Here's the truth: Return to Oz is a weird, dark, ambitious mess that most modern kids will struggle to sit through—and many will have nightmares if they do.

It opens with Dorothy being prepped for electroshock therapy. It features a witch who collects human heads in glass cases like trophies. The 'heroes' include a mechanical man, a talking chicken, and a guy with a jack-o'-lantern for a head. The whole thing feels less like a Disney fantasy and more like a fever dream directed by someone who read too much Grimm.

Yes, it's visually inventive. Yes, it's more faithful to Baum's original books. Yes, Fairuza Balk is great. But it's also slow, genuinely disturbing, and frankly hard to watch—both because of the content and because 1980s pacing doesn't hold up for kids raised on Marvel movies.

If you have a 10-12 year old who loves creepy fantasy (think Coraline or A Series of Unfortunate Events) and can handle some genuine scares, this might be an interesting curiosity. For everyone else? Skip it. The 1939 Wizard of Oz is dated too, but at least it's not giving kids nightmares about head-stealing witches.