're gonna get noticed overnight with millions of views, millions of coverage at such a young age. But I feel like the part about that is — you get the fame, you get all that stuff, the internet clout, but the part of that is: okay, you're getting all this status, but what if you don't make it, right? And that's what I really took a lot of inspiration from — just different figures who were right there, like they were crowned to be whatever, the next Kobe or something, and then, boom, life happens, they're in college, and now they're playing D2, right? And they're not living up to the hype they were supposed to when they were a kid. So Lenny's story is about that. He was supposed to be — well, he was ranked top 5 in his class of high school for basketball, and then he had a crazy injury. He had this injury because he was playing D1, and then he never played D1 again — which, D1 in the US is the highest division of college basketball — and he got demoted to D2. So in the story, he's really kind of just going through it, and he's really — I don't know what the **** he's like — and, psychologically, that's another thing I really wanted to tap into, because the film's also a psychological thriller, so it's really getting into the injured athlete's mind, and kind of showing — this is extremely relatable to people who've faced this kind of problem.

Elijah Alvarez: And just showing, and shining a light, and showing, okay, you're seen, you know? It's in service to the truth of it, whether people want to admit it or not, you know.

On the Viral Curse and Internet Culture

Ken Talbot: Yeah, absolutely. And — so is that where the viral aspect of it came from? Because in the teaser trailer, it's kind of a Bloody Mary situation, where we're bringing these characters forth. Is that what you're trying to say about everything kind of existing online, and everything being about that internet clout?

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah. Exactly. With the whole challenge thing — I really took, yeah, Bloody Mary for sure, and then also The Ring, too. Those two were big inspirations, because, really, I think — how I looked at this viral internet TikTok challenge, it's kind of like: okay, this thing goes super viral, if you repost the video, you summon the witch. And I feel like that's so fitting, because if that were real today, online, so many people would do it. You know what I'm saying? I feel like even horror fans, non-horror fans, people would just want to do that and be like, oh my god, what happens? And then film it, because, let's say you film it, you get millions of views, and you're up —

Ken Talbot: Yeah.

Gaz Hames: I feel like there's —

Elijah Alvarez: So that's why I'm like, okay, if this was on a college campus, every kid in the dorms is gonna do this and film it. So, whether or not it's — of course it's for fun, and then people have their own agendas —

Ken Talbot: Yeah, yeah.

Gaz Hames: Yeah, I don't think there's much of a limit to the kind of dumb **** people will do on the internet.

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah, I know, for real, exactly. And that's what's fun, though, because with some of the scenes we did, we have some students go really out there — trying to repost, trying to do the challenge — they really go in the end zone with it, which is fun, because you get to push it, and it's cool, because it makes these college students really nuanced, and not just one shade, right? Not just one archetype in the film. It's like, these are real people, and you're like, holy ****, you know? These went out there, you —

On Designing the Witch and Dorothy

Ken Talbot: Yes. So tell us something about the non — well, I suppose the non-people, the Wizard of Oz properties. It looks like you've got some good practical effects going on here, some good costume design. Tell us about the creation of the characters.

Elijah Alvarez: Thank you. Yeah, so pretty much, with my SFX artists — I had a couple for the film — because honestly, when we were designing this, we went through, probably for the witch itself, the red eyes were something we didn't figure out till the fourth iteration of the look. And then, even just the paint job — we knew we wanted it green, but it has to be the right green. I didn't want it to be the super, super light green. I wanted it to feel a little bit more dark, more unsettling. I was also looking at the past iterations of Oz in film, and I never saw, in any of those movies, a witch done specifically for nightmare fuel — where it's like, no, this is a creepy version of the Wicked Witch. And I wanted to embrace that in the character design as well.

Elijah Alvarez: And then with Dorothy — that's something I came in super late on. I was like, okay, wait, how could we — and then I was thinking, we could do different ages of Dorothy, but then I immediately thought of the film Orphan, and I was like, oh, wow, I feel like that movie's underrated, and you could —

Gaz Hames: Ah.

Ken Talbot: Yeah, yeah.

Elijah Alvarez: — do a crazy Orphan take, with the Terrifier vibes. I wanted something like that, because that look is already so iconic with Dorothy, but imagine that in a horror setting, where I'd want little girls to be dressing up as Dorothy —

Gaz Hames: That's, you know — well, that's a crazy mashup, right? Terrifier via Orphan via The Wizard of Oz is wild.

Elijah Alvarez: Okay. Mm-hmm.

Ken Talbot: Yeah.

Elijah Alvarez: Right. Exactly, exactly. Something like that — and I love Orphan, because it's psychological, and I want to embrace all these genres and put them into one.

On Being Part of a New Wave of Young Filmmakers

Ken Talbot: Yeah, I think L. Frank Baum's images, his iconography — it feels like it's taken a long time to get to horror. I mean, the whole — Winnie the Pooh and Pinocchio, yeah, that's giant bear, giant pig and all this stuff, but Dorothy herself and the Wicked Witch —

Elijah Alvarez: Right.

Ken Talbot: — really kind of indelible horror images, so I'm surprised it's taken this long. So I guess the key thing that I wanted to mention, and excuse me if it's been spoken about a lot, but you're a young creator, quite a young filmmaker, and you're coming in at a time when we have Kane Parsons, who's just done Backrooms, and Curry Barker, and all these kind of young creators that Hollywood is putting some money behind. Do you see yourself as part of that wave, and do you think it was, I guess, a smoother ride making your film because of this climate?

