When The Craft hit theaters in 1996, it wasn't necessarily a hit with critics and though it went on to become a decent box office success, it's been relegated to the status of cult favorite, having never received mainstream popularity. Now, Blumhouse and writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones return to the world of teenage witches and weirdos with The Craft: Legacy. In the vein of many revivals of classic 70s, 80s and 90s franchises, The Craft: Legacy is both a reboot and a continuation, with a largely original story that still loosely connects to its predecessor. The Craft: Legacy excels when reveling in its girl power witchcraft, but falls apart in the third act without a well-developed villain.
Like The Craft before it, The Craft: Legacy follows a new-to-town teen girl, this time it's Lily (Cailee Spaeny), who quickly forms a bond with a coven of three teen witches that have been looking for their fourth member: Tabby (Lovie Simone), Frankie (Gideon Adlon) and Lourdes (Zoey Luna). Their witchcraft is about building community, and together they decide to take on school bully Timmy (Nicholas Galitzine). Meanwhile, Lily and her mother Helen (Michelle Monaghan) are trying to fit into their new family, with Helen having moved them in with her partner Adam (David Duchovny) and his three sons. After a tragic death and some strange happenings threaten to break apart Lily's newly formed coven, it remains to be seen if the power of their sisterhood will be strong enough to battle a dark force when it rises.
For the first two acts in The Craft: Legacy, Lister-Jones has plenty of fun with introducing these characters and their witchcraft and sisterhood, which makes for an entertaining beginning to their journey. There are even hints at some compelling exploration of gender dynamics and stereotypes, even if that does often get pushed aside for more fun witchy antics. This even works to set up a sharp twist in the third act, but the twist itself isn't pulled off very well, and leads to an ultimately extremely messy third act. Since much of the beginning two-thirds of the movie are focused on Lily and her coven, with only very vague teases to the villain and their motivations, once the antagonist is fully revealed in the third act, The Craft: Legacy doesn't have much time to establish and then deal with the girls' foe. As a result, the third act moves at too breakneck of a speed for any of the thematic through lines to be impactful.
Unfortunately, the villain isn't the only underdeveloped character in The Craft: Legacy. Though Lily has a richly developed storyline - albeit one that takes a sharp, unexpected and perhaps unnecessary turn in the third act - the other girls of the coven have much less backstory. Much of their characterization is derived from what little they're given in the script, though even their dialogue is largely dedicated to explaining the mythology of the magic to Lily (and, by proxy, the viewer), and the performances of Simone, Luna and Adlon. Luckily, the three girls, and Spaeny's Lily, were well-cast and work very well together, creating a sweet and funny friendship dynamic. But since much of their developing friendship plays out through montage, the movie doesn't have a chance to dig too deep into their dynamic. This also adds to the messiness of the third act, which relies on their coven and friendship dissolving but doesn't have the impact needed. Pulling attention away from the girls, The Craft: Legacy also focuses quite a bit on Timmy, and while Galitzine gives one of the best and most nuanced performances of the film, it's frustrating that a movie ostensibly about sisterhood spends so much time on a male character and only briefly explores how strict gender roles impact folks of all genders and sexual identities.
The Craft: Legacy clearly has plenty to say about women and power and the men who would take it away from them, as well as a message about men who don't fit the strict ideal of masculinity still being valid and worthy, but those themes are not clearly nor fully explored enough for Lister-Jones' movie to have the full effect it's aiming for. Instead, the movie is two-thirds fun witchy story that plants some great seeds of discussion about gender and sexuality, but then the third act tries to tie it all up cleanly - while also throwing in a great deal of new ideas - and ends up being too overcrowded to give its themes their due conclusion. This oversimplification in the third act winds up feeling more insulting than anything else, as if realizing too late it can't remain a lighthearted witchy movie if it were to actually dig into the themes it touches on. And, unfortunately, the third act of The Craft: Legacy is so slapdash as to sour the more well-developed and focused first two acts.
As a result, The Craft: Legacy may be worth checking out for fans interested in the premise of teen witches or the continuation of The Craft world. There are certain ties to the original movie that may be compelling to some fans of the 90s movie, while others may find them to be trite and unnecessary, especially since in some cases they pull focus away from the new film. It's perhaps best that The Craft: Legacy is releasing via on-demand just in time for Halloween, since those looking for a new spooky movie can check it out. There isn't a whole lot of spookiness to it, apart from one scene in particular, but The Craft: Legacy could still make for a fun Halloween watch with family and/or friends.
The Craft: Legacy releases on-demand Wednesday, October 28th. It is 97 minutes long and rated PG-13 for thematic elements, crude and sexual content, language and brief drug material.
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