An All-Star Cast

I was looking at the new release DVDs at Walmart last night (as you do), and I came upon a movie I'd not heard of before, WIZARD OF OZ: THE DEAD WALK.  It's obviously a horror film, probably capitalizing on the public domain-ness of Baum's Wizard of Oz books.  

But what really stood out to me were the five actor names above the title, touted as though these were famous names that would help sell WOZTDW as a major motion picture worth seeing.  

I'm usually quite good at this sort of thing (ask me who played Jabba the Hut in the 1976 footage from STAR WARS* sometime), but darned if I recognize a single one of those names.  Do you?

No, this is not rhetorical--I'm genuinely curious if anybody reading this knows any of those actors.  "Hey, honey, Cleon VanderScontz plays the Night Porter in this!"  "Wow, guess we'd better check it out!"

But I'm going to do my due diligence (since I've got a pretty long shift today).  Alina Desmond plays Dorothy in this, and she is known for WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD & HONEY 2, THE MADNESS OF HUMPTY DUMPTY, and the horror film PIGLET.

Playing Dr. Oscar Diggs is Stephen Samson, who has a hundred and eighteen credits to his name, in films as well known as THE QUEEN, "Ted Lasso," BLACK WIDOW, AQUAMAN 2, DR. STRANGE 2, and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING . . . all of them uncredited.  If I had to wager, I'd put fifty dollars on Samson being an extra who was able to cite his many, many jobs on the IMDB himself (or, I suppose it's possible that his agent did).  No shade on him, but you're not going to see me listed on IMDB under SPIDER-MAN, "The X-Files," SPIDER-MAN 3, or "CSI."  That being said, he does have various credits on there for bit parts, and hey, he's second billed in WIZARD OF OZ: THE DEAD WALK.

Nathan Livingstone was in CINDERELLA'S CURSE, ALIENS RETURN, and NAZI ZOMBIES, before playing Alistair Garland in the above flick.

Simon Ellis plays the Tinman, and previously, he had a part in MONSTERNADO, "Way of the Exploding Dickhead," a Depeche Mode video,, WINNIE THE POOH: BLOOD & HONEY.

As the Scarecrow is Hywel Webb, and this is his first screen credit.  But he did go on to play Ranger Harrelson in THE BIGFOOT EXPERIMENT.

I also wanted to mention that there's a character in the movie called Jack L. Antern, which is pretty clever, right?  Well, kind of.

The director of THE DEAD WALK is Louisa Warren, known for BRIDE OF SCARECROW, CURSE OF THE SCARECROW, SCARECROW'S REVENGE, and TOOTH FAIRY (2019) and TOOTH FAIRY 2 (2020).

As taglines go, it ain't quite "Be afraid, be very afraid."

Lastly, it's not April Fool's.  I'm not making all of this up.  In fact, I was a little impressed that one of these actors had done anything I'd ever seen, much less heard of.  

Go ahead and support me on Patreon, and maybe I'll force Jeff to watch THE DEAD WALK some random Thursday evening.

*Yeah, it was Jabba the Hut for the first two movies.  The second -t didn't show up until JEDI.