Watch The Craft, FULL MOVIE, on Internet Archive
The Craft is a 1996 American teen supernatural horror film directed by Andrew Fleming from a screenplay by Peter Filardi and Fleming and a story by Filardi. The film stars Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, and Rachel True as four outcast teenage girls at a Los Angeles parochial high school who pursue witchcraft for their own gain and experience negative repercussions.
The Craft was theatrically released in the United States on May 3, 1996 by Columbia Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics but was a surprise hit nonetheless, earning $6.7 million in its opening weekend and $55.6 million worldwide, against a budget of $15 million.
The Craft was nominated for the Saturn Awards for Best Horror Film and for Best Supporting Actress (Balk), and won the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight (Balk and Tunney). In the years since its release, the film has gained a cult following. A sequel, The Craft: Legacy, was released on October 28, 2020.
Sarah Bailey, a troubled teenage girl with unusual abilities, moves from San Francisco to Los Angeles with her father and stepmother. At her new school, she befriends a trio of outcast girls rumoured to be witches. Bonnie Harper bears burn scars, Nancy Downs lives in a trailer with her mother and abusive stepfather, and Rochelle Zimmerman is a black student who is subjected to racist bullying by a group of white girls. The girls worship a powerful earth deity they call “Manon”.
Popular jock Chris Hooker shows interest in Sarah, which she reciprocates. When Bonnie observes Sarah levitating a pencil in class, she and the other outcast girls are convinced that she can complete their coven as “the fourth”, completing an air-water-earth-fire circle and making them all-powerful. As the girls walk home from school, Sarah is harassed by a vagrant, who had tried to scare her with a snake when she moved into her new home. When the vagrant chases after Sarah, he is immediately hit by a car. The girls believe their combined will caused it to happen, strengthening their bond. It is also revealed that Sarah once attempted suicide.
After a date with Chris, Sarah is upset that he spread a false rumor that they had sex. Sarah casts a love spell on him, Rochelle casts a revenge spell on racist bully Laura Lizzie, Bonnie casts a spell for beauty, and Nancy a spell for power. The spells are successful: Chris becomes infatuated with Sarah, Bonnie’s scars on her back miraculously heal, Laura begins losing her hair, and Nancy causes her stepfather to have a fatal heart attack, enabling her and her mother to cash in on his life insurance policy and move into a luxurious high-rise apartment.
Nancy becomes power-hungry and encourages the others to join her in a rite called “Invocation of the Spirit”, despite being warned against the spell by Lirio, the owner of a local occult shop and practicing witch. Upon completion of the spell, Nancy is struck by lightning. The following morning, the other girls see Nancy walking on water, with beached sharks and other dead animals littering the shore. In the days that follow, Nancy becomes increasingly devoid of empathy and engages in risky behavior that endangers her life and those of others.
The spells the girls cast eventually lead to negative consequences, as Bonnie becomes aggressively narcissistic, Rochelle finds Laura traumatized by her baldness, and the obsessed Chris attempts to rape Sarah after she rejects his continual advances. To punish Chris, Nancy uses a glamour spell to disguise herself as Sarah and attempts to seduce him at a party. She is interrupted by the real Sarah, who pleads with Nancy to leave with her. Upset at being deceived, Chris accuses Nancy of jealousy, angering her. She uses her power to kill Chris by throwing him out of a window.
Sarah unsuccessfully attempts a binding spell to prevent Nancy from doing more harm, and the coven turns on Sarah. The trio invades Sarah’s dreams, torments her with visions of swarms of scorpions, snakes, rats, and insects, and makes her believe that her family has died in a plane crash. The coven then tries to drive Sarah to suicide. Although initially terrified, Sarah successfully invokes the spirit and manages to heal herself and fight back. She scares Bonnie and Rochelle off by showing them glamour in a mirror of Bonnie, with her face scarred, and Rochelle losing her hair like Laura. Sarah then defeats Nancy and binds her, preventing her from causing harm forever.
Bonnie and Rochelle, finding their powers gone, visit Sarah to attempt reconciliation, only to find that she wants nothing to do with them and that Manon took their powers because they abused them. They scornfully mutter that Sarah must have lost her powers, too. Sarah then conjures a lightning storm and makes a tree branch nearly crush them. She warns them to be careful not to end up like Nancy, who has been committed to a psychiatric hospital, delusional and her powers bound, strapped to a bed as she desperately insists she can fly.
Robin Tunney as Sarah Bailey
Fairuza Balk as Nancy Downs
Neve Campbell as Bonnie Harper
Rachel True as Rochelle Zimmerman
Skeet Ulrich as Chris Hooker
Christine Taylor as Laura Lizzie
Breckin Meyer as Mitt
Nathaniel Marston as Trey
Cliff DeYoung as Mr. Bailey
Assumpta Serna as Lirio
Helen Shaver as Grace Downs
Brenda Strong as doctor
William Newman as street preacher
John Kapelos (uncredited) as Ray, Nancy’s stepfather
Janet Eilber as Sarah’s mother
Ricky Hanson Video