SpuffyWeb
Sadly Over-hyped
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Ezmae Chang
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
adonis98-743-186503
A newcomer to a Catholic prep high school falls in with a trio of outcast teenage girls who practice witchcraft and they all soon conjure up various spells and curses against those who even slightly anger them. The Craft is a 1996 Fantasy, Horror Film starring Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell. This is a film that caught my attention for sometime now and after finishing it i gotta say it was good but at the same time i was expecting a bit more and let me start with the stuff that i liked, Robin Tunney was really good as Sarah Bailey and she was interesting as a character plus she was the strongest of the 4 girls, Fairuza Balk as Nancy Downs also gave a good performance as the evil and crazy witch and she fit the part perfectly as for Neve Campbell and Rachel True they were alright. The storyline reminded me a lot of Charmed and even a bit of Sabrina The Teenage Witch but it was a way darker version of course the Charmed Theme Song also played in one of the scenes so that was cool plus the cgi were good for the time that the film was released. Where the movie kinda lost me was with the plot which was the witches being total jerks to people that even slightly anger them and the ending was a bit flat as well because unlike Charmed where the sisters are a Team or a Family on that case in here they turn on each other with Sarah being the black sheep and the other 3 the saints so i was disappointed on that because i found it a bit weak as a storyline and even a 3rd act because clearly nothing happened they could have used their powers for good instead of being total douchebags but anyways it won't appeal to everyone it certainly has those 90's vibes and it's more of a Teenager Flick also so it won't please everyone. Overall i did enjoy the movie the characters, the actors and the effects were good but the storyline and the 3rd act mostly were weak and flat plus the wig that Tunney wore in certain scenes and especially the ending could be easily spot on and that was a bit of a disappointment as well. (7.5/10)
Irishchatter
I wanted to watch this film because Halloween is coming up so I was like, why not try watch it now and might as well get deep inside into the world of witchcraft. However this film wasn't exciting as I would hoped! It just didn't really give me what I wanted like the story slipped straight away when Sarah left the group and the other three girls became such physios into killing her. I mean woah woah woah, what in the world is freaking going on here? This isn't what should happen for god sake, what were they thinking of just messing up the story? I honestly thought this was gonna be a good film but no, I was wrong! I'm so disappointed, this movie left me disappointed!
GL84
Arriving at a new school, a teen meets up with a group of social outcasts who offer her entrance into their coven of witches, and after they grow stronger the power-mad coven are soon inciting retribution against their classmates as she tries to put an end to their reign of terror.There isn't much to the film. One of its' better features is the fact that this follows a lot of the real witch's spells and ceremonies which gives it a touch of realism as the chanting and special spells are quite realistic that allows for a touch of believability for many of those scenes. The many different spells, both good and evil are what really keep the film afloat since they start harmless and soon start affecting others. From the simple and harmless ramifications of their easier spells to the later ones that actually focus on supernatural powers are all fun to witness and believably done. The big action scene here, the final confrontation with the coven-members inside a large mansion, is quite entertaining and does offer up some big excitement along with the extraordinarily creepy sequence where almost everything in the house is covered with thousands of snakes or insects that must be crossed before heading to the final destination, is creepy, ingenious and really comes the closest to out-and-out horror. Otherwise, that's all that pretty much all that work for the film as there really isn't a whole lot to it. The only real flaw the film has is that it's really hard to feel threatened by the witches. Most of the spells are pretty much nonthreatening to others, and by removing the fact that they never really harm anyone physically, even at the end, it's really hard to feel fear of them. As the spells themselves aren't dangerous or evil, even the really dangerous ones that are performed do nothing harmful to others even when they're trying, and it makes it really hard to feel threatened by these. That becomes even worse since it spends all it's time on them, and therefore the opportunities are never there to feel that there's much to be feared of in here as simple avoidance makes for a more satisfying hindrance to their plans. It makes it really hard to supposedly be scared of witches seeking revenge when the most dangerous thing that they do is cause a person's hair to fall out. It's a big problem, and the main one in the film.Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence and attempted Rape.
michael-3204
I wanted to like The Craft more than I do. It has lots of appealing ingredients, including a pretty solid main cast and a story with lots of potential that puts young women front and center. I think my issues with it come down to tone and pacing. There are plenty of scenes that feel very natural and organic, especially those that feature the four main girls together; and then there are jarring scenes (for example, the vagrant with the snake) that seem to come from a different movie. Many of the adults (or, at least, the older actors playing adult roles, as opposed to the adult actors playing teenagers) are somewhat off, including Tunney's father and Assumpta Serna as the owner of the Wicca shop. Helen Shaver, as Fairuza Balk's trashy mother, gives the only performance that meshes well with what the teenagers are doing. Balk herself, though she excels at bringing menacing tension and unpredictability to her performance as the most unhinged of the four main girls, sometimes goes overboard with the histrionics, such as the bedroom scene with Skeet Ulrich at the party. The other girls' -- Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell and Rachel True -- performances stay more grounded through the movie, even as the increasingly unnatural events unfold. (Campbell and Ulrich, who would co-star as high school paramours in a film, Scream, that overshadowed this movie, don't have much interaction here, but I thought Ulrich was actually better -- and certainly funnier -- here as the bewitched, bothered and bewildered wanna-be boyfriend of Tunney.)All in all, the film feels like it wasn't thought through as thoroughly as it could have been. There are intriguing, post-Carrie ideas here about witchcraft and paganism as metaphors for girls' sexual development, but they don't really go anywhere even as the girls become more sexualized (and their skirts get shorter) as they become more confident in their craft. There are elements that feel forced or blunt -- such as the over-the-top overt racism shoved in True's character's face -- when a subtler approach would have been more effective and believable. There are the jarring tonal shifts that make me feel like director Andrew Fleming didn't have complete mastery of his own material. (Fleming also co-wrote the screenplay.) This is still a reasonably entertaining film with some effective scenes, memorable imagery and good performances. In more skillful hands or with more time and money, it could have been much more than that.