For some reason, The Craft has been playing an awful lot on cable. The “some reason” being, of course, that The Craft is awesome, and should be viewed regularly by everybody.
The Craft came out in 1996, one year after Clueless. And while it also had lots of 1) 90s slang, 2) thigh highs and mini pleated skirts, and 3) impossibly nice hair, it was basically the anti-Clueless, for the not-rich weird girls who didn’t care (or pretended they didn’t care) about being popular. The dramatic theater geek types who hung out on the quad, plotting vengeful justice and making Elton’s stupid Cranberries CD levitate.
It was sleeper hit, coming out of marketing nowhere to snag the #1 spot at the box office and would earn over $55 million worldwide, doing especially well on VHS because it became required viewing at every post 1996 sleepover EVER. It only cost $15 million to make, though I couldn’t find a breakdown of how many millions were blown on this (admittedly pretty awful) special effect:
So let’s do a quick career inventory of the cast, shall we?
ROBIN TUNNEY: Sarah
Sigh. It’s so HARD being a conventionally beautiful outsider who is inexplicably rejected by everyone!
Before The Craft, Robin Tunney was best known for Empire Records and Encino Man. (TRIVIA: Since she really did shave her head in 1995′s Empire Records, she had to wear a wig for The Craft. THE HAIR IS A LIE. IT’S JUST A LACE-FRONT GLAMOUR.) She did End of Days with AHHHNOLD in 1999 and a bunch of movies I’ve never seen or heard of, but she carried enough goodwill from The Craft to get me to watch Prison Break in 2005. Her character spent one season being spectacularly dumb before being mercifully killed off, and then Lori from The Walking Dead and Tara’s Mom from True Blood spent the second season being spectacularly dumb. (Seriously, I even wrote about it, back when this very website was still in fetal form.)
She’s currently back on TV, on The Mentalist. She has not aged a single goddamn day.
BECAUSE SHE’S A WITCH.
NEVE CAMPBELL: Bonnie
Neve was already kind of a big deal by the time she played Bonnie, the girl who let her scars stand in her way of True Sluttiness and Washing Her Hair, I Guess, since she was on Party of Five and winning awards for nagging Bailey, ignoring Owen (WHAT BABY?) and squinting a lot.
She (obviously) went on to star in Scream and a lot of other Screams. (Confidential to all the people who assured me that Scream 4 was actually good and worth watching: NO, THAT MOVIE WAS STUPID AND NOT EVEN FUN STUPID.) She was also in that movie about Studio 54 that was not very good at all. And not really a whole lot else, though she did make some headlines for appearing topless in I Really Hate My Job. I mention that solely to get some of that sweet “Neve Campbell topless” SEO hotness for this post, yes.
ALSO A NON-AGING WITCH.
(Also in The Craft: Breckin Meyer, AKA Travis from Clueless. He also appeared in Party of Five and 54 with Neve. Hollywood was small in the 1990s!)
RACHEL TRUE: Rochelle
Before playing the beautiful-but-bullied Rochelle, Rachel True already had the most 1990s of IMDB pages EVER, with appearances on The Cosby Show, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, Beverly Hills 90210, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Family Matters. Not much changed for her after The Craft: small parts and TV guest appearances, mostly. She played Dave Chappelle’s girlfriend in Half Baked and starred in a UPN show called Half & Half that aired from 2002 to 2006. She has a blog that hasn’t been updated since 2011 (looks like she had a stalker, which: booooo!) but still has a haunted embedded music player, auto-playing to this day. But you can follow her on Twitter, and even though the account is unverified you know it’s actually her because SHE STILL LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME. (WITCH!!!!)
According to Wikipedia, she and Neve Campbell became IRL BFFs while filming The Craft and maintain the friendship to this day.
CHRISTINE TAYLOR: Laura Lizzie
Do we really need to cover this one?
Brady Bunch, Wedding Singer, Zoolander, Sally Sitwell, Mrs. Ben Stiller, etc. I saw them once together at the DC premiere of the Night at the Museum sequel. She looked annoyed about something, or maybe everything.
But she looked a lot better than this, so that’s a win.
SKEET ULRICH: Chris
Skeet was 26 years old when he appeared in The Craft, and Scream came out that same year. I kind of wish he and Neve Campbell could get a TV show together where they continue to play angsty damaged teenagers who solve mysteries and go on vengeful rampages and shit. Maybe get Breckin Meyer in there too. Skeet also appeared in As Good As It Gets and lots of TV: Miracles, Jericho, Law & Order: Los Angeles, Like Regular Law & Order, Only Los Angelesier. He was charged last month with contempt for not paying child support. He has twins and his ex-wife claims he owes over $284,000 in back child support payments.
Maybe the royalties from extra airings of The Craft will help?
FAIRUZA BALK: Nancy
Yes, I saved my favorite for last. Oh, Nancy, you crazy eyelinered psycho. NO ONE plays unhinged weirdos like Fairuza, and I personally think it is a SHAME and an INJUSTICE and a TRAVESTY that Ryan Murphy hasn’t signed her up for American Horror Story yet. Someone needs to make that happen.
Prior to The Craft, Fairuza appeared in the nightmare-inducing, childhood-scarring Return to Oz. She was also in The Worst Witch and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Post-Craft, she was in The Island of Dr. Moreau, American History X (essentially playing Nancy again, only RAYCESS), and The Waterboy. I remember getting absolutely LIVID at The Sopranos for teasing Fairuza as the FBI plant who would befriend Adriana only to recast her with someone totally boring and non-Fairuza.
Fairuza currently makes and sells candles made with beeswax from Neil Gaiman’s bees. Why? Because awesome, that’s why. You can also follow her on Twitter.
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