Fairuza Balk terrified moviegoers everywhere with her spellbinding performance in The Craft. Since then, however, she seems to have dropped off the map. As it turns out, she's been up to all sorts of things since she played Nancy Downs.
Balk's first major acting credit comes from the 1983 made-for-TV movie, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. She quickly gained notoriety as a child actor, eventually becoming noticed by Disney.
She was cast as Dorothy Gale in 1985's Return to Oz, a fascinatingly twisted sequel to L. Frank Baum's classic story. It still holds up as an unappreciated gem of Disney's live-action catalog, though it surely traumatized many an '80s child whose parents thought it would be as happy and upbeat as the original. How twisted are we talking? Well, Balk's Dorothy goes through electroshock therapy in a mental institution right at the beginning of the film. And don't even get us started on the terrifying Wheelers.
Serai3: I always think of her as Fairuza Balk from Return to Oz. And NO, it was not twisted - it's FAR MORE ACCURATE to the books than that sanitized version in the 30's. Yes, the Wheelers are from the books, as is everyone else in the movie. The ONLY thing that was original was the bookend story about Dorothy going to the doctor. Everything was straight from Baum. Date: 2020-10-29
