Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 3 (The Craft)

As above, so below.

In contrast to what we've covered so far, this is something I've seen already. I've lost count of how many times I've mentioned, but I was not a horror fan in the 1990s. I was scared shitless of the genre after encounters with Stephen King and the like. That being said, at some point I do remember The Craft. I couldn't tell you if I'd watched it within the last 25 years, and yet portions of it were seared into my memory. That was long ago, and now here I am a little older and wiser, and a little more attuned to the magical side of things. Also I have witchy friends, so there's that. I'm more an alchemist, in some respects, but I also respect the actual craft. As it turns out, I respect the motion picture The Craft a lot too. Let's see what sort of magic is in store with it.

Well, it's dripping with a specific 1990s vibe, for one. I am here for these girls and their 90's goth girl/social outcast looks in this movie. I have to give mention to Nancy who is played by Fairuza Balk, who a decade prior (and a year ago on this blog) was the Worst Witch. That thing with the pink-haired witch and Diana Rigg and Tim Curry's fucking Halloween music video. It's an extremely two nickels fact, her playing a witch twice. I'm also kind of into Neve Campbell's look at the very start of the movie, that withdrawn nerdy girl chic appeals to me. Oh yeah, another two nickels fact, this is a 1996 horror motion picture with Neve Campbell and Skeet Ulrich in it. That's really fucking weird! All that rambling aside, let's talk about the actual magic of the movie. Magic and witchcraft are real, tangible things that a group can harness the power of by coming together to form a circle. With perfect love and trust, they say, as they all give each other kisses while making their pact. That'd be a nice sentiment, the power of magic bringing four outcasts together in displays of material social progress. It's a lovely story. Unfortunately this is not what the movie is about.

No, to me this is a film about the dangers of abusing the power of witchcraft. The four girls use it for vanity, selfishness, hexing, and eventually murder. Love spell the stupid jock who lied about you putting out. Make that racist rich girl's hair fall out. Remove your traumatic scars so you can feel pretty again. Gain the power of your patron, and use it to punish all who have wronged you. So hey, it turns out that old adage about absolute power corrupting definitely applies when you give it to a bunch of social outcasts. This is not using magic to come to mutual understanding and interconnectivity. It's about being pushed into a locker and then using your new magic to push your bullies into lockers harder while you cackle about it. Invoking the spirit to kill your stepdad, trick the guy you like into fucking you, and then killing him when he's mad about it. It's bad shit! All the negativity of the human soul, especially the teenage girl human soul, let loose upon the world. Vanity, jealously, revenge, murder. The three witchy girls at the end going up against Sarah are just lost in the sauce of their own power, and it takes a somewhat selfless invocation of the spirit to set things right. 

The climax of the movie is one I remember well, especially the fake glamour about Sarah's parent's plane crashing. That stuck with me. What sticks with me now is the catharsis of the ending, of using the power of magic to put right what was being put wrong: to show these girls the error of their ways, and that such things come back upon you threefold. Magic has rules and it has its price, and the price for misusing it is being cut off from the divine, or driven mad by your own refusal to let go. Only Sarah gets to keep the power at the end, as it's only she who understands the responsible use of it; to not use it to settle petty high school shit and kill everyone you don't like, but to accept it as a part of yourself, learn and grow, and just vibe.

I'm no witch, but I can work with that. Blessed be.