The Craft (Andrew Fleming, 1996)

When Sarah (Robin Tunney) moves to a new school, she finds herself the focus of a trio of outcasts (Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Rachel True). The trio are a fledgling coven of witches and believe Sarah is the 'fourth' they have been waiting for.

With Sarah on-board, the coven soon realise that their spells are working, and they quickly become intoxicated with the power they have unleashed, using it to rectify their individual problems.

However, when one of their number takes it too far, Sarah has to figure out whether she sides with her friend, or stops her before more people get hurt...

I have heard about this movie for years, but never felt the desire to see it. Partly it was down to sheer misogyny - if it was for teen girls it must be bad. I saw the poster and thought it was some silly YA movie. Thankfully, times and people change - that and every woman critic I read brought it up in a million different reviews of other movies I liked and my bullshit walls began to crumble.

To celebrate Halloween my local arthouse is hosting a festival of witch movies, including this 1996 supernatural drama. Since my curiosity was piqued, I decided to check it out.

Watching The Craft, two things were quickly apparent: First, while I was vaguely aware of the similarities, it is ridiculous how much Charmed ripped this movie off. Once 'How Soon Is Now?' starts playing...

My second takeaway was how mature the movie’s themes are. The movie’s trailer made it look like a typical 90s teen movie, but aside from the soundtrack, there is little about the movie that feels dated.

From a 2019 vantage, the movie’s portrayal of young women discovering their own power is fascinating - the characters use magic as a vehicle for overcoming the things that oppress them. I went back and read the oral history the Huffington Post released around the 20th anniversary, and the filmmakers emphasised how important it was to ground the characters' desire for power in real-world needs.

Sarah is recovering from a failed suicide attempt and a yearning to know her mother who died during child birth; Nancy (Balk) is poor and ostracised as a 'slut' by the upper-class student body; Bonnie (Campbell) is ashamed of her burn scars that she hides under heavy clothing; and Rochelle (True) has to contend with racist bullying from a young Christine Taylor.

Because of the period when it came out, I was worried the movie's tone would be glib. There is a superficial irony to a lot of 90s genre flicks that makes me leery to check out movies I have never seen, but The Craft was refreshingly direct in tackling a bunch of issues people, particularly young women, face - suicide, slut-shaming, consent - without undermining them.

Even the sequence where a hypnotised Nic (Skeet Ulrich) attacks Sarah when she refuses him does not feel comedic. The movie takes its leads and their dilemmas seriously, and that gives their exploration of magic a greater sense of escape and necessity. 

On top of this, there is an earnestness to the portrayal of magic that gives the movie stakes - plus the lack of visual effects gives the movie’s set pieces a real sense of weight. 

Tonally, the movie rides the line of taking itself seriously, while allowing for some great comedic beats - the 'stiff as a board' scene is great, and even smaller moments like the visual of our gothic-up heroines sitting on a bus is hilarious. The movie has a sardonic sense of humour that does not feel rooted in the faux irony and self-awareness of the era, and the movie never ridicules the characters’ beliefs.

The four leads are great: For some reason I always associate Robin Tunney with her appearance in the underwhelming Arnie vehicle End of Days and the TV show The Mentalist. She's pretty solid in those projects, but this is the first performance I have seen where it feels like she gets to run the gamut - she's fragile, she's ballsy, and she centres the movie.

As Sarah's future nemesis, Balk motors through the movie like a berserker. As Nancy, Balk boasts a weird charisma that seems to be both a byproduct and a reaction to the character's deep sense of loneliness. 

While I enjoyed their performances, it felt to me like Campbell and True’s characters needed a little more - I liked their subplots, but I was not quite sold by their mindless following of Balk during the final confrontation between the former friends. 

That aside, I really enjoyed The Craft. I wish I had checked it out sooner. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond called The James Bond Cocktail Hour. Every episode, we do a review of one of the books and one of the movies, picked at random. 

You can also check out my other podcast SugaBros at the same link.