THE CRAFT
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
The Craft (1996) * out of ***** - Cast: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, Cliff De Young. Directed By: Andrew Fleming. Running Time: 100 minutes.
Director and co-writer Andrew Fleming is steadily becoming my least favorite filmmaker. He made 1988's "Bad Dreams", a horrible rip-off of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series. Then in 1993 he made "Threesome", a very disgusting film about three college roommates who all end up sleeping together at the same time. Now he gives us "The Crap", I mean, "The Craft". Actually, there's not much difference.
"The Craft" is all about four freaks, I mean, witches, who live in Los Angeles. Say, what better location for witches? They all attend the same catholic high school which, of course, is populated with the meanest kids in the world. The witches use their witchy powers to take revenge on the racist girl, the womanizing jock, and to make themselves pretty (actually, just brushing their hair and taking a shower would have made them pretty).
But, as stories about power go, things tend to get out of hand. The head witch Nancy (a scary looking Fairuza Balk) starts to go mad after being struck by lightning while chanting at the beach. (Wouldn't you?) She wants to fly around and kill people, but the good witch Sarah doesn't want any part of it and leaves the group. Well, let me tell you that you don't leave a group of witches, it's like the mob. Soon the remaining three witches are casting spells on Sarah and in the final scenes are trying to kill her. At this point, who cares? The last 10 minutes features about a million bugs and snakes, which I always believe is a ridiculous thing to put into a movie because about 90% of the audience will turn away from the screen rather than look at bugs. So making the climax of the film all about bugs and snakes certainly is brilliant filmmaking.
"The Craft" is obvious from start to finish, with no depth into anything. It's not even a good "revenge" flick, as the supposed "good" characters are so stupid and unlikable that you really have no one to root for. And I don't blame Andrew Fleming entirely, because I don't think anyone could have made a good film out of the script. It's just not a worthwhile story. [R]
--Chuck Dowling
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