The Craft, dir. Andrew Fleming

Zero and Wiz DO NOT RECOMMEND The Craft The one surprising thing about The Craft, a 90s teen horror drama that has gone on to be a Halloween teen classic, is how bland and generic a large amount of the movie is. The film mashes a standard high school outsider story with a power mad style morality tale mixed with threadbare teeny bopper fashion and character depth to a concept that, honestly, wasn’t that interesting to begin with. Let’s start with what makes this film slightly different: a group of four girls who go to a catholic school start a coven of witches and gain supernatural powers. They use these powers on people who hurt and anger them. Honestly, it’s kind of boring. However, you can do something interesting with this. So what does The Craft do? Well, Sarah (a wooden Robin Tunney) uses it to make a person who started a rumor about her fall for her deeply. Bonnie uses it to clear her scars from a burn injury. Rochelle (Rachel True) does a spell that…makes a racist bully bald. Utterly…riveting. The exception I would make is Nancy (Fairuza Balk) whose desires are obscured through most of the film. Now, you do learn something through Balk’s performance: Nancy has a pretty damn tough home life which she is ignored and abused by a groan inducingly stereotypically bad step father and lives in a trailer (and yet, she can afford to go to a prep school?). But this leads to a storyline where…well, you can already guess what happens. The film is as formulaic as it comes to where this would actually be home as a Nickelodeon or Disney Channel film. Except that things get surprisingly dark. Even before the spells and conjuring spirits, there are scenes involving suicide, some blood and violence. And there’s an attempted rape scene as well. Now, I get this was made during a time where this was trivialized…but not even the next scene the victim tries to save her attempted rapist. I know this sounds like I’m nitpicking, but everything else is so damn bland in this movie that these moments stick out horribly. Literally everything from the characters and story to the actors in this movie are so lifeless and boring. With the exception of Fairuza Balk. Balk is really the only actor in this film that feels like she trying something. Then again, her character is the only one with a personality that is entertaining. But Balk is playing a campy, over the top villain and it feels like she’s relishing chewing scenery in every shot…especially when she turns into the ultimate villain. But Balk can’t save this cornball teen horror film from being as dull as it is. Everything else in the film is bland and dry leading to a movie that mostly runs on autopilot.