| The Craft | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Andrew Fleming |
| Screenplay by |
|
| Story by | Peter Filardi |
| Produced by | Douglas Wick |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Alexander Gruszynski |
| Edited by | Jeff Freeman |
| Music by | Graeme Revell |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release date |
|
Running time | 101 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15 million[1] |
| Box office | $55.6 million[2] |
The Craft is a 1996 Americanteensupernatural horror film directed byAndrew Fleming from a screenplay by Peter Filardi and Fleming and a story by Filardi. The film starsRobin Tunney,Fairuza Balk,Neve Campbell, andRachel True as four outcast teenage girls at aLos Angelesparochial high school who pursuewitchcraft for their own gain and experience negative repercussions.
The Craft was theatrically released in the United States on May 3, 1996, bySony Pictures Releasing. It received mixed reviews from critics but was a surprise hit nonetheless, earning $6.7 million in its opening weekend and $55.6 million worldwide, against a budget of $15 million.
The Craft was nominated for theSaturn Awards forBest Horror Film and forBest Supporting Actress (Balk), and won the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight (Balk and Tunney). In the years since its release, the film has gained a cult following. A sequel,The Craft: Legacy, was released on October 28, 2020.
Sarah Bailey, a troubled teenager with unusual abilities, moves from San Francisco to Los Angeles with her father and stepmother. At her new school, she befriends a trio of outcast girls rumored to be witches. Bonnie Harper bears burn scars, Nancy Downs lives in a trailer with her mother and abusive stepfather, and Rochelle Zimmerman, a black student, endures racist bullying from a group of white girls. The girls worship a powerfulearth deity they callManon.
Popular jock Chris Hooker shows interest in Sarah, which she reciprocates. When Bonnie sees Sarah levitating a pencil in class, the outcasts become convinced that she is "the fourth" they need to complete theircoven—representing the Four Elements—and make them all-powerful. While walking home from school, the girls are approached by a vagrant who had earlier frightened Sarah with a snake when she moved in. As he chases her, he is struck and killed by a car. The girls believe their combined will caused the accident, strengthening their bond. It is also revealed that Sarah once attempted suicide.
After a date with Chris, Sarah is devastated when he spreads a false rumor that they had sex. Seeking revenge or change, each girl casts a spell: Sarah places alove spell on Chris, Rochelle curses her bully Laura Lizzie, Bonnie wishes for beauty, and Nancy asks for power. The spells succeed—Chris becomes obsessed with Sarah, Bonnie's scars miraculously heal, Laura's hair begins to fall out, and Nancy's stepfather dies of a heart attack, allowing her and her mother to collect his life insurance and move into a luxurious high-rise apartment.
Drunk on power, Nancy urges the others to join her in a ritual calledInvocation of the Spirit, despite warnings from Lirio, the owner of a local occult shop and practicing witch. During the ritual, Nancy is struck by lightning. The next morning, she is seenwalking on water, surrounded by beached sharks and other dead sea creatures. In the days that follow, Nancy becomes increasingly unstable and reckless, endangering herself and others.
The spells soon bring unintended consequences: Bonnie grows vain and cruel, Rochelle is disturbed to find Laura traumatized by her baldness, and Chris's obsession turns violent. When Sarah rejects his advances, Chris attempts to rape her. To punish him, Nancy uses aglamour spell to impersonate Sarah and tries to seduce him at a party. The real Sarah intervenes, but when Chris realizes Nancy's deception, he accuses her of jealousy. Furious, Nancy kills him by throwing him out a window.
Sarah attempts a binding spell to stop Nancy from causing more harm, but it fails, and the coven turns against her. They invade her dreams, conjure swarms of insects, and make her believe her family has died in a plane crash, driving her toward suicide. Overcoming her fear, Sarah successfully invokes the spirit herself, healing and empowering her. She uses her magic to terrify Bonnie and Rochelle with mirror illusions—Bonnie's face re-scarred, Rochelle's hair falling out—before defeating and binding Nancy, rendering her harmless.
Later, Bonnie and Rochelle visit Sarah, hoping to reconcile. She rejects them, telling them thatManon stripped their powers because they abused them. Scoffing, they claim Sarah must have lost hers too—until she conjures a lightning storm and nearly crushes them with a falling tree branch. She warns them not to end up like Nancy, who has been committed to a psychiatric hospital, delusional and restrained, insisting she can fly.
The concept forThe Craft came from a collaboration between producerDouglas Wick, who wanted to create a film about the high school experience blended with witchcraft, and screenwriter Peter Filardi, who extensively researched the topic and wrote the initial draft.[3]Andrew Fleming was hired to direct and produce the final version of the screenplay.
