Movies I will never grow tired of, take two: Return to Oz and The Craft.

Two completely different movies, but both starring one awesome actress, Fairuza Balk, (aka Hollywood's forgotten/underrated Queen of Darkness... Angelina Jolie can't hold a candle to this chick).

First up is the 1985 Disney movie Return To Oz. A hidden gem of a movie, that most people have never even heard of. I saw this with my cousin when I was about eight years old and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. The title says it all, really. It's a semi creepy sequel to the classic The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy returns to the land of Oz to find that it's been overtaken by an evil king who turned everyone into stone. It's packed with lots of new characters, though, a copper robot named Tick Tock, a talking chicken named Belinda, and my personal favourites: the uber creepy WHEELIES.




It stars Fairuza Balk when she was an adorable little girl. She had this dark mystique about her, even waaay back then...

Fast forward a few years to when little Fairuza is all grown up and you now have her playing an angsty teenage witch in The Craft, (also starring Neve Campbell).



Another movie I first saw at a really young age when my older teenage cousin rented it during this little phase she went through in which she was really interested in Wicca and witchcraft in general. We both got SO into this movie, and we were both SUCH dorks, that we actually would rewind certain little scenes over and over to write down and memorize the little spells that they would recite. Everything from glamour beauty spells, to "invoking the spirit"... Yes, we actually believed that they would work in real life. Too bad they didn't...

But the thing I always loved the MOST about this movie was Fairuza's crazy character and the amazing wardrobe they had her wearing.




When I was the small fry that I was upon first seeing this movie, I always told myself that I would look like Fairuza did when I got to high school. I wanted the pale, alabaster skin, the midnight black hair, the numerous black, dangling rosaries, the leather jackets, the spiky chokers, the Catholic school girl skirts paired with knee-high tights...Ahhh... childhood dreams never quite realized.

The Craft also has a pretty rocking soundtrack that you can sample here: CLICK "Our Lady Peace delivers a trippy "Tomorrow Never Knows," Heather Nova neuters Peter Gabriel's "I Have The Touch," and Juliana Hatfield can't locate the dark soul in Marianne Faithful's "Witches Song." Also notable are tracks by Jewel, Love Spit Love (covering The Smiths), and Matthew Sweet (with guest riffs by Lindsay Buckingham). --Jeff Bateman "

You should watch both of these movies when you're in the mood for a little darkness and MAGIC. But you should especially watch The Craft if you're a girl and PMSing because you can live vicariously through the teen witches as they do evil spells against people they hate and giggle to yourself when you see that one annoying mean girl's hair start falling out. HA. That's what she GETS for shoving you in the hallway!