The Craft

Director: Andrew Fleming
Release Date: 1996

"Light as a feather, stiff as a board, light as a feather, stiff as a board..." - the girls chant simultaneously in Nancy's bedroom. It's not the first shot of the film but it's the scene that I invoke every time I think about The Craft. Nancy, Sarah, Bonnie, and Rochelle (the only POC in the film). I recognized Robin Tunney from Empire Records and Fairuza Balk from The Worst Witch and Return to Oz. I got a kick out of recognizing actors. I didn't watch this film until months after Scream premiered in the theater later in the year so I also recognized Neve Campbell and Skeet Ulrich. Recognition of the actors aside, I was attracted to the female friendship. I only had one really great friend and I envied their group in the film. Their bond and their interest in Wicca that brought them closer together as friends and I always wanted more. But alas, we learn how close this group was in the first place.


Sarah is the new girl in town and becomes entangled quickly with these three girls who are outcasts in their own way. Nancy wears black so everything thinks she's a witch. Rochelle is black - apparently, that's enough in this film which only accounts for the blatant racist swim team member (played in her best Mean Girls impression by Christine Taylor) - so everyone else is racist against her? That doesn't make sense honestly. Bonnie (Neve Campbell) has a physical deformity in the form of burn scars all over her back. She covers up her body due to her self-consciousness as a teenager on top of all her scars. They practice Wicca and become more embroiled with these incantations, calling upon the elements of earth, water, air, light (in some form) to execute their wishes. They start small and then when one of their spells result in death, the tension ramps up and they are pitted against each other.

What made this film not just another hokey film about witchcraft, I feel, is knowing that Fairuza Balk was a practicing Wiccan so she pointed out anything that lacked authenticity. What I loved the most about this film, because I also read up on Wicca after this film premiered, is that Latin wasn't used, like in Supernatural or Buffy the Vampire Slayer for spells. It felt real not made up. Even though it was a fictional story after all.

This was one of the many teen films from the nineties (and beyond) for my demographic at the time and I devoured this film. I have always been interested in the supernatural of all forms so teenagers and witches? The filmmakers were brilliant because I wasn't the only one interested in this subject.  Being a teenager and a girl, had its growing pains and this film did a great job of doing that, involving witchcraft.

So for Halloween, take a trip down memory lane (or for the first time) and watch this film for all the nineties throwback fashion (remember chokers? Oh wait, those are back in style now. Forget I said anything), now famous actors, and that great scene I mentioned. Oh and peep that awesome song originally written and recorded by The Smiths and also the theme song for the original Charmed TV show.