Eighty-five actresses screen-tested for the four main roles, includingAngelina Jolie,Scarlett Johansson andAlicia Silverstone.[3]Rachel True andFairuza Balk were the first to be cast in their respective roles. The character of Rochelle was re-written to be black when True was cast, and a racismsubplot was incorporated as the character's major conflict.Robin Tunney was initially cast in the role of Bonnie, but the producers decided she would be better in the starring role of Sarah, which she was persuaded to accept despite preferring the former.Neve Campbell, the most well known of the four actresses for her role onParty of Five, was then cast as Bonnie. Tunney had shaved her head for her role inEmpire Records and had to wear a wig throughout filming.[3]
Production enlisted a practicingWiccan named Pat Devin to act as an on-set advisor for the film. She wrote the incantations used and ensured that the treatment of the Wiccan subject-matter was as accurate and respectful as possible.[3]
Filming began on May 1, 1995, and wrapped on July 19, 1995. Shooting took place throughout Los Angeles, including theLos Angeles International Airport,Sunset Boulevard, andBroadway.Verdugo Hills High School was the setting for the fictional Catholic school, St. Benedict's Academy; production designer Marek Dobrowolski added different religious statues throughout the building and the grounds. Sarah's home in the film was a two-story Spanish mansion and the interiors were built on a soundstage at Culver City Studios. The occult bookstore was shot at the El Adobe Marketplace inHollywood Boulevard. The room was repainted and enhanced and occult icons such as candles, stigmas, religious statues, masks, and tribal dolls were added for effect. Jensen's Recreation Center inEcho Park was chosen to avoid overuse of frequently seen Los Angeles locations. During filming, an unrelated accident occurred in which a child was injured; the production's medic saw this and called paramedics. The makeshift altar was set in Wood Ranch, a location that Dobrowolski called the hardest to find. Dobrowolski wanted to avoid manicured parks likeGriffith Park. The beach summoning took place atLeo Carrillo State Park, which was chosen because its crest made it seem less visually boring.[4]
The makeup effects were designed and created byTony Gardner and his special effects companyAlterian, Inc., which also created the beached sharks for the film.[5]
| The Craft: Music from the Motion Picture | |
|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by Various artists | |
| Released | April 30, 1996 (1996-04-30) |
| Genre | |
| Length | 54:17 |
| Label | Columbia |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [6] |
The Craft: Music from the Motion Picture was released on April 30, 1996, byColumbia Records onCD andcassette, one month before the film's official theatrical release in the United States. The soundtrack contains a collection of songs, to suit the theme of the movie, from various artists includingHeather Nova,Letters to Cleo, andSpacehog. Nova's version of "I Have the Touch", originally performed byPeter Gabriel, which featured during the end credits of the film, was exclusively included on the soundtrack, and is not available as a single, or on any of Nova's albums, nor does she perform the song in concert. The tracks in film, titled "Sick Child", "Fallin'" and "Scorn", performed bySiouxsie and the Banshees,Connie Francis andPortishead, respectively, were omitted from the soundtrack due to copyright issues from their record labels. However, they were only included in the film as part of an arrangement withPolyGram Film & Television Licensing. An uncredited bonus track, "Bells, Books, and Candles", composed byGraeme Revell for the film's score, was included on the soundtrack.
A follow-up soundtrack,The Original Motion Picture Score, was released on June 18, 1996, fromVarèse Sarabande, and contained the film's score which was entirely composed and produced byGraeme Revell.[7]
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Performer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Tomorrow Never Knows" | John Lennon,Paul McCartney | Our Lady Peace | 4:14 |
| 2. | "I Have the Touch" | Peter Gabriel | Heather Nova | 4:17 |
| 3. | "All This and Nothing" | Vinnie Dombroski | Sponge | 4:19 |
| 4. | "Dangerous Type" | Ric Ocasek | Letters to Cleo | 3:39 |
| 5. | "How Soon Is Now?" | Steven Morrissey,John Marr | Love Spit Love | 4:25 |
| 6. | "Dark Secret" | Matthew Sweet | Matthew Sweet | 4:04 |
| 7. | "Witches Song" |
| Juliana Hatfield | 4:35 |
| 8. | "Jump Into the Fire" | Harry Nilsson | Tripping Daisy | 5:45 |
| 9. | "Under the Water" | Jewel Kilcher,Ralph Sall | Jewel | 4:58 |
| 10. | "Warning" | Tim DeLaughter, Ralph Sall | All Too Much | 4:44 |
| 11. | "Spastica" | Justine Frischmann | Elastica | 2:31 |
| 12. | "The Horror" | Royston Langdon | Spacehog | 4:49 |
| 13. | "Bells, Books and Candles" | Revell | Graeme Revell | 4:47 |
The Craft was theatrically released in the United States on May 3, 1996, byColumbia Pictures.
