Return to Oz (1985)

An un-official sequel to The Wizard of Oz, Return to Oz (written and directed by Walter Murch) is possibly Disney’s delightfully bleakest film and featuring some of puppet-cinema’s most charismatic creations . . . The Gump, for example, half chaise-longue, half moose-head, or Tik-Tok, the rusting royal army-of-one. A young Dorothy Gale (played here by Fairuza Balk in her first film role) narrowly escapes electro-shock therapy and finds herself once again in Oz – only this time the Emerald City is (unfortunately) in ruins and over-run by some of the truly scariest villains in Disney history, the Wheelers, Princess Mombi, and the Nome King. But it has a beautiful David Shire score.

Just some of the reasons why this is the only other film I rented every other Saturday in 1989.