The Craft



“Oh shit, it’s the Bitches of Eastwick”

            A few weeks ago my brother was watching The Mentalist and my friend who was with me at this time said “oh she’s from The Craft” when she saw Robin Tunney on the screen. When I worked in an electronics/entertainment store I used to see this DVD all the time. It wasn’t until last week that I found this on DVD for a reasonable price, bought it, and watched it. I gotta say it’s a bad ‘90s teen movie but it is so much fun to watch.

            Robin Tunney plays Sarah Bailey the new girl at school. She goes to a Catholic high school. One day in French class she starts telekinetically twirling a pencil into the desk. A girl sitting by her notices Sarah doing this. Sitting alone at lunch, the cute football player Chris comes over and talks to Sarah. He notices the notorious weird girls looking over at Sara and tells her they are witches.

            The girl sitting next to Sarah in French class was Bonnie who along with her two other friends Rochelle and Nancy are witches. They talk to Sarah asking her to be the fourth member of their group. After school they take Sarah to an occult shop to five finger discount things. The shop owner notices that Sarah is not like the other girls; she tells Sarah that she is a natural witch. Once they come out of the store Sarah is being harassed by a homeless man. Each girl wills something to happen to the man to go away. The next thing they know the man is run over by a car.     

            The four girls run away to the woods. They all say they were thinking the same thing about the man getting hit by a car to leave them alone. They realize they all have some kind of connection and evoke the spirit of Manon, which was Nancy, Bonnie, and Rochell’s goal. Sarah leaves the girls and goes to hang out with Chris. She doesn’t want to have sex with him and leaves but the next day Chris has spread a rumor that he and Sarah had sex and that she was the worst he ever had. Bonnie, Rochelle and Nancy bring Sarah along on a trip where they call on the four corners of power and cast some spells. Each girl has some trouble in their lives: Nancy lives her drunken mom and awful stepfather, Rochelle is being racially attacked by a snobby girl who she’s on the swim team with, and Bonnie has horrible scars from a burn. Sarah casts a spell that Chris will fall in love with her, Bonnie asks for beauty inside and out, Rochelle asks for revenge against the mean girl, and Nancy asks for all the powers of Manon.

            Over the next few days they see their spells are working: Chris never leaves Sarah alone he always wants to be with her and is nice to her; Bonnie’s scars go away; the mean girl bothering Rochelle starts losing all her hair after one swim practice; Nancy causes her stepfather to die of a heart attack and she and her mother comes into money from his life insurance which allows them to move out of their trailer.

            Nancy goes back to the occult shop and picks up a book about conjuring the spirits. They go to the beach where they call on the spirits and lightening comes down upon them. Sarah, Bonnie, and Rochelle wake up to see Nancy walking on water which means her powers have increased.

            Everyone’s powers are starting to backlash: Chris comes to Sarah’s window at 3in the morning asking her to go out with him and he tries to rape her but she gets away. Bonnie is becoming more and more conceited, and Rochelle fells sorry for what she did to the girl who was mean to her. Nancy messes with Chris transfiguring herself into Sarah and starts to make out with him. Sarah gets to the party to stop Nancy from messing with Chris but in a rage causes Chris to fall out a window and die.

            Sarah tries to stop Nancy through a binding spell but that doesn’t work. Nancy, Rochelle, and Bonnie turn on Sarah and invade her dreams causing her to see snakes coming through drains and doors and other small nasty creatures crawling all over her. They even make Sarah believe that she has cut her wrists. She goes to her room believing that she is dying. Nancy tells Rochelle and Bonnie to go kill Sarah or she’ll slit their throats. Sarah has just enough strength to invoke the spirit of Manon and is able to heal her wrists. She casts spells on Bonnie and Rochelle so they can see the negative effects of their spells that would come back on them threefold. Bonnie’s face is all scared and Rochelle’s hair is falling out. Both are so afraid they leave the house leaving Sarah and Nancy to battle it out.

            Sarah wins in the end and creates a binding spell that will finally stop Nancy from doing any harm. Sometime in the future, Bonnie and Rochelle come to Sarah’s house to see if she has powers. She has no interest in being friends with two of the girls who tried to killer and they walk away saying that she probably doesn’t have her powers anymore. Sarah proves them wrong by causing lightening to strike a branch and nearly fall on top of the girls.

            The movie ends with the audience seeing that Nancy has gone nuts and she’s screaming that she has powers. A nurse comes in with a sedative and Nancy just stares into space.

            I enjoyed this movie it was a good laugh I like seeing a good witch/magic movie now and again. I cracked up seeing Robin Tunney in this movie, her wig was so bad that was the first thing I noticed when she first came on screen. She had just made Empire Records not that long before this so she didn’t really have hair and a wig was needed. My friend and I watched this together and she mentioned that the actress who plays Nancy was in The Water Boy as Adam Sandler’s girlfriend so when she came on screen all I could think of was “I like Vicki Vallencourt and I saw her boobies and I liked them too” haha. I loved seeing Breckin Meyer in the movie; he adds that extra bit of funny he’s always good to see.

            I have to give a big thank you to Becky for mentioning this movie. The Craft is one of those movies that I will watch when I need a laugh.