1996 • R • 1h 41mins • Watch trailer • Rent it • Stream on Hulu
🪄 Magic! Three female-lead movies for spooky season
Content Heads Up: This film contains discussion of suicide and a scene with sexual assault. Please take care of yourself and skip this one if you need to.
You’re reading Pizza & a Movie—eating our way through rental classics and their backstories. Tonight we’re on part two a three-part film festival for your inbox I’m calling Magic! We’re opening the dangerous text of mid-‘90s witchcraft sleeper hit The Craft.
Here’s the plot. Sarah (Robin Tunney) is new in LA and to St. Benedict’s Academy. She instantly runs afoul of witchy triad Bonnie (Neve Campbell), Nancy (Fairuza Balk) and Rochelle (Rachel True). They sort of bully her, sort of want her to join their group (ah, high school). See, they need a fourth member. Why? Four corners of the compass, four people to call on the N-E-S-W spirits during rituals. Because what everyone’s saying? That they’re witches? Everyone is right.
Sarah joins the three. She doesn’t let on right away, but she’s got powers of her own. Always been able to make stuff happen, but not always what she wanted. She’s Harry Potter in a plaid skirt. Now a foursome, they each make magic wishes on earth deity Manon. Sarah wants hot Chris (Skeet Ulrich) from school to dig her. But, like all the other wishes, it’s a monkey’s paw ask. Chris likes her now, but he’s obsessed, can’t sleep, can’t be reasoned with. As an occult shopkeeper slash mother figure tells Sarah, once you cast a spell, it’s one doodle that can’t be undid, home skillet. Sarah wants to stop, but can she get the three power-hungry others to quit too? And can she keep herself and her family safe? And does Nancy go to therapy or kick off an elaborate magic-based revenge plot? Go ahead. Take a wild guess.
That was the plot. What’s The Craft like about, man? There are five answers to that question.
It’s about witches.
The year was 1990ish. Screenwriter Peter Filardi’s movie Flatliners had hit theaters and done okay for itself. Guy was looking for his next thing. That’s when he and producer Douglas Wick got to talking. Doug wanted to make a picture about haunted houses or teen witches, couldn’t decide which. But you know which idea won. Filardi took the research reigns and got himself neck-deep in Satanic texts. He became something of an expert.
Though Wick and Filardi hired out the directing and producing, they took their witchy work seriously. Pat Devin, real-life Wiccan, kept things on the rails on-set. Here’s what Devin did: Wrote incantations, chants, and managed the realism. With the ‘80s Satanic Panic barely in the rearview, she made sure what The Craft depicted was sensitive and accurate. Here’s what she didn’t do: Inform on the film’s earth power, Manon. Why? Because Filardi and Wick made him up. “But it seemed so realistic and coherent!” you say. I hear you, believe me, I do. But they had a good reason. Director Andy Fleming explained, “It might have been offensive to people if we had used people’s real gods.” Sharp guy.
It’s about LA.
This is an LA movie, but I don’t know if you’d peg this as Los Angelas immediately. But I think you’d get there by elimination. It’s metropolitan, but not east coast. Doesn’t seem hot enough to be a southern state. Not cold or rainy enough to be Seattle. Not foggy enough to be San Fran. LA’s what you’re left with.
Presumably shooting on location in LA was partly about the budget. They had to save back the big bucks for special effects. But if you’re making a movie in Hollywood’s backyard, everybody’s already used all the good spots. Point to a street or a view and it’s been in dozens of pictures. The Craft avoided recognizable locations, which meant picking grungy lots over freshly clipped park greens. Everywhere you see the four you’ve never seen before.
The effect? Pure genius. Yes it’s about LA, but the LA you can only get to if you’re on foot and avoiding crowds. It’s a town that makes for a lot of social isolation if you don’t have a car. A grownups’ world with a buncha gross, dark corners if you step off the path. It’s these kids’ LA. Feels more real.
It’s about special effects.
Reviewer Roger Ebert said, “ tilts too far in the direction of horror and special effects,” as if it’s more about one-upping itself with VFX than plot or character insight. Respectfully, that sounds like a bored 52-year-old man watching a movie for teen women. This was for kids, Mr. Ebert. Kids got the motivations with all of their turn-on-a-dime irrationality.
