The Craft (1996)

I find it absolutely hilarious that the television series, Charmed, is, in more ways than one, a ripoff of this film. It focuses on three witches that eventually find out that there is actually a fourth witch meant to be a part of their group, one of the girls in from San Francisco and the theme song to the “Charmed” series is even in the film. With that being said, even though I am not the biggest fan of the television series, I may actually like the show better. Potentially the most interesting thing about the film is the fact that actor Fairuza Balk was actually on board with this film. Balk is, in fact, a Wiccan in real life. This film, while it analyzes Wiccan beliefs, it, in many ways, makes fun of it as well. The main characters use their abilities to curse classmates, change the color of their hair and make their asses smaller. Neve Campbell’s Bonnie was strange. Not only because she was, in many ways, incredibly strange in the beginning of the film, but because her character changed so much over the course of the film. In the beginning she was shy and uncomfortable in her own skin, which made sense. Once she receives surgery, but before any results, her character completely changes. She again changes and becomes this overly confident, boisterous person. Then, again, she changes. She turns on one of her friends and becomes annoying and lacks most good qualities. I don’t fully understand why it was necessary for her character to change so often because, other than making her conform to the rest of the story, I couldn’t see why she would change so much. In one particular scene, as Skeet Ulrich’s Chris Hooker is sitting outside of Robin Tunney’s Sarah Bailey’s house, begging her to go out with him, his tone, mannerisms and even the language he uses reminds me so much of a young Adam Sandler (around the time of Billy Madison (1995)). I thought the story was actually very interesting at times, however, I felt that there were some scenes that were a bit corny--for example: when one of the main character’s hair and fingers turns into snakes. The acting was pretty decent and I thought that Fairuza Balk is an expert at playing crazy people. Between her role in The Waterboy (1998) and this film, I think I would find it difficult to see her in a role that didn’t depict her as insane. If you’re into witchcraft and things of that sort in films, I would recommend this film. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115963/