The Craft Review

In the mid 1990’s it seemed like there were a lot of different scary movies getting pushed, and the genre most often looked at was teen and mid-twenty somethings involved in scary situations. This is why The Craft seemed so interesting at the time. It took four up and coming women and put them in a strange friendship that dealt with the occult.

This film had me scared when it came out, but upon looking back, it’s hard to understand what scared me. Most of this film is kind of like an episode of the twilight zone. The film follows one main character who moves to Los Angeles to attend a local private school, and upon meeting new friends, starts to explore her telekinetic powers. The group of friends end up starting to cast spells, and when things start to crumble in their “magic” circle their friendship suffers, and they start to be at odds.

Unfortunately, this film is just another teenage movie, but they add witchcraft to the story, to make the film appeal to horror fans. The lack of gore, the lack of real nudity, and the laughable moments really don’t do well for the film’s audience, and most often then not, you end up getting tired of seeing the same old stories play out again.

The visuals are interesting, and for being a mid 90’s film, there are some interesting computer graphics and twists added. The film shows its age, and starts to curve towards telling the audience, that it’s ok to play with the occult as long as it is for the right reasons, and that “white” magic is awesome.

This movie doesn’t hold up well at all, and it’s hard to define where this film fits into the scary movie spectrum, but hey, it was a different time, I guess.

Is The Craft a scary film?: No.

It’s emphatic, NO! This film is not scary to me now. However, rewind the clock around 14 years and there was an uneasy feeling that was involved in this film. I guess it’s easy to like the film because the chicks are kind of good looking, but their naïve and stupid “in crowd” mentality, really doesn’t prove to be a good long lasting point of interest for diehard horror fans.

The Craft is a poor example of witch films, but it set the stage for other films like “Jennifer’s Body” to steal some of the nuances. I guess it’s worth at least one look, but it’s not, by any means, a great or scary film.