A long-awaited follow-up to the much-loved 1996 teen horror offers some interesting ideas but, with a brisk runtime, feels overstuffed
Released just seven months before Scream “saved” the horror genre from the doldrums of the 90s, spunky witchcraft chiller The Craft was often overlooked as the film that also reminded studios of the power, and profitability, of setting scary movies at the scariest place on earth: high school. It was a surprise jolt for teens at the time who, save for Clueless the previous year, had been starved of films populated by characters of a similar age since the work of John Hughes and those who emulated him in the previous decade. It felt fresh and contemporary in a way that so few films did at the time, centering teens and dismissing adults, a simple yet magnetic formula that gave it an immediate, impassioned fanbase who felt spoken to rather than spoken down to.
But as was often the case with so many female-fronted films of that era, and so many other eras, it was a story about teenage girls told by two men, a fact that didn’t necessarily affect its quality (I was part of that aforementioned fanbase) but one that places it in stark contrast to its long-awaited sequel The Craft: Legacy, receiving a last-minute digital release in time for Halloween. The continuation of the story, rather than a remake expected by many, comes from Zoe Lister-Jones, an actor, writer and director who has created a more specific and nuanced film, if not a more entertaining one, that takes a similar setup and gives it a 2020 spin, highlighting the importance of embracing intersectional female power while being aware of the dangers of toxic masculinity. It’s a bold and heady brew and one that will provoke ire from those who roll their eyes at the word woke but it’s one that proves intermittently intriguing while always ambitious, a refreshingly thoughtful, if flawed, alternative to a lazier rehash.
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