Liveblogging the '90s: Real-Time Review of 'The Craft'

By Courtney Enlow | Liveblogging the 90s | May 30, 2014 |

By Courtney Enlow | Liveblogging the 90s | May 30, 2014 |

We have such a special movie today. It is about the bonds of sisterhood kind of not really because they all turn on the nice one BUT WHATEVER THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF ANY OF THIS BECAUSE THE POINT IS WITCHES AND FANTASTIC ‘90S MINISKIRTS.

0:00:30 - I cannot stress how badly I wanted to be a witch when I was younger / when I just typed this sentence just now. Circa the time this movie came out, my room was filled with celestial glow candles, crystal balls and a purple glass pyramid that I would put wishes into and they all pretty much came true that’s why I’m a famous actress right now.

0:01:39 - The credits are clouds. So that’s swell. Also, Sarah (Robin Tunney) is on a plane with her dad and step-mom and if I recall this is the first and last time we ever see the step-mom in the face. She only very barely exists.

0:02:54 - It actually angers me how underrated and underused Robin Tunney is. She should have been HUGE. She should have at least two Oscar nods. Hollywood is a tricky bitch.

0:03:36 - I love Sarah’s house. Even though it has roof damage and occasional crazed homeless men and snakes, I love it.

0:04:49 - I thought Robin Tunney’s wig would be easier to spot in my old age, but it’s not. It’s a top notch damn wig, “RuPaul’s Drag Race” styles. She was still bald from Empire Records and being Sinead O’Rebellion.

0:05:26 - “I can’t stay home and watch daytime TV for the rest of my life.” Um, I legit could. If that paid, I could and would. That’s the actual literal dream.

0:05:35 - “Jenny will pick you up.” THE STEP-MOM IS JENNY. I did not remember that she had a name.

0:05:37 - “I’ll walk.” THE STEP-MOM JENNY IS NOT ALLOWED ANOTHER SCENE.

0:06:12 - Remember when Skeet Ulrich happened? Like, and how he was a thing and he happened and that took place? Good times, guys.

0:06:14 - Honestly, everyone in this cast deserved much better. Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, Rachel True, fuckin’ Breckin Meyer? All goddamn gold.

0:06:37 - There are so many barrettes in this scene. Plastic balls, plastic flowers, ALL THE BARRETTES.

0:06:39 - “Four would make a circle.” No, four wouldn’t make a circle, Rochelle; it would make a damn square. Read a real non-magic book for a quick minute then talk shapes again.

0:08:21 - Sarah is making her pencil float and spin on its tip. You cannot imagine how many times I tried this in class. I failed. I am not a natural witch.

0:09:21 - Bonnie is all “I found our super new best friend to the max” until Sarah actually walks up then she and everyone else is all:

Because high school.

0:09:34 - It’s a thing that goes on for a while in this movie. Nancy wants to be a super fancy witch, but doesn’t want a fourth witch to do witch stuff.

0:10:08 - I want to point out that we are in a Catholic school with uniforms and I want us all to remember this when the girls start dressing awesome. They look fab but would definitely be getting detention every day. I got detention once because my shirt corner came untucked.

0:11:19 - Guys in movies are always like “you can totes come watch me at football practice” which is literally the most boring thing I can possibly ever imagine doing ever. Luckily it wasn’t an issue for me in high school because of how boys never asked me to come watc—*sobs of high school emotions*

0:11:57 - Nancy’s jacket is so pleather it’s like pleather-plus. PLUSTHER. It is made of garbage bags and shine.

0:12:35 - “He comes on to anything with tits, Sarah.” “Except me.” DAMMIT, BONNIE, NO ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT YOU. I bet she’s fun to hang out with.

0:13:35- Nancy while walking and not anywhere near close enough to see Sarah’s wrist: “What’s up with that?” Sarah: “I slit my wrists.” I MEAN OBVS, NANCY.

0:13:48 - Bonnie: “You even did it the right way.” Nancy: “Punk rock. Let’s go.” This is the least healthy, possibly most realistic teenage conversation this whole movie.

0:14:06 - The witch store is seriously the store I will one day open an exact replica of and I will have long flowing hair and stand there and wave my hand over candles and let teenagers steal shit. Guys. I will be the best witch. So good at witching.

