Sunday 27 January 2013

The Craft


The craft is a very unusual and intrepid take on a high school drama/ coming of age film, but although its fictionally based it still surprisingly manages to detain some familiarity with modern high school life, even with it being more then 10 years old.  Strangely I found the narrative of this film to be a lot like “Mean Girls” but obviously with a fictional subtext and a much darker ending. Retrospectively I found this film is very smart in the way it portrays different social groups with different characters and the way they react given the supernatural context. Obviously this familiarity doesn’t really apply to British high school life but might still have some relevance in American high school life, which not only says a lot about this film but a lot about high schools.

The story bases itself around Sarah; a newcomer to a Catholic High school who’s moved with her father to Los Angeles, but soon falls into the wrong crowd and when rumours about her start to stir Sarah decides to seek friendship in a strange group of girls. When Sarah realises they’re withes she decides to join them but they all underestimate Sarah’s power and soon after face fatal consequences for it.

I like this film for its originality in genre mix and narrative, although at points I felt disappointed with the narrative/character arks chosen for individuals but also felt that the narrative for some characters wasn’t in depth enough for the narrative to flow properly. But what they attempted to do with this film was incredibly smart and gutsy.

I would give this film 3.5 stars; for its originality, good narrative and interesting and smart interpretation of teenage life.

Joel Hooper






1 comment:

  1. Yeah i agree! I would have been nice if the other girls were explored more.

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