Return to Oz

Return to Oz (1985) is a dark fantasy adventure you can watch online on iFILM, directed by sound legend Walter Murch in his only turn behind the camera. Months after the cyclone, Dorothy can't stop talking about Oz, so Aunt Em takes her to a clinic where a doctor plans to cure her with electric shocks.

Dorothy escapes with a talking hen named Billina and tumbles back into Oz. This time the Emerald City lies in ruins, its people frozen to stone, and the Nome King rules the rubble. Her new companions are odd ones: the clockwork Tik-Tok, the gangly Jack Pumpkinhead, and the Gump, a flying sofa stitched together from spare parts. The witch Mombi, who swaps her head like a hat, wants Dorothy's for her collection.

Fairuza Balk made her screen debut here as Dorothy, and the unsettling effects came from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Far stranger and scarier than the 1939 musical, the film flopped on release and later grew into a cult favorite for the kids it quietly terrified. Stream Return to Oz (1985) online on iFILM.