0:15:53 - The book the shop lady gave Sarah is called The Craft and she said it “explains all” so I assume it’s the script.

0:15:59 - Fifty bucks for some stick candles and a book? Damn, no wonder the other girls steal.

0:16:11 - “When you are a natural witch, your power comes from within.” Aces, so give the girl back her fifty dollars, you charlatan!

0:16:29 - They were just in a really nice area and now they’re in the legit scary part of LA and it’s dark. They have apparently been walking for days and are now in Chino (I am to understand Chino is bad because I watched The O.C. in its entirety and pretty much know all about this kind of thing).

0:17:16 - So homeless snake crazy appears and is spouting all kinds of homeless snake crazy things and Sarah makes him get hit by a car with her mind. He even bounces off the tire! *air guitar solo of witchcraft*

0:17:43 - They run away (in case they’re in danger of being arrested for thought powers?) to a park with a random ripped up couch in it and then collapse onto that couch and now probably have six kinds of hepatitis and bird flu.

0:18:32 - Fun fact: Manon does not exist. Not in, like, a skeptical disbelieving way, but in a for real way. The director made up a deity so the invocation would not be reenacted.

0:20:24 - Sarah runs away from her new friends because of scary god-devil-football field deities and goes on a late-night rooftop date with Skeet Ulrich. ON A SCHOOL NIGHT EVEN. I mean, it seems to be the same night. It might not be. She’s wearing different clothes. That said, the other clothes had park couch on them so I would change, too.

0:21:28 - So Skeet kisses Sarah then jumps up all “come back to my house; no one’s there” which is not exactly the pants-moistening pillow talk he seems to think it is, then is all pouty sadface when she doesn’t. She apologizes. DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR NOT GIVING YOUR VAGINA AWAY LIKE A FUR COAT STORE SALE PAMPHLET, SARAH! (I am very much still in Twitter activism mode and I don’t know how to mute it).

0:21:39 - Chris apparently went to school and told everyone that Sarah did in fact give her vagina away like a fur coat store sale pamphlet and that she was “the lousiest lay he’s ever had.” Christine Taylor laughs at Sarah because she’s the bitch villain.

0:23:07 - “She’s gonna cry, and I’m gonna cry. We’re all gonna cry!” is one of my most quoted movie lines of all time. It’s seriously on the Ghostbusters/Sixteen Candles level of weekly usage.

0:23:16 - Laura is a racist piece of shit, but seriously Rochelle was up on that diving board for a long ass time.

0:24:01 - Ugh. Laura. That’s one of the most racist characters I’ve ever seen in a movie that wasn’t about racism and I’m really glad her hair falls out and her head gets scabby.

0:25:12 - Bonnie has lots of scars all over her back, presumably from a fire, so they do painful pointy gene therapy. In a deleted scene, we find out Sarah fixes her with sage and a backrub, which does seem cheaper.

0:27:00 - Nancy lives in a trailer with a drunk mom, an abusive step-dad and a basically literal garbage existence of a life. Everyone’s life is terrible.

0:28:02 - I don’t know if this scene is out of order, but in the scene where Nancy tells Sarah they’re going on a “field trip” Bonnie is wearing short sleeves and her hair is up and she’s laughing, so it must be after she’s fixed. Must be another field trip in a deleted scene. Or they forgot greasy hair and scars.

0:29:46 - Ugh, guys, why are we not wearing sundresses and practicing spells in a field like right now? I have meetings I can cancel if you all just want to meet in a damn field for some damn sundresses and spells.

0:31:12 - I drink of my sisters and ask for more drinks. #WinoWitch

0:32:42 - There were butterflies and now Skeet is in love with Sarah. And yes he is the one character I will refer to by the actor’s name because the actor’s name is Skeet and why wouldn’t I. He was a greasy JV Johnny Depp and I’m happy we had him.

0:33:13 - Also, more plastic barrettes. And a crocheted purse. I totally had several crocheted purses. Also, I accidentally spelled “crocheted” as “crotched” twice.

0:34:39 - Catholic school truth: you always wanted to sit by your crush in all-school Mass which was really weird now that I think about it.

0:35:23 - They’re having a sleepover watching “Wheel of Fortune.” These chicks live my life.

0:35:59 - Bonnie is wearing a short skirt and short sleeves again. The editor was drunk at the wheel. GET IT TOGETHER, EDITOR. Know your Neve Campbell wardrobe and hair timing!

