Sunday, March 26, 2006

The Craft

The Craft is such an old movie that it's a wonder I hadn't seen it before now, and the only reason I did was because the DVD was on sale for ten dollars. And what a good movie it is, too!

It's about four high school girls in LA who use witchcraft to get what they want; one wants a boy (played by Skeet Ulrich) to like her, another wants a bigoted teen queen (played by Christine Taylor, now married to Ben Stiller) to stop picking on her, the third simply wants "power" and the fourth wants to be rid of her disfiguring burn scars.

All four get their respective wishes, but of course everything soon starts to go terribly wrong...

Apparently that terrible excuse for a TV show on witches, Charmed, was directly influenced by The Craft - the show's theme tune was even lifted straight from the movie's soundtrack (I always thought the tune sounded like the Psychedelic Furs, but it's a Smiths song).

But it's way better than Charmed. In fact, The Craft has much more in common with Willow's story arc in seasons Five and Six of Buffy. It's dark and a little bit creepy (especially the scene where goth-witch Nancy floats in the air with her witchy-pointy shoes scraping the floor...moments before her friend's boyfriend is hurled out of a second storey window). It's about being careful what you wish for; it's about how power corrupts and it's about how meddling with supernatural forces can get really out of hand.

The other DVD I bought yesterday was Season Two, Part Two, of Father Ted.

7 comments:

nigel paddell said...

I used to think Fairuza Balk was just awful in that movie but then I figured that if she could bring up such a negative response in me she was really good in that movie.
Btw, the song in the movie, and TV show, was done by Love Spit Love fronted by Richard Butler originally of Psych Furs.

Violet said...

I thought she did a good job coming across as a psychotic teenager. Thanks for the info about the song; that explains why I always thought it was a Psych Furs song.

boudica of suburbia said...

my lovely horse. running through the......field.

love it.

Craft scared me shitless

xxB

Jon said...

I remember seeing The Craft in highschool- glad to see Christine Taylor's hair grew back in nicely ;)

And I love Father Ted! It's such a shame that Dermot Morgan died young- he was hilarious. My favorite is when Mrs Doyle keeps insisting that you have a cup of tea even if you don't want one-- in one episode (I can't recall which one) there's a scene where Father Ted gets up in the middle of the night and Mrs Doyle is standing in the dark corridor- she frightens him when he turns on the lights and asks if he wants a cup of tea, and later confesses that she never sleeps in case someone wants tea in the middle of the night. I was laughing for 10 minutes after that ^_^

Violet said...

jon: When I first saw Father Ted I couldn't believe that they'd get away with such an irreverent show about priests in a Catholic country. And Ardal O'Hanlon is bloody funny doing live stand-up too.

boudica of suburbia said...

He's bloody awful in My Hero though. Avoid at all costs.

Violet said...

boudica: yeah My Hero was a major disappointment, though I wouldn't necessarily blame it all on Ardal O'Hanlon. The whole thing was an embarrassment.