Nurse Betty skips out of the fall gate sounding like a sweet spin on The Wizard of Oz. There's Renne Zellweger, looking Judy Garland girlish in a blue-and-white-checked dress and red Keds.

"Betty's" departure in tone from the earlier movies--both essentially yuck-free zones poison-penned by LaBute--is due to the wildly imaginative screenplay, which springs from the fevered minds of ...