The Craft (1996) is less a horror movie and more a Hot Topic commercial where someone slipped a witch’s pentagram necklace into the clearance bin next to the chokers. People remember it as a cult classic about witchy empowerment. Me? I remember it as the film where the audience left the theater knowing two things: 1) Neve Campbell can turn scar tissue into a Chanel ad, and 2) Fairuza Balk’s dental plan deserved hazard pay.
The Plot, or “Charmed: The After-School Special”
Robin Tunney plays Sarah, the new girl in school who looks like she just escaped from a shampoo commercial set in Seattle. She falls in with three outcasts—Bonnie (Neve Campbell), Rochelle (Rachel True), and Nancy (Fairuza Balk). Together, they become a goth Spice Girls coven: Scary Witch, Sporty Witch, Posh Witch, and Depressed Witch.
They call upon a made-up deity named Manon, because apparently “Satan” was too busy guest-starring on Beavis and Butt-Head. Their spells start out harmless enough: heal my acne, make the racist blonde bald, make the hot jock love me. But naturally, it escalates to lightning strikes, shark carnage, and Nancy Downs cackling like she just freebased a Ouija board.
By act three, the coven has turned into Mean Girls with black eyeliner, and Sarah has to bind Nancy in the ultimate punishment: eternal confinement in a padded cell where she insists she can fly. Honestly, if I had to watch Fairuza Balk chew scenery one more time, I’d believe her.
The Girls Are Hot, and That’s the Whole Movie
Let’s be honest: the reason anyone remembers The Craft is because the cast is hotter than a bonfire at Burning Man. Robin Tunney looks like she could start a riot at a Lilith Fair. Neve Campbell walks around with tragic burn scars until she gets magically fixed, then instantly morphs into “most popular girl at the prom.” Rachel True is the only Black girl in the film, which means her entire character arc is “gets bullied by a blonde racist,” and she somehow makes it watchable anyway.
And then there’s Fairuza Balk. Sweet Satan, Fairuza Balk. She delivers her lines like Jack Nicholson possessed a Bratz doll. Her teeth deserve their own IMDb credit. Her fashion sense screams “thrift store apocalypse chic.” But you cannot look away. She’s a car crash in Doc Martens.
Skeet Ulrich, Discount Johnny Depp
Remember Skeet Ulrich? He plays Chris, the love interest who spreads rumors and tries to assault Sarah after she puts a love spell on him. He’s like if Johnny Depp’s career had been raised in a Petri dish of Axe body spray and Jell-O shots. By the time Nancy yeets him out a window, you’re not horrified—you’re standing up clapping like you’re at a WWE pay-per-view.
The Special Effects: Sci-Fi Channel Circa 1996
Lightning bolts, levitating pencils, glamours that look like they were filmed with a Funhouse mirror. This is the kind of CGI that makes “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” look like James Cameron directed it. When Nancy walks on water surrounded by dead sharks, it looks less like divine witchcraft and more like she accidentally wandered into an aquarium exhibit at SeaWorld.
The scariest effect is still Neve Campbell’s wig in the first half of the film.
Why This Movie is Accidentally Hilarious
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The girls invoke a god so powerful his name sounds like a knockoff Pokémon.
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Their “circle of witches” scene looks like a middle school sleepover got really out of hand.
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Every other line is whispered like they’re in a Nine Inch Nails music video.
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At one point, Robin Tunney runs through a house full of snakes, rats, and scorpions, and the audience is like, “Yeah, but is her eyeliner still intact?”
The Message (If You Squint Really Hard)
Supposedly, the movie is about teenage girls seizing power in a patriarchal society. What it’s actually about is: “Be careful what you wish for, because eventually your goth friend will summon Jaws onto the beach and your crush will fall out of a window.” Somewhere, a high school English teacher tried to make this required viewing for a gender studies class. Somewhere else, a stoner just wanted to see hot witches in plaid skirts and got exactly what he paid for.
Why It’s a Hot Mess, Literally
The Craft tries to be deep, but it’s basically an after-school PSA in black lipstick. “Kids, witchcraft might give you good skin, but it also makes your friends psychos.” It preaches empowerment, then punishes every girl except Sarah for enjoying themselves. Bonnie gets vain. Rochelle gets petty. Nancy goes full Joker cosplay. Sarah is the only “good witch” because she still wants to make out with a guy who looks like Johnny Depp’s mall cop cousin.
And yet… the girls are hot. So hot that you forgive the script. You forgive the goofy CGI. You forgive the fact that the climax involves Nancy flying around a bedroom like a deranged bat. You even forgive Manon, the patron saint of goth mallrats.
Final Thoughts
The Craft is not a good movie. It’s not even a decent movie. It’s a CW pilot with a bigger eyeliner budget. But it endures because teenage boys discovered it on VHS, paused it too many times during the “party dress” scenes, and teenage girls saw it and thought, “Yes, let’s hex every racist blonde in school.”
Twenty-seven years later, it’s a cult classic—not because of story, not because of horror, but because four very hot actresses in Catholic school uniforms dabbled in witchcraft and made the world briefly more interesting.
So, here’s the real spell The Craft cast: attractiveness can make you forget you’re watching nonsense.
