Even for the mid-'90's, it's lame. The best that I can make of this film is that teen girls might like it for the catty behavior or lesbian 'girl crush' over-tones. Other than that, it's not worth watching. Cable networks show it at least once a month, and I don't know why, unless for the guys still in love with Neve Campbell. If she walked around half naked in the film, at least young men could've gotten on board, but this film isn't scary anymore than 'Twilight' was. Don't waste your two hours. Much like other films and paranormal show episodes dealing with girls experimenting with witchcraft. Fairuza Balk did do a good job with the lame script she was handed, and she stole the show.

This predictable teen horror was made literally just before the genre became hot again with the success of SCREAM. While refreshingly free of clichéd scenes of a masked killer murdering blondes, the film does have the typical teen characters, like the jocks, the obnoxious bimbos, and the typical "outsider" girls who in this case happen to practise witchcraft. My biggest complaint with this film is the trivialising of witchcraft; the witches simply use it to cast a few love spells and cure a scar or two. It's not very grand or partially enthralling, which is (in my mind) how a witchcraft film should be. It's also not in the least bit scary.The film does try and at least there are a few interesting ideas to salvage it and make it a watchable, if forgettable, experience. The central idea about power and how it corrupts people is a good, solid one but here it is taken to laughable extremes - as initially friendly girl Fairuza Balk (who incidentally had an early experience with witchcraft, playing the Worst Witch in an '80s children's TV series) becomes a psychotic killer. Things come down to a battle between her and nice girl Robin Tunney (who also appeared in the much more entertaining END OF DAYS), here sporting a silly-looking blonde wig.Most of the other characters are either shallow or one-dimensional, including the two supporting actresses, Neve Campbell and Rachel True. Neither are given much material to work with and they seem to change from being evil to good and back when the script calls for it. Although it is nice to see the annoying Campbell back before she became famous. The acting is good enough, I suppose, but most of the characters are irritating and unlikeable, apart from good-as-gold Tunney who just doesn't ring true anyway. There's a sad lack of adult actors in what is an entirely teen-centred film, at least with SCREAM we have the saving grace of Henry Winkler in a supporting role. Skeet Ulrich is good value as always but he's not enough to make this a worthwhile experience.The special effects, including lots of creepy crawlies and some magic storms, etc. are fine enough but there's nothing outstanding that stays in the mind. The movie can hardly be called "horror" either seeing as the horror/gore content is extremely low, it's rather a teen movie which just happens to be about witches. THE CRAFT will probably appeal to teenagers but not a lot of other people - unless you like looking at pretty girls made up as goths and weirdos. Otherwise, it's an empty and shallow experience.

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.

This is like the movie "with-it" liberal parents might take their budding teen daughter to go see in the late 90's, its a movie used so parents can tell kids, I know you may experiment with drugs but using too much can be dangerous. Y'know, stupid magic is used in place of drugs, they call it a metaphor. I mean maybe its that The Craft is a predictable, tame movie that makes the movie so dull. I would assume a film about magic and teenage girls should be some intense serious sh*t, but The Craft a movie specifically about teen girls and magic...yeah,no,not intense. If you love this movie, then love it, I salute you, it does nothing for me. I prefer my movies about teenage girls and magic to be awesome or at least not phony.