The easiest way to describe The Craft, using film review comparison guidelines, would be "The Lost Boys with witchcraft". Which isn't a bad way to describe co-writer/director Andrew Fleming's mix of teenage angst with the dark arts. It's a film I never really bothered with when first released back in 1996 but now, in the wake of such watered-down efforts like The Covenant, it's surprising just how similar this is - especially considering it pre-dates that film by at least ten years. The difference here being that the script actually makes a decent effort to flesh-out its main characters even if they're mostly clichés and the effects filled showdown finale with all its lightning flashes, furniture tossing, and various insects/vermin is, despite being a little weak, more intense than anything The Covenant could ever hope to deliver.

Sarah (Robin Tunney) and her family have just arrived in town and she finds her welcoming committee to be a weirdo who shows up at the door holding a snake and ranting away. We learn that Sarah fits into the horror mold of your typical troubled teen because she's plagued by visions and has attempted suicide in the past. But her outcast status doesn't much bother the group of girls she ends-up integrating herself with upon attending her new Catholic school since they consist of your various by-the-book characterizations consisting of the shy girl Bonnie (Neve Campbell) who likes to keep her hair over her eyes, the African-American Rochelle (Rachel True) who has to deal with racism at school, and Goth-like Nancy (Fairuza Balk) their self-appointed leader.

Amongst all the constant picking-on at school, mostly at the hands of the stuck-up Laura (Christine Taylor), Sarah finds out her new friends have also been dabbling in witchcraft and are obsessed with calling on an ancient spirit. Soon they start using some mild spells to get back at those who've hurt them but jealously begins to creep in between Sarah and Nancy with the latter going crazy when one of their evening rituals ends with sea life being tossed onto the beach and Nancy walking on water. This, of course, leads to the aforementioned finale and its early use of some mild CGI effects.

Returning to the genre after making his debut with 1988's Bad Dreams, Fleming handles the material here rather well bringing in enough relatability between the audience and his main protagonists and capturing teen angst decently in the process. The Craft is pretty light on horror elements until the finale but it still manages to be an entertaining time and gets above average performances from the young cast.

Tunney isn't bad as our heroine but she's definitely upstaged by a few of her co-stars as a pre-Scream Campbell makes Bonnie's vulnerability and naïve nature feel realistic and the oddly attractive Balk swings on the other side of the pendulum making her anti-social Nancy go completely over-the-top for the last third of the movie. Also on hand is Campbell's Scream co-star Skeet Ulrich and familiar B-movie actor Cliff De Young. Also of note is that Taylor, who's racist valley girl gets to wear a silly bald cap at one point, who went on to marry Ben Stiller and appear with him in such comedies as Dodgeball and Zoolander.

While I had a hard time slogging through The Covenant, and I really didn't have much of an opinion of The Craft when I first saw it all those years ago, I quite enjoyed revisiting it all these years later. It's a decently made mix of the black arts and high school hatred that's more watchable and better acted than you might expect from teen focused genre flicks. (Chris Hartley, 2/15/10)

Directed By: Andrew Fleming.
Written By: Peter Filardi, Andrew Fleming.

Starring: Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell, Rachel True.