0:36:43 - How many sleepovers did you spend attempting Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board? Because the answer is ALL OF THEM. We also played Candyman and sometimes the furnace would kick on during the third “candyman” and I wouldn’t sleep for several weeks.

0:38:04 - This has SUCH a good soundtrack. Letters to Cleo. Matthew Sweet. Siouxsie and the Banshees. Portishead. Sponge. A Love Spit Love cover of The Smiths. Juliana motherfucking Hatfield, PEOPLE. This is too much.

0:38:21 - None of this is dress code, ladies. Nipples are not dress code, ladies. (True fact: my high school’s dress code included the exact verbiage “No booty pants.”)

0:38:46 - Sarah pulls out Christine Taylor’s hair and Christine Taylor calls her a bitch because Christine Taylor does not care about black people but she does care about her luxurious locks.

0:39:45 - This is a very depressing topic, but I really hope and believe that dying in childbirth is way more common in movies than it is in real life, and that it is merely as statistically rare as it is narratively easy.

0:39:56 - Bonnie is asking Manon to take her scars and frankly she should have started praying to the editor because that guy works way faster than Manon.

0:40:45 - Laura’s hair is all “this bitch is racist as fuck, let’s jump ship, follicles” and Rochelle is all “her tragedy gives me diving skills” and the coach is all “whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?” and I’m all stuck in a loop and I’m all please call for help please help me.

0:41:57 - Bonnie’s scars are peeling off in the funnest way, like when you would put glue all over your hand and peel it off. My grandma used to use Merle Normal Miracol and I would paint it all over my face when I went to her house because it would dry and get all hard and then I would open my mouth and eyes really big and my face would shatter like creme brulee and then I would peel the rest off and that’s basically what’s happening on screen right now. Good times.

0:42:55 - Bonnie comes in all sassy and showing skin and having washed her hair and it would be more effective if the editor hadn’t fucked up and showed scenes with her hot and confident already.

0:44:28 - Holy shit the abusive step-dad is Carl the janitor from The Breakfast Club and I don’t know what to do with this discovery.

0:45:02 - Nancy kills abusive step-dad/Carl the janitor with her mind bullets. Sharp cut to her mom sitting there with roses on her lap and I like to think when you’re a cigarettey widow, roses just appear on your lap and cigarettes just appear in your mouth.

0:46:01 - The life insurance they get is $175,000 and they buy a huge condo in LA AND a Connie Francis jukebox? Like…no. Even in 1996 dollars that’s silly. No wonder their only furniture is a couch and a halogen lamp.

0:50:40 - No one wants to look outside and see a Skeet Ulrich in your cactus bed. It’s just no good. They should probably alert the realtor because I’m sure that was NOT on Zillow.

0:51:37 - Apparently you can’t undo a spell. It has to run its course. That seems like poor spell planning. Magic is finicky like that. It’s like when you eat three cupcakes and you can’t just uneat three cupcakes. They have to run their course. Science.

0:53:09 - Nancy is getting a whole bunch of shit and it’s $25. Sarah got charged $50. THIS IS SO WIG-IST.

0:53:45 - Guys, we could be on a beach with some birds and goldfish doing spells right damn now.

0:54:25 - Before Sarah tried to kill herself, she would hallucinate snakes and bugs. I’m sure this will not come back at any point later in the movie. I’m sure everything will be just fine.

0:55:46 - Hail to the guardians of the watchtowers of the beached whales that they explode all over crazyass Nancy. Hear us!

0:56:20 - According to IMDb, all kinds of wacky shit happened during the filming of this scene like lights going out and bats and stuff. And Fairuza Balk really walked on water. One of these is not real (but probably totally happened on the set of Return to Oz).

0:58:39 - My bad, they’re beached sharks. I don’t know if they explode. But they might. I only know what I know from Jaws which is a documentary shot in real-time.

0:59:25 - Nancy has a sweet red convertible now too. They have clearly already blown through all their dead dad money.

1:00:04 - Everyone’s a bitch now because their magic came true and Sarah is not OK with it because she’s the nice one. Also Nancy doesn’t give a fuck about traffic safety and that’s how we know she’s a loose cannon.

1:01:36 - Laura’s hair is all falling out and looks like Dan Aykroyd in Nothing But Trouble.

