Review of The Craft (1996) by Johnny R — 21 Jun 2016

Director Andrew Fleming was not a familiar name in the middle nineties in my case. But later on I watched his first feature horror film starring a young Jennifer Rubin, BAD DREAMS (1988). The film exploiting a theme such as dreams and premonitions may seem to have taken advantage of what was popular at the time. Let's not forget that the legendary A Nightmare on Elm-Street franchise was seeing is fourth installment born in 1988. Fleming never became one of my top interests but let' say that THE CRAFT, released in 1996 is one of these things that caught my interest when growing up as a pre-teen. And this is another one of those like it or Leave it kind of flick, among tons of other cheesy teen films released during that era. I loved it and still like it to this day. Even more, it is probably one of my favorite gems of this genre and decade, along with SCREAM and this is in big part due to its cast and characters.

Sarah (Robin Tunney) is a young girl that doesn't seem to fit in. That until she moves with her father from San Fransisco to Los Angeles, where she learns in private school, that she isn't the only one in her situation. She soon starts hanging out with three other girls which happen to be the misfits of the school. Believed to be gifted with the ability to perform magic, the girls are looking for a fourth member to complete their circle. But what Sarah soon learns is that not everything is grey in the heart of a true witch.

With THE CRAFT, Fleming and writer Peter Filardi managed not only to come up with a pretty fun pop-corn Hollywood flick but also dug up a beautiful and fascinating cast of actresses in my opinion. And most of all, the fourth were able to make us believe that they were both very thigh together and that they were convincing teenagers despite the eight years that separates the oldest from the youngest star of the bunch. Neve Campbell did good in her first feature film in Hollywood as the shy and unassuming Bonnie, a character which suits Campbell like a glove since I rarely have seen her playing a fierce, determined woman or a bitch with such convincing talent. It's a shame that we haven't seen a lot of Robin Tunney and/or Rachel True in theaters or commercial films afterwards. But I do remember Tunney's turn in the disappointing End of Days with Gabriel Byrne and Arnold Scharz... Hum, he's five times mister universe and the terminator you know who I'm talking about. Back to Tunney, I thought she embodied a commendable version of the Heroine à la Bella from Twilight (I will endure comparison but I hated the first film and couldn't bare watching the sequels.) And last but not least, there's Fairuza Balk, in the role of Nancy Downs. She looks way shorter than the others but never let it show throughout the film. She even manages to carry it on her shoulders for the most part, portraying a sometimes candid, other times unstable leader. And if she goes as far as to make some parts a caricature. She also bursts through the screen and that kind of performance in that particular flick is more than welcome in my opinion. She takes a lot of space that she's granted with from the crew I'm sure. The problem is that she may have made that particular character way bigger than she'll ever be in real life. (This is The Joker vs Batman when the Prince of crime is involved in an episode against the dark knight and never the other way around after all). If this is far from my favorite performance of hers, this is surely one to watch out for.

But going deeper than the casting alone, THE CRAFT sure shows thousands of flaws. Because the writer(s) may have wanted to make it a cool fiction about witchcraft, without turning it into a joke, one thing that must be hard to do straight when you are writing a story for teenagers, involving teenagers and you want to see it granted a PG13 rating. That it managed to get itself an R rate is beyond me. Let alone the subject, the execution which are pretty soft put together in this one. There are a couple curse words here and there but that's about it if I'm correct.

Let's get back to the serious(?) of the thing shall we? It seems Fairuza Balk was really into gothic and wicca at the time, she even did a lot of research about it in order to perfect her part. Still, she ironically plays the character that ended up with the most ridiculous holes in development. How come she has the means to go to private school and own the uniform if she's as poor as the poorest people alive in the first place? Still, to hell with character development for this one. I had a lot of fun. Another brain freeze is a scene involving the four ladies and sea animals. That scene was so irritating; I wonder how the hell they decided to keep that instead of one of the few cheesy bits that we can see as cut scenes on the Dvd's extras.

But, if only for the fact that it might have given girls of my time a little or too much confidence sometimes and if only for the fact that the lovely Fairuza Balk ended up with all the best lines and shots. She often sports demonstrative and crazy eyes, yet there are also great close ups of those piercing blue gems of hers. And for a use of CG that was kept to a minimum, exploiting special effects in a subtle, yet intriguing way, never turning the scenes into the ridiculousness that it could have been if it ended up looking like a crazy annoying cartoon, I think THE CRAFT deserves one viewing, but to be fair must be accepted as what it is, a cool teenage drama instead of a straight forward, R rated film.

And with the amount of talks about a remake/reboot, I don't know. Yes, I'd just forget about it. But can they still make this one better? Despite how much I like it, I think yes. But boy, I don't want to see forgettable names such as Kristen Stewart and Rooney Mara in the lead roles! And if they happen to find an actress as great to look creepy and as batshit crazy as Fairuza can act, I'd say why not? Go for it.