The Craft

Movie Name: The Craft
Year of Release: 1996
Director: Andrew Fleming
Starring: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, Skeet Ulrich, Christine Taylor, Breckin Meyer, Cliff De Young, Assumpta Serna, Helen Shaver, John Kapelos, Kathleen Lloyd
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
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Synopsis and Review:

Writer/Producer/Director Andrew Fleming made a name for himself with "Threesome", which premiered in 1994, and featured Lara Flynn Boyle, Josh Charles and Stephen Baldwin, all tangled in an unconventional relationship. For his follow up, he tackled a story from Peter Filardi, well known for writing "Flatliners" (directed by Joel Schumacher). The film focuses on the story of Sarah Bailey, a teenager who moves with her father and stepmother to Los Angeles. At the new school she soon starts a friendship with a group of girls, all of whom are rumored to be witches. Sarah has some innate powers within, and they soon form a coven, which renders them all more powerful. As a result of their newly enhanced abilities, they start unleashing spells to other students in the school, and people in their lives whom they feel have wronged them. As the spells become successful and their lives take interesting directions, Nancy, the unofficial lead of the group becomes greedier for power, taking on more sinister initiatives. As some of the spells start showing a darker side in terms of outcomes, Sarah attempts to control the situation, which makes the girls turn on her. 

"The Craft" since its premiere in 1996, has gone on to become something of a cult film. It's a film that has a somewhat distinctive point of view, centered around the lives of young women in high school, all of whom find solace in each other. They are all excluded from social activities, either due to economical difficulties, or physical issues, race issues, past traumas, all of which function as a powerful uniting forces for these 4 young women, all trying to find their voice and wanting to be heard. The film had plenty of material to mine here, with all these four distinct backgrounds for the central characters, but goes in a different direction, introducing the supernatural angle, allowing them to overcome their foibles, in the process enabling them to become all they supposedly wanted to be all along. Of course there's always a moral aspect to this narrative, namely with power comes responsibility (or everything has a price), and they refuse to accept it, until that same power goes in a dark direction. It's somewhat of a heavy handed metaphor, but the film does manage to capture the complicity and relationship between these central characters, particularly as they learn more about each other. While the film towards the end goes a bit overboard, it's nonetheless a fairly entertaining exercise on friendship, with supernatural overtones, and with some humor tossed in at times. The supporting characters are underdeveloped, which also prevents the film from actually being more memorable. The cast is solid, with the underrated Fairuza Balk going a bit over the top, in a Jennifer Jason Leigh crescendo, with good support from Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell and Rachel True. While not a fantastic feature by any means, it's nonetheless worth watching.