For me, the special effects shots have aged gracefully. “What about Tunney’s blondifying scene in the high-rise,” you say? Okay, that one’s not good, but kind of in a fun way. “What about the walking on water, which looks very composited,” you say? Sure, alright, but doesn’t its something-isn’t-right quality make it look more like the magic trick it is? The CGI moths in that early scene are great! The lighting in the book illustration is fun! It’s all from an era when CGI was tastefully not the majority of a shot. Just a lil’ piece. And, do you know what, I miss that.
For context, The Matrix came out three years later. Now there’s a VFX-driven movie.
It’s about the kids’ music.
In this one, the soundtrack is mixed in hot and heavy. Noisy needle drops three to a scene. The tracklist is a murderer’s row of the mid-‘90s alternative scene. Was it a bid for authenticity? MTV tossed it a few awards, must have worked. Unfortunately my musical consciousness wasn’t online in ’96. Much of this is lost on me.
It’s about the enemies we made along the way.
Filardi said, “For me, this was not a ‘hocus pocus' film. It was about the power of adolescent pain.” What starts out as something closer to Heathers embraces commonality—in the big existential stuff and the silly little things—between the four teen women. Of course, they eventually try to do each other in. But hey, that’s high school. In the end, The Craft creeps closer to Carrie mixed with The Breakfast Club.
The movie doesn’t work unless the fearsome four are the lowest of low. They’re not the jocks, not the cheerleaders, not the popular kids. They’re on the bottom rung of the ladder if the ladder goes through a hatch in the floor and into the basement. Because The Craft’s big idea is, what if the powerless got all the power? Would they do the right thing? Or the wrong thing? And would they be able to tell the difference anymore?
I’m gonna level with you. The magic? Kind of fun. But the friendship dynamics? Freakishly realistic. You’re on the outs because you’re new, then you’re in after one good hang, then you’re out again and not sure why. At that age, everybody’s changing too fast to have stable relationships. At the film’s end, the friendship’s over but there’s wiggle room for a sequel acquaintanceship. Lightning’d branch notwithstanding.
Bewitching the Box Office
We met the witches, saw LA, took in the VFX, heard the music and made some enemies. But what did folks in 1996 think of The Craft?
Critics were so-so on it. They liked the performances, but not the plotting. Dug the effects, but felt the story was a mess. But you know what else is a mess? Your teen years, pal, that’s what. And I bet teens are who bought tickets to this over and over. Against a trim budget of $15M The Craft made a cool $55M for a return of nearly 4x. I’m no math genius but that seems pretty good.
Why did it do so well? Maybe because The Craft acts a witchcraft primer. Maybe because its arc is so like many teenage friendships. Maybe because it centers on four women and treats them with dignity. But maybe? Maybe because it just plain wasn’t like anything else. And it still isn’t. I think it became a cult classic because it’s both a cinematic curio and a legit good movie. If you haven’t seen it or haven’t seen it in a long time, put on The Craft.
Pizza of the Week
I’ve been making pizza at home every weekend for the last 8 years. Here’s what I made this time.
Pineapple, Bacon & Red Onion Slivers with Red Pepper Flakes and Mike’s Hot Honey
How do you solve a problem like having a couple thick slices of bacon left over from Saturday breakfast? Slice those porky boys up and pop ‘em on a pizza. If you put canned pineapple on a pizza (like I did), make sure you get pineapple in juice, not syrup. The high sugar content of the syrup will make the fruit burn long before your pizza’s properly baked.
Next week we’re back with part three of Magic! We hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Craft, which leaves Practical Magic for next Friday. See you then.
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed this one. Made me feel like a teen all over again. And hey, if you liked it, share it with someone else who would too! Make ‘em your fourth.
Notes:
Neve Campbell would go on to star as the perpetual survivor of the Scream franchise. The original is always a good October watch.
Robin Tunney had shaved her head for Empire Records right before making this movie. Her hair is a wig, though I think it’s pretty convincing.
Director Andrew Fleming said they used 10,000 real live snakes for filming.
Rachel True, aka Rochelle, was 30 years old when The Craft premiered. I’ll have whatever moisturizer she’s having, please.
You’ll never see this coming because she’s so chill, but Fairuza Balk was a practicing Wiccan.
I can’t figure out why this is rated R, unless the MPAA just really didn’t like kids playing with witchcraft. Feels very PG-13 to me.
They used a hydraulic lift to levitate Rochelle in that “light as a feather, stiff as a board” scene, which still slaps.