1:02:47 - Sarah finally gives into the begging of a be-love-spelled Skeet Ulrich and they go on a date and he gets rapist and it’s bad news but at least Nancy is going to straight up murder him soon.

1:05:15 - Avoiding attempted rape to say you know what’s a great movie? Niagara, Niagara. The whole movie is on YouTube. Watch it and lament what could have been for Robin Tunney’s career.

1:06:35 - Nancy goes to a party to see Skeet because it’s MURDER O’CLOCK. But first it’s TRY TO HAVE SEX WITH SKEET O’CLOCK and I can’t decide if that’s part of the plan or not. I can’t decide if she was jealous of Sarah and is trying to get him to want her, or if she was going to fake seduce him and then murder him. Either way, she turns into Sarah (glamour spell, guys!) and hooks up with Skeet until real Sarah comes in and then Nancy goes Nancy and screams him out the window. SCREAMING MIND BULLETS. Skeet will of course go on to have sex with and try to murder Neve Campbell later that same year. He had a busy time in 1996.

1:11:29 - “I didn’t want him to get hurt, I liked him. I think he was a good guy underneath it all.” UM, SARAH, NO HE WASN’T. He was the actual worst.

1:12:17 - So it’s time to put some damn gift wrap ribbon on Nancy and bind her from doing damn harm. It doesn’t work. Sarah is apparently only really good at magic when it’s integral to the plot. The others have gotten really good at it though and can read thoughts and appear in dreams and stuff. So…good for them?

1:14:36 - Bonnie really is a big bitch now and she used to be nice. The lesson of this movie is that if you’re horribly injured and it is damaging to your self-esteem, LEAVE IT. You’re better off that way than happy and confident.

1:15:59 - Flowy haired magic lady will save the day!

1:18:30 - Flowy haired magic lady does not save the day.

1:19:40 - The girls fake a plane crash and make Sarah think her dad and step-mom are dead. NO! NOT STEP-MOM! SHE WAS SO IMPORTANT TO THE MOVIE!

1:20:07 - These girls have gotten really goddamn good at magic. They are magicing shit up all over the damn place. SNAKE AND BUG MAGIC. BECAUSE FORESHADOWING.

1:21:21 - The last 20 minutes of this movie is what Indiana Jones sees in his nightmares. Also, toilet maggots. I can hold it together until rats start falling from the ceiling because FUCK THAT. One time in college, a rat almost ran over my foot on the train platform and I fucking turned around and went the fuck home and did not go to class that day, no thank you.

1:23:27 - Anyway, all this is to try and get Sarah to kill herself. Attempted suicide was big in ’90s movies. Attempted suicide was big in ’90s Robin Tunney movies, actually. We all have our wheelhouse.

1:24:12 - Fairuza Balk is in caps lock this whole movie. She’s how I hear myself in my head when I type the nonsense I type around here. BECAUSE I HAVE EMOTIONS.

1:25:34 - It is not the intended takeaway of this scene, but my goodness what a lovely fireplace in this bedroom. Turquoise tile on mustard-colored walls, I need to Pin this shit at once.

1:27:04 - Sarah does a magic trick ILLUSION that makes Bonnie and Rochelle think they have facial scars and baldy heads so they run away screaming because these bitches can dish but CANNOT take.

1:29:50 - Sarah has invoked Manon and is now all baller magic witch and she makes cockroaches come out of Nancy’s clothes and her fingers and hair turn to snakes and good times are had by all. Sarah’s all “I bind you Nancy from doing harm” and Nancy’s all MURDER POWERS OF FLIGHT! and they have an air battle into the hallway and MURDER DRESSER OF MURDER! tries to kill Sarah but it just leaves her clothes, meaning she must be somewhere magic and naked until she pops back into her outfit before Nancy can stab her in the turtleneck.

1:32:40 - Her stuff is EVERYWHERE. I hope you can use magic to clean.

1:34:00 - Everything is OK! The sky is blue! Flowers are blooming! Bonnie is wearing the ugliest effing coat I’ve ever seen.

1:36:14 - Nancy is in an institution. Where she can fly!

Thank you all for calling the corners with me! Go forth and beach some sharks in the name of your deity of choice!

Read previous ’90s liveblogs of Fear, The Crush, Titanic and Batman and Robin.