The Craft Legacy (2020)

Film: I was a big fan of the original film The Craft. Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney and Rachel True were most certainly the ‘it’ girls of the mid-90s buuuuuuuut I was in my 20s then, so maybe it spoke to me, and it felt kind of relevant, even though perhaps it wasn’t really.

Empire Records was the same, and even in 1999 when High Fidelity came out, it ESPECIALLY felt relevant as I went from a directionless manboy in his 20s to a rudderless manboy in his 30s.

So here we are, 25 years later and a sequel has been made and I’m conflicted: I’m keen to see a sequel to this film, but after watching it I felt totally disconnected to it. I thought maybe it was me, that I was out of touch with the so-called ‘woke’ movement or that maybe I don’t think that horror movies are the place to deliver messages like that.

…but horror movies have almost always had messages, haven’t they? I don’t think the problem with this film is the messages of equality, or the other issues it covers, but maybe that it tries to be the defender of everything at once, and that the story occasionally feels more like an after school special.

The Craft Legacy tells of Lily (Cailee Spaeney) who has just moved to a new town with her mother Helen (Michelle Monaghan) so she can be with her new beau, Adam (David Duchovney), a self-help guru specialising in helping men find their strength, and his three sons.

Lily, of course, being the new kid, has no friends, and her having an unfortunately heavy period on her first day leads to an embarrassment that would wilt any normal kid, but Lily makes three new friends in the form of Tabby (Logie Simone), Lourdes (Zoey Luna) and Frankie (Gideon Adlon), three close friends who have been trying to find a fourth to join their coven because… you guessed it, they be WITCHES!!

The four quickly realise that Lily (short for Lilith, you know, alternatively known as the biblical Adam’s first wife from the Book of Isaiah, or a demon) is the person that they were looking for and their power grows exponentially, and being teenage girls, it’s used on silly stuff at first as they experiment, but then more insidious things, for example, their changing the personality of the school douche-bag, Timmy (Nicolas Galitzine) into becoming a super-sensitive, totally woke soul.

As usual, power corrupts and one of them makes a selfish spell that starts to unravel the friendship, and we discover more about Lily’s past and why she has her powers, and maybe that Adam is much more than he seems…

This film was not made for me. It wasn’t made for a 50-something manboy who still likes a lots of 80s styled boobs ‘n’ blood in his horror films. I have to give it credit though. It does attempt to cover a whole pile of stuff that plays on young people’s minds today, like homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, school bullying and others, and does it so casually that its the way we should all probably act around people who live differently to ourselves. The problem is though it does so many of these things that I imagine it would alienate a less open minded person, and maybe some of the messages get lost amongst each other.

The film is beautifully shot but I do have two major issues with it. The first is that it’s not really a new story. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens showed us that a remake can be incorporated into a large storyline and not act completely like it’s a remake, but this just hits the same beats over and over and until it makes a weird left turn for the sole purpose of adding a new badguy, who is telegraphed early but when it eventuates, it’s just a bit dumb.

The other is the performances of the four leads. Now I can’t figure out if the teens are overacting and it’s disguised as being obnoxious, or visa versa. Honestly, I work in retail and they act like the people who distract the workers in a shop while another friend shoplifts. They are annoying and over-the-top and seem less like how teens actually act and more like how someone who is out of touch with teens would make them act. It reminds me of Stan Lee writing teens in the 60s, and them all having dialogue like teens in the early 50s, daddy-o. The rest of the cast seem far more grounded and real.

If I’m to be really finicky, the 11th hour connection to the first film is hamfisted and was like a studio addition that was just dumb.

All in all I’m trying to be nice to this film out of respect for the original, but it’s just dumb, annoying and boring.

Score: *

Extras: There is a couple of extras but they are so brief they barely worth mentioning.

Franchise Legacy is a barely two and a half minute piece that references the original movie and it’s importance to this film’s legacy. I’ve had sneezes that were longer and more informative.

Powerful Story, Magical Director looks at writer/ director Zoe Lister-Jones and her approach to making the film, but I’m not sure barely 3 and a half minutes really is much of a tribute to a director’s skill set. Shame.

Deleted scenes, as usual, are better off not in the film. Lister-Jones does at least get to introduce them, and justify their removal, even though her reasoning doesn’t get fleshed out.

Score: *

WISIA: I probably won’t, unless they do a sequel, which is really obviously what they’d like to do, judging by the massive open ending they offered.

This review was done with the Australian Bluray release