Zoe Lister-Jones and Blumhouse’s The Craft: Legacy is so concerned with being empowering and non-problematic that it comes off as a toothless teen fantasy for kids too young for The Craft.
First, the good news. Columbia’s The Craft: Legacy (debuting today on PVOD), technically a sequel to, but more or a “reimagining” of the 1996 cult favorite, is unquestionably different from its ghoulish predecessor. It doesn’t remotely tell the same story or follow the same plot beats as The Craft. It also doesn’t do that thing that movies like The Craft, Bad Hair and Jem and the Holograms do, in that it doesn’t condemn, punish and penalize women for seeking and attaining power in an inherently patriarchal society. The bad news is that this new Blumhouse incarnation is a CleanFlix version of the story. Writer/director Zoe Lister-Jones (whose previous movie, Band-Aid, was a thoughtful charmer) is so concerned with being empowering and progressive that it neuters any and all menace, danger and intrigue from its story and its characters.
The picture opens with three teen girls (Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone and Zoey Luna) trying to do magic but lacking a fourth member. The film doesn’t bother to tease the mere idea of witchcraft, which makes sense since I’d imagine audiences already know “light as a feather, stiff as a board” and have probably seen The Craft. Cailee Spaeny is the new kid in school, having moved with her mom Helen (Michelle Monaghan) to live with Adam (David Duchovny) and his three sons. Adam is a shrink and author focusing on men reclaiming masculinity, and the notion of going from a feminine Gilmore Girls existence to a comparatively masculine upbringing becomes the film’s core focus. The film’s best scene is when Adam sincerely apologizes for coming down hard on Lily for a standard teen transgression.
As for the other teen witches, they are almost entirely devoid of contextual personality. Since the film almost entirely focuses on Lily and her adjustment to the new family unit, Tabby, Lourdes and Frankie quickly become glorified background players. While The Craft Legacy begins with the kids meeting up and bonding over spells, most of their magic-making is confined to a single “empowering” montage. It’s also so afraid of demonizing these teen witches or rendering them even momentarily un-woke that they come off as obnoxiously wholesome moral scolds. There’s no real conflict until the very end of the movie, and the loose connections to its predecessor feel retroactively tacked on. In a skewed way, and unlike (for example) Blockers, Booksmart, Good Boys and Black Christmas, The Craft Legacy makes empowerment and modern progressiveness look embarrassingly uncool.
I like the notion of a spell making a teen jock’s masculinity less conventionally toxic, but that subplot (the only one that feels dangerous) ends just as it’s becoming interesting. It’s nice to see a movie where four teen girls use their magic powers to deal with an outside menace instead of turning on each other. However, the film seemingly designed to earn plaudits for what’s not in it versus what is. The original may have been the softest R-rated movie this side of The King’s Speech, but this bland and boring sequel could easily play on TV or an airplane sans a single edit. The Craft is no classic, but I get why it was popular with young girls in the mid-1990’s. The Craft Legacy comes off as a de-fanged, parent-approved variation.
Good intentions notwithstanding, The Craft: Legacy feels like one of the Walt Disney