The film was released onVHS andDVD on July 22, 1997, and rereleased on a special editionDVD on September 12, 2000. The film debuted on theBlu-ray format for the first time on October 13, 2009.[8]
The film was given a special collector's edition on March 12, 2019, byShout Factory. Though the new collection of special features was praised, the disc received negative reviews for not remastering the image and simply porting over the old scan from the 2009 disc.[9]
The film was re-released by Shout Factory on4K UHD on May 17, 2022, for the film's 25th Anniversary. The film was given a fresh new 4K scan from the original camera negative.[10]
The film opened at number one at the North American box office, makingUS$6,710,995. The movie was asleeper hit, which Columbia attributed to teenagers and young women, who responded to its themes.[11] According toBox Office Mojo,The Craft is the 11th-highest-grossing film since 1980 dealing with the genre of witches.[12]
The film received mixed reviews.[13] OnRotten Tomatoes, 57% of 60 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's consensus reads: "The Craft's campy magic often overrides the feminist message at the film's core, but its appealing cast and postmodern perspective still cast a sporadic spell".[14]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[15]
Emanuel Levy ofVariety described it as "a neatly crafted film that begins most promisingly as a black comedy a laHeathers, but gradually succumbs to its tricky machinery of special effects".[16]Roger Ebert also felt the film was mired in excessive special effects, but praised the performances of the four leads,[17] as didMick LaSalle of theSan Francisco Chronicle.[18]Stephen Holden ofThe New York Times echoed other reviews, praising the first half of the film as a "celebration of adolescent nonconformity and female independence", but criticized the last half as a "heavy-handed sermon about karma" with "garish" special effects.[19] Rita Kempley ofThe Washington Post called it "a brew ofHawthorne,Heathers and Hollywood hocus-pocus" that was nonetheless a "bubbling mess of a movie" that "leaves us more bothered than bewitched".[20]
The film was nominated for aSaturn Award for Best Horror Film and Fairuza Balk for Best Supporting Actress.[21] Balk and Tunney also won theMTV Movie Award for Best Fight.[22]
The film is often labeled a "cult classic" and has acquired a loyal fan base and social media presence.[23][22] Matthew Jacobs and Julia Brucculieri of theHuffington Post, writing in 2016, praisedThe Craft for departing fromclichés of theteen movie genre and incorporating darker themes, saying it became "part of the '90s teen canon and a cult classic of its own merit."[3] Kristen Yoonsoo Kim ofComplex magazine praised the relevance of the film 20 years later, saying it "feels much more progressive than many of the movies that come out today" and calling the viewing of the film "a rite of passage" for young women.[22]Angelica Jade Bastién ofVulture wrote, "The Craft earned a generation of devoted fans because of how it charts the friendship between these four girls — its tentative beginnings, the joys of its strength, and its ultimate downfall," and singled out "Fairuza Balk's fierce performance ... [as] perhapsThe Craft's greatest legacy ... She's a beguiling and fearsome portrait of female anger."[24]
In 2013, three of the main actresses, with the exception of Fairuza Balk, reunited for a specialHalloween screening of the film at theHollywood Forever Cemetery.[23]
The Craft served as an inspiration for the 2013 song "Dark Horse" byKaty Perry.[25]
The film can briefly be seen during the end credits of theMarvel Television seriesAgatha All Along.[26]
A straight-to-DVD sequel was in the works,[27] but it was terminated.[28] In May 2016, Sony Pictures announced that a sequel ofThe Craft was currently in development and it would be written and directed byLeigh Janiak. The announcement of the sequel spawned negative reactions from fans of the original film.[29][30][31]
In March 2019, it was announced that the development of the sequel had been taken over byJason Blum and hisBlumhouse Productions company, and it was also announced that the film would be distributed by Columbia Pictures.Zoe Lister-Jones signed on to write the script and direct the film with filming scheduled to begin in July 2019.[32]Daniel Casey later joined the production as screenwriter.[33] In June 2019,Cailee Spaeny was cast as one of the leads.[34] In September 2019,Gideon Adlon,Lovie Simone and Zoey Luna were cast for the remaining three lead roles.[35] In October 2019,David Duchovny joined the cast in an undisclosed role. Later,Michelle Monaghan joined the film in an undisclosed role. Two more casting announcements were made in October 2019, also in undisclosed roles,Nicholas Galitzine[36] and Julian Grey.[37] Filming began on October 22, 2019.[38]
In late September 2020, Sony released an official trailer and announced that instead of a theatrical release, the film would be released on demand everywhere on October 28, 2020.[39][40]
