The chrysalis of 80s and 90s high-school comedy finally gave us a veritable butterfly of fear in this cult girl-power classic from 1996, co-written and directed by Andrew Fleming, now rereleased for its 30th anniversary. It’s a movie to compare with Heathers or Mean Girls but with a supernatural edge, a flourish of scariness where the comedy or sexiness might otherwise go – and it incidentally delivers a very disturbing “René Magritte mirror” visual stab worthy of any straight-ahead chiller.
Robin Tunney plays Sarah, a shy, studious teen from San Francisco who suffers from depression and buried guilt about the fact that her mother died in childbirth, and from lingering resentment at her new stepmother, with whom her dad has bought her to Los Angeles for a fresh start at a new school. Something about this new arrival intrigues a clique nicknamed “the bitches of Eastwick”, led by badass goth Nancy (Fairuza Balk); she rules over her two disciples Rochelle (Rachel True) and Bonnie, played by Neve Campbell, that same year to become a scary-movie hall-of-famer for the fledgling Scream franchise.
They are devoted to “the craft” of being a witch and it is plain that Sarah too is one of their number: she has somehow alchemised her pain and fear into dark superpowers, far in excess of anything the other three can manage. Inevitably, the forces unleashed get out of control: the group find that they can kill people and take revenge on who they want; just as inevitably, a power struggle for dominance develops between the black-lipsticked Nancy and the more wholesome Sarah.
A pouting blond princess named Laura (Christine Taylor) finds that, after making a racist remark to Rochelle, her hair starts falling out in a brutally explicit sequence in the swimming pool changing room. Sexist creep Chris (played by Scream stalwart Skeet Ulrich) is magicked into a humiliating submission to Sarah after spreading vengeful rumours about her. Nancy discovers that she can walk on water after a dark ceremony on the beach and the appearance on the sand of dead sharks is a tribute to her new eminence. But there appears to be white magic too: the burn marks on Bonnie’s back are magically cured after the girls invoke the assistance of a certain higher (or lower) power.
The Craft has got its own energy and confidence, as well as a kind of 90s fearlessness that went with not knowing, or perhaps not caring, about the sensitivities surrounding young people’s anxieties that are a more central part of today’s conversation. It was the dark side to 90s high school comedies like Clueless or 10 Things I Hate About You, and it’s interesting to see easygoing Breckin Meyer in an early, unsympathetic role.
• The Craft is in UK and Irish cinemas from 9 October.
