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Starring: Neve Campbell, Fairuza Balk, Skeet Ulrich, Robin Tunney, Rachel True
Director: Andrew Fleming
Released by Columbia Pictures
If there's a hit movie with a mainly seasoned cast then you can be certain some Hollywood hotshot will want to remake it with younger stars.
Alas, while The Godfather spawned such forgettable fodder as Mobsters, nine years after Jack Nicholson's hit film The Witches of Eastwick wove its Faustian tale, there came an engaging teen version, perhaps best labelled The Bitches of Eastwick.
The Craft is your everyday tale of high school kids seeking vengeance on their merciless oppressors - Carrie multiplied by four if you like.
It was released in November 1996, a time when Hollywood seemed to have lost its way. After the box office shattering success of Independence Day and Mission: Impossible, the die-hard movie fan had to endure a wave of disappointing Winter movies - the cinematic equivalent of rooting through a box of hard centres after all the good chocs have been snapped up.
While The Fan, Chain Reaction and The Island of Dr Moreau all tanked at the box office, by default The Craft proved to be one of the best films of that month.
Robin Tunney - later to play Old Nic's love interest in End of Days - is the new girl, Sarah, while other familiar faces include wide-eyed Fairuza Balk - so good in American History X - and Scream's Neve Campbell. Rochelle (Rachel True) completes the coven.
As with many a cliched Hollywood chiller, that old standby, the gothic crumbling house, is used to set the scene.
This is Sarah's new home, the perfect des res - if you're a fan of the Rocky Horror Show. Why the heroine and her family want to move into such an obvious spooky house is anyone's guess but at least you know you aren't going to be disappointed when things start going bump in the night.
Made for a relatively cheap $15million, The Craft proved to be a modest success. It didn't shatter box office records or leave millions of teens queuing round the block, but by the time it was released on video, the adventures of Sarah and her spooky mates found something of a cult following.
Working with a quartet of up-and-coming actresses proved to be far from taxing for director Andrew Fleming.
No huge egos to cater for and none of those mega star tantrums which can befall many a movie set. However, some of the unbilled stars proved to be less than accommodating.
Spare a thought for animal wrangler Boone Narr who had to unleash an army of creepy crawlies. At the time he was quite proud of the fact he was dealing with "the largest quantity of reptiles that will be seen on screen in years."
Boone has been in the business for nearly 30 years, having honed his talents on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - as well as a hundred or so other credits.
For this movie, he imported three thousand snakes including: pythons, boas, water snakes, garter snakes, rat snakes, a 10 foot long Amazon constrictor, and rare albino snakes.
The Craft's menagerie also included parrots, lizards, 50 large rats, dozens of tarantulas, 500 monarch butterflies, 2000 lady birds, 3000 maggots, 10,000 German cockroaches and giant, hissing Madagascar cockroaches, 15,000 mealy worms and 20,000 sterile flies.
It would be enough to give even Rolf Harris nightmares.
With sex appeal and enough spills and thrills to last the duration this spooky thriller may lack the wit of similar TV smash Buffy the Vampire Slayer but it perks up most dull nights a treat. ends
© 2000 Roger Crow
