Latex Movie Review: The Craft

I do not think screenwriter/director Andrew Fleming was looking for Citizen Kane when he came up with The Craft. The basic idea here is simple. Catholic school girls who decide to become witches are hot. The poster for this movie shows all four female leads wearing different tight slutty schoolgirl outfits sauntering side by side in the midst of a rainstorm ( although keeping perfectly dry ) all with looks on their faces which are a cross between bedroom eyes and deer caught in the headlights. The poster is very sexy, but one wonders which came first, the concept for the poster or the movie. The story is for the most part predictable. Sarah ( Robin Tunny ) is a girl who's parents just moved into a new home in a new city ( which looks like part of Florida but turns out to be in California ). During her first day at a Catholic school she draws the attention of Chris, the captain of the football team ( Skeet Ulrich ) who talks her into having a date. She also draws the attention of the schools witch coven. All three are the schools outcasts, Bonnie ( Neve Campbell ) because of burn scars on her back and upper arms, Rochelle ( Rachel True ) because she is apparently the only black girl in the school, and Nancy ( Fairuza Balk ) because she was once the school slut. Becoming friends out of necessity they have been trying to perform witchcraft but have not succeeded because apparently they need a fourth witch for the coven to work.

It turns out that Sarah has magic powers, which Bonnie notices when she sees Sarah levitating a pencil during one of her classes. The three girls want Sarah to join them, which she is reluctant to do until Chris begins to lie to his friends that he had sex with her and that she was terrible in bed. The girls form a four way circle and after a ceremony suddenly discover they have powers. They begin to cast spells, some to improve their own lives, but others to get back at those who were making their lives miserable. Bonnie's scars heal and she is finally has the confidence to wear sexy short sleeved outfits. This seems to spread to the other girls who now walk around school in slow motion wearing the tightest sluttiest goth schoolgirl outfits the movies costume designer could think of. But predictably things begin to turn bad. People begin to die as a result of the spells. Nancy invokes a powerful spirit to possess her during a ceremony and begins to go crazy. Both Rochelle and Bonnie also begin to go nuts. Sarah decides she wants out of the cover, but the other three girls threaten her. Predictably she has a showdown with the other three witches which involves casting spells. I guess the message here is witchcraft does not pay.

The first half of The Craft is actually quite fun despite it's predictable story. It is the third act where everything goes to sh*t where the fun dissipates. Perhaps because of budget reasons the final showdown is a bit limited. I was hoping for an extended battle between Sarah and Nancy where all sorts of spells were cast, but the end battle was very short. It is always a shame when the movie you found yourself enjoying suddenly falls apart at the end. The films one saving grace is it's cast who at the time were that decades up and coming female 20 something stars. Each does an outstanding job at creating believable and interesting characters, something that you usually do not get in what is otherwise an exploitation film. The star billing seems a bit weird though. You would expect it to go to Neve Campbell who at the time was the best known out of all four leads being in the hit show Party of Five and was about to star in the movie Scream. Neve was not given the lead and got third billing. Strangely Fairuza gets lead billing in the opening credits while Tunny gets the star billing during the closing credits.

THE SCENE:

This is one of those movies that everyone seems to remember having a lot of fetish wear. If your fetish is variations on the slutty schoolgirl outfit you will find it in the bulk of the film, and if it is goth witch type outfits then you have a lot of that in the third act. But it is slim pickings as to actual shiny fabrics. The only leather worn is standard coats and jackets. While Neve Campbell begins to wear a leather coat midway through the film if you were to go to the 52 minute mark you would see all but Rachel True wearing a leather coat. The actress to watch in this movie is Fairuza Balk. She wears a black vinyl jacket on and off throughout the film starting with the first few seconds of the movie as the camera slowly pans in for a closeup of her face. At 11 minutes she is wearing it again and keeps it on for the next nine minutes of the film. She is wearing it again in the rain at 26 minutes, and it can be seen on her at 38 minutes and 45 minutes. Fairuza does better than that by wearing a black patent leather skirt at 28 minutes, and best of all tight black vinyl pants at 35 minutes into the film. Both the skirt and pants are only seen as a glimpse as the majority of each scene has her either in the shadows or sitting in such a way that they are obscured. The pants are especially a disappointment as you wish there was more of her walking around in them. Here you only get a few seconds of her lounging on the floor with them on before she kneels on them to perform a levitation spell on Rachel, one that has her kneeling and the camera shooting the scene mostly from above. Rounding out Fairuza's outfits, she is wearing tight satin black and grey print pants with matching tight button shirt starting at 48 minutes, and wears a black satin laced dress covered by a black overcoat starting at 1 hour 14 minutes and can be seen wearing it for nearly the rest of the movie. And there is the dog collar choker she wears on and off through most of the movie ( she is wearing that during the vinyl pants scene ).