Wicked for Good features fun nod to The Shining

Wicked for Good is in cinemas now, and one particularly disturbing scene pays homage to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

The second Wicked film is a colorful family musical about warring witches and wizards, that plays like a superhero movie, as we wrote in our Wicked for Good review.

But there are some pretty heavy themes going down, to do with dictatorships and the rise of fascism, via a sub-plot that has it’s roots in Nazi Germany.

The movie also features a nod to one of the greatest horror movies of all time, through a scene that connects Wicked to The Wizard of Oz. Meaning SPOILERS ahead…

Tin Man does Jack Torrance in The Shining during Wicked for Good

Universal Pictures

Dorothy is glimpsed at the start of the first Wicked movie, having just killed the Wicked Witch of the West. In Wicked for Good, we see the events of The Wizard of Oz play out in the background, as she follows the yellow brick road alongside the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man.

We also discover the origin of those characters during the new movie, with Prince Fiyero becoming into the Scarecrow via one of Elphaba’s spells, and the lion cub that’s rescued in the first movie growing up to be the boxing coward.

Boq is the character who turns into the Tin Man, again via one of Elphaba’s spells. It happens when Nessa realises that the object of her affections still holds a torch for Glinda. In response, she casts a spell that shrinks his heart, but before it can kill him, Elphaba casts a counter-spell that saves Boq.

Universal Pictures

But it means a transformation that begins with Boq falling into silver pots and pans, then continues offscreen. We hear the character crashing around behind a door, and asking “Where am I?”

Boq then chops his way through said door with an axe, very much in the style of Jack Torrance in The Shining. He doesn’t stick his head through the hole and say “Here’s Johnny!” but the reference is clear.

Instead, now very much made of tin, he forces his way through the gap, and screams at Nessa “What have you done to me, witch?”

He then holds the axe up in menacing fashion, as if threatening to chop through her. But Tin Boq ultimately thinks better of it, and marches away on his metal legs.

Wicked for Good also pays homage to The Great Dictator

The Shining isn’t the only movie classic that influenced Wicked for Good, as there’s also a nod to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator.

Wicked featured a sly wink at that film, as Jeff Goldblum’s wizard bounces the moon in the air much like Chaplin does with a globe in that movie.

The parallels are even more pronounced in Wicked for Good, with the wiz bouncing a beach ball globe in the air, while singing a song about history and lies, in a style that very much mirrors the Chaplin classic.

Wicked for Good is in cinemas now, and you can head here to find out what the stars of the film are saying about Wicked 3.