The Craft at 25 – A dark rite of pas­sage for teenage covens

With 1996 hor­ror The Craft, direc­tor and co-writer Andrew Flem­ing brought a super­nat­ur­al tale of girl­hood to the big screen, pre­sent­ing audi­ences with some­thing they had rarely seen before: young women drunk on power.

The pow­er explored in The Craft is con­ferred by mag­ic, a mix of authen­tic pagan rit­u­als and made-up incan­ta­tions incor­po­rat­ed with the help of a Wic­can con­sul­tant, Pat Devin. Nei­ther black nor white, this neu­tral force relies on the four ele­ments and is height­ened by the strong ties of female friendship.

In the film, occult-curi­ous out­casts Nan­cy (Fairuza Balk), Bon­nie (Neve Camp­bell) and Rochelle (Rachel True) prac­tise mag­ic and are reg­u­lars at their local eso­teric book­shop. Despite their best efforts, their devo­tion to the all-know­ing spir­it Manon is short of a cru­cial com­po­nent. In need of a fourth mem­ber to com­ple­ment their Catholic school coven, they find a nat­ur­al witch in new stu­dent Sarah (Robin Tunney).

The film delves into the pro­tag­o­nists’ trau­mas, address­ing sub­jects like racism, sex­ism and tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty in a frank, for­ward-look­ing man­ner. Flem­ing and Peter Filardi’s script gives room to each cen­tral char­ac­ter while also cen­tring on the intri­ca­cies of the group dynam­ic. As The Craft pro­gress­es, the chasm between a moral­ly chal­lenged Sarah and an unhinged Nan­cy threat­ens to tear the coven apart, set­ting up an explo­sive finale.

The Craft earned an R‑rating for its graph­ic depic­tions of self-harm and for util­is­ing both prac­ti­cal effects and CGI to deliv­er spine-chill­ing moments. This pre­vent­ed the film from being seen by younger view­ers who were expect­ed to con­nect with it, but instant­ly sealed its cult sta­tus for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Years after its ini­tial the­atri­cal release, The Craft became a rite of pas­sage for young girls inter­est­ed in mag­ic and enthralled by the four cen­tral char­ac­ters’ chaot­ic but ulti­mate­ly lib­er­at­ing conduct.

This was cer­tain­ly my expe­ri­ence when I first watched the film as a 12-year-old. A girl in my class had invit­ed me over for a movie night with her old­er female cousins. Can­dles had been lit, incense sticks were burn­ing and I had the feel­ing that some­thing momen­tous was about to happen.

I had nev­er heard of The Craft and wasn’t ful­ly aware of the big­ger issues it touch­es upon. Still, I felt instinc­tive­ly drawn to these witch­es trad­ing pointy black hats for a femme-goth aes­thet­ic that would inspire me well into my high school years. My fas­ci­na­tion with the film part­ly revolved around its sub­lime, polar­is­ing vil­lain, played with fren­zied ener­gy by Balk.

By the time the end cred­its were rolling, I was on board with the tarot read­ings my classmate’s aunt had offered to give us. I can’t remem­ber what she saw in my tween self’s future, but it was def­i­nite­ly not a life­long friend­ship with her niece. She and I drift­ed apart before the end of the school year and nev­er got to sum­mon Manon togeth­er. Nonethe­less, I think of that movie night fond­ly when­ev­er I read tarot for my friends, imag­in­ing the card spread as a form of sto­ry­telling unfold­ing before my eyes.

That night informed my rather skep­ti­cal rela­tion­ship with witch­craft in main­stream film and tele­vi­sion. If The Craft suc­ceed­ed in depict­ing mag­ic in a dark, com­plex fash­ion that was also ground­ed in real­i­ty, why set­tle for sani­tised por­tray­als of witch­es who nev­er cave to their most sin­is­ter impulses?

Take the scene where the girls are hang­ing out while an episode of Bewitched plays in the back­ground. In the pop­u­lar ​’60s sit­com, pro­tag­o­nist Saman­tha uses her non-threat­en­ing mag­ic with­in a strict­ly patri­ar­chal sys­tem, often to ben­e­fit her mar­riage and rein­force tra­di­tion­al gen­der roles; 1990s sit­com Sab­ri­na the Teenage Witch wasn’t all that dif­fer­ent. By con­trast, the young women of The Craft don’t serve any mas­ter, and active­ly gang up against misog­y­nist men and their micro and macro aggressions.

When Chris (Skeet Ulrich) attempts to rape Sarah, Nan­cy takes it upon her­self to avenge her friend. She seduces Chris before forc­ing him to recon­sid­er his actions. It’s a reck­on­ing filled with pathos, enhanced by a mag­net­ic Balk chan­nelling her character’s his­to­ry of neglect and abuse. Nan­cy takes it a step too far and kills Chris, draw­ing a line in the sand between her and Sarah, who defends her would-be assailant.

Nancy’s increas­ing­ly unhealthy rela­tion­ship with Manon becomes her pri­ma­ry source of self-val­i­da­tion. Sarah, mean­while, learns to invoke the divine being but nev­er lets her abil­i­ties or his pow­er define her. This dichoto­my seem­ing­ly frames The Craft as a cau­tion­ary tale, pun­ish­ing Nan­cy for her incon­sid­er­ate use of mag­ic and reward­ing Sarah, who is the only one to retain her pow­ers after her for­mer friends try to kill her. Yet Nan­cy is far from the only vil­lain in the film.

While not all char­ac­ters are equal­ly fleshed-out – specif­i­cal­ly, Rochelle’s Black­ness seems to be her only con­flict – it is safe to say that all four witch­es are flawed. Just like Nan­cy, the oth­ers are inter­est­ed in gain­ing some­thing out of their gifts, be it self-esteem, accep­tance or love. In the end, Sarah strips Nan­cy of her pow­er and com­mits her to a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal. As Sarah walks away from the coven, the cam­era lingers on Balk.

The final close-ups of a deliri­ous, restrained Nan­cy ter­ri­fied me dur­ing that first watch, but now I view them as a mov­ing tes­ta­ment to the character’s rebel­lious, non-con­form­ing nature.