The ECT scene was the scariest in this

One of my favorite scenes in the movie.

Don't eva let nobody tell you you ain't strong enough

Agreed, it's absolutely horrifying. I find it very scary the way, in our not too distant past, we used to mess around with people's brains when we barely had in inkling of what we were doing. Labotomies, ECT... it's so dark and horrifying. This scene really scares me. The tension is done very well: "Ready?" "Ready, Doctor", with the close up of this big headphone type things with the loud crackling and buzzing coming from them. All I can say is thank goodness there was a power cut.

ECT is still done to this day. I knew a woman...well, really I met her in a hospital waiting room a few times, and she said ECT cured her depression. She said she was too depressed to function and that ECT was like a controlled seizure that fixed her brain. It's considered a medical procedure instead of a psychiatric treatment. I know that much because the woman was on the same floor as me and I was there for medical testing for my liver. It sounded kind of scary. She said it temporarily messed up her memory and she would forget who her family was for a few hours afterwards.

The scariest thing about this is that it was NO FANTASY.
Scenes like this probably DID play out in those times. And kids were probably experimented on because their caretakers had no idea what to do if they were "acting out" or something along those lines. And they possibly DIED after being abandoned at a creepy hospital.
Eff me, that is why the entire opening 20 minutes is scary, creepy, depressing. Outside of the fantasy element of Ozma's appearance, it just seems too real. Even the performances are completely convincing. I hate it. but I love that Disney has the balls to commit it to film, something nobody could really say about that company for the most part.

The whole part of the institutionalized terrifying to the bone. I am actually find it as the most scariest part in the movie. I read a lot about mental institutions than and today, just imagine what a patient goes through there, especially a sane child like Dorothy. I find the scene when she alone in the cell as the most terrifying.

Seeing that happen to sweet Dorothy of all people was a huge turn-off for me in that film.

That's the reason I avoided watching this film for 39 years. I expected that scene to be MUCH worse! Somehow I got the idea it involved needles and avoided it like the plague!