Elijah Alvarez: Right, yeah, I feel like — it's crazy, I was talking to my DP about this, because when I was cutting up the teaser, he was telling me, he's like, it's wild because Gen Z is so popular right now in the horror genre. And all of that happened a few months ago, which is insane, because the timing feels really wild to think about, just because I've kind of been working at this for a while. I've done past films, just trying to sharpen my skills and my craft. I think, too, especially with filmmaking, half of this, besides the hard work, the passion, the talent — half of this is timing. So yeah, I'd say I'm definitely trying to showcase what you can do with just pure passion, right? Because what I love about those films is they're just so original, and I think I'm taking a classic IP, but making it my own original take on it, with themes you would not expect in it, and I really love that energy. I feel like this film is gonna embrace that.

Ken Talbot: Yeah, I mean, certainly I wasn't expecting to come into this interview and be talking about historic youth in sports and basketball in America being the key influence for this. So, really, really interesting.

Elijah Alvarez: Mmhm.

On Marketing in the Shadow of Wicked

Ken Talbot: Another thing, as well as this wave of young filmmakers, which you're very much on the cusp of now — you're coming after quite a Wizard of Oz phenomenon. The world is still captured in the fever of Wicked, and I already saw a bunch of articles like "Wicked for Bad" and all this stuff. So, are you gonna play into that with the marketing?

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah, for marketing, I really want to go out there. I'm looking at even the way Smile did their marketing, where they just brought a bunch of people smiling in public places. And I'm based in LA, so we could really do that — go crazy with it, with Dorothy and the witch. Because those faces, the look is already iconic. But what's gonna trip the audience out is seeing the look, but then it's like a nightmare-fueled version in public — that's gonna get them. They're gonna be like, what the **** is that? And they immediately know what it is. So I feel like I want to take advantage of — like you said, it's an older, it's a legacy IP, and for this film, you kind of have to take advantage.

Ken Talbot: Yeah, and it's funny you mentioned Smile — it's our latest episode, we cover Smile and Obsession, and Gaz —

Gaz Hames: Yeah, we literally recorded last night, and I mentioned that very thing about the people smiling in the crowds at ball games and stuff. It was so cool.

Elijah Alvarez: Thanks. Yeah, yeah, it's — that's awesome. That's awesome.

Ken Talbot: I miss that. I miss viral marketing stunts for horror movies, we don't get enough of them nowadays. Smile was an anomaly, but we used to get them all the time.

Elijah Alvarez: That's crazy.

On the Release Plans

Ken Talbot: So when do you release with this? What's the release schedule?

Elijah Alvarez: So currently, I'm deep in post. I'm probably gonna have my final cut done by early September, and I wanna release it this fall — even if it's late this fall, that'd be perfect, but I really wanna get it out really soon.

Ken Talbot: Are you going to do the festival circuit? Is there something coming up?

Elijah Alvarez: I'm still looking at the festival circuit. I'm also looking at sending it to distributors, because I honestly feel like with horror nowadays, especially where horror is at — it's just dominating everything — I want to really tap into the horror fanbase through the internet, through social media, through marketing, like we're talking about. Festivals are really great, and they're good experiences, but I want to really just serve the fans, because at the end of the day —

Ken Talbot: Yes.

Elijah Alvarez: — when I spend so much time writing, shooting, editing, I'd want people to see it and enjoy it, right? I don't want to withhold that, you know?

Ken Talbot: Great.

Gaz Hames: Fair.

On What's Next

Ken Talbot: I think it's interesting — usually one of the things we ask in interviews is what's coming in the future for filmmakers. And as you've said, you've honed your craft before Dorothy, and now we've got that coming out towards the end of the year. Do you have anything on the horizon? Do you have a next step?

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah, so pretty much for that, I do have a couple of projects I'm looking at doing. Also, once Dorothy is pretty much done in the edit, I really want to go back to writing. I feel like that's my number one thing. I just want to go back to it, because it's been a couple months since I've really written anything. I have scripts ready to make, and I always want to be prepared with my scripts — I want to make sure they're really good. Dorothy's pretty much taken a lot of my time, and I just really want to make sure I get that right.

Ken Talbot: Mmm.

Elijah Alvarez: And then have a good amount of well-done scripts just kind of in my bag. So yeah.

On Rhys Frake-Waterfield and the Future of Public-Domain Horror

Ken Talbot: I like that. Looking forward to what you do next. As more of these public domain films come out, I'm very interested in whether we're ever going to get a crossover event — it'd be interesting to see if maybe the producers of the other films would approach you and get everyone together. That'd be an Avengers.

Elijah Alvarez: Right. Yeah. No, no — Rhys Frake-Waterfield? Yeah, I know him a bit. He deserves so much credit for this, because with Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, so many people talk **** about — people don't understand, he still had to write and direct that film in, like, less than 2-3 weeks. It was a really tight shoot schedule, and regardless, you can say what you want about it, but you can't deny that he worked his *** off to get it done, which is more than what most people will do, because it's extremely hard to make a film. But what's nice to see about where he's going with Pinocchio is you can just see the quality level in his work getting better and better, with the practical effects — he's bringing in Robert Englund for this — he knows, okay, I have the horror audience's attention, but I don't want to lose them, and I want to do them right. At the end of the day, I think that's just the best thing — always trying to get better, you know?

Ken Talbot: I would say so, yeah, his films are definitely going from strength to strength.

Elijah Alvarez: You know.

Ken Talbot: And hopefully we can see that from you as well?

Elijah Alvarez: Yeah, that's definitely the goal.

You can listen to the interview in full on any platform here