The Craft: Legacy (2020)

Directed by: Zoe Lister-Jones | 95 minutes | thriller | Actors: Cailee Spaeny, Zoey Luna, Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone, David Duchovny, Michelle Monaghan, Nicholas Galitzine, Julian Grey, Charles Vandervaart, Donald MacLean Jr., Fairuza Balk, Hannah Gordon, Chris Tomassetti, Kris Siddiqi, James Madge, Victor chiu

‘The Craft: Legacy’ is more or less the successor to ‘The Craft’, a film that was quite well received in 1996 and still stands as a solid and successful cross-pollination of thriller, horror and teen drama. 24 years after the first film, ‘The Craft: Legacy’ also centers on three teenage witches who try to take their magical powers to the next level. That doesn’t work really well, until Lily appears on the scene and joins their witch circle. The newcomer, who has moved to live with her mother’s boyfriend, is the missing element that makes the puzzle pieces fall into place.

‘The Craft: Legacy’ thus follows the same narrative pattern as its most charming predecessor. Unfortunately, the effect is much less. While the newly discovered powers in the first film ensure that the dark side of circuit leader Nancy comes to full maturity and the film skilfully works towards an ultimate showdown between the good-natured witch and mentally derailed villain, ‘The Craft: Legacy’ remains well-behaved and right. Almost nothing happens for over an hour.

The film tries to play with the concept of degrees of power. This begins with the stopping of time and ends with metamorphosis, apparently a superpower reserved only for the strongest and most experienced witches. Unfortunately, little is done with this in itself interesting theme. The teenage witches mainly use their powers to play fairly harmless mischief, while the shapeshifting, the pinnacle of witch magic according to the story, ultimately only leads to a very ugly and cheap CGI scene.

In addition, ‘The Craft: Legacy’ tries to be very modern as well. Transgenders and bisexuality and homosexuality are regularly alluded to, but those revelations quickly bleed to death and have little added value to the story. The characterization of the four main characters is also a problem. While the witches in the original convinced both in behavior and appearance as purebred misfits, three of the four ‘eccentrics’ in ‘The Craft: Legacy’ seem to have walked right out of a music video of a hip pop star. In addition, the film contains quite a few loose story ends that are barely worked out. Skilled veterans like David ‘Fox Mulder’ Duchovny and Michelle Monaghan play acceptable roles, but can’t really take this picture to the next level.

What remains is a film that is somewhere between a watery, unfrightening and cheap version of the original and a cross-fertilization in feature film form of the TV series ‘Charmed’ and ‘The Vampire Diaries’. More teen drama than horror film, but not too successful on either side. Want to see a good witch movie? Then put on the original and ignore this second episode.