Coming off of the horror boom of the 1980’s, the 1990’s are often spoke of as a time of serious downticks in horror cinema. A few gems were unearthed during this decade. 1996’s “The Craft,” was one of them. A modern tale of a witch coven, the film boasted strong performances, a smart concise script, and fantastic set pieces. “The Craft” went on to gain a feverish cult following and fans clamored for a sequel for decades. In 2018 Blumhouse acquired the rights and went to work on an updated sequel.
Lily and her mother Helen have picked up and moved to unite with Helen’s new found love Adam and his three sons. Exacerbating all of the new changes, Lily’s first day at her new school turns bloody awful. Coming to her rescue, three fellow school outcast, Tabby, Lourdes and Frankie befriend Lily and sense that she is the missing fourth link to their hodgepodge coven. With her new friends, Lily starts to come to terms with her dark past and hidden powers. The quartet begin simply enough by practicing their new found power and evolve quickly into body throwing, time stopping, cast spelling dangerous witches. With her new found gifts, Lily turns a bully into her love pet and begins to suspect something sinister arising around Adam and his line of work. After a tragedy strikes in course from the coven, the four begin to question their powers and must decide to disband or unit to fight off an incoming malevolent force.
It was always going to be a tall task to recreate the magic of the original film but “The Craft: Legacy,” fails in every department. To be fair, the performances were professional, there is only so much an actor can do with the product they are presented. First, the CGI in the film frails and fails in comparison to the original. Glowing orbs around the young witches and glow in the dark sparkles and bubbles represent more of a video game from twenty years earlier than a big budgeted film. The original film had terrific practical effects, a skin transformation and hairball from hell topping the feature. Second, the entire written plot and characterization is so poor, a horror fan will be more intrigued by a decent Hallmark channel thriller. While the original film had depth and backstory to all four witches, this take centers solely on Lily, providing a one-dimensional lazy story. The audience will find it hard to not only develop any emotional connection to the coven, but also show any empathy for the lead, as she is continuously written as weak and boring. Third, a film centering around a coven of young witches should at a minimal have at least half of the story revolving around the lore of the religion and the bulk of the plot showing the use of it. “Legacy,” once again takes a lazy and boring approach, with a few body throws, head bumps, and a silly montage showing the powers of the four. “The Craft: Legacy” is one very unoriginal, choppy, snooze fest. A massive drop of the ball from director/writer Zoe Lister-Jones. The character Adam held tremendous potential as a fantastic sub-plot, but Lister-Jones took the sloppy way out and just shows him as an arrogant, mean spirited, shady figure conducting circle-jerks with his followers. A horrific trend is popping up from Blumhouse. While the original “Black Christmas,” and “The Craft,” presented strong confident female leads, the updated versions are a horrid regurgitation of stereotypical female heroines, thus completely diminishing the entire message of female strength completely. Until theatres completely re-open we will not know financially if the Horror Nation will continue to give this production house chance after chance or have the fright fans grown tired of these propaganda films.
Scream Score: 2/10
