MOVIE REVIEW
“THE CRAFT: LEGACY”
Rated PG-13. On Apple TV, VUDU, Amazon, Google Play, etc.
Grade: C+
A weak follow-up to “The Craft,” the 1996 entry that developed a cult following over the years, “The Craft: Legacy” begins once again with the arrival of a new girl in town just in time to be inducted as the fourth member of a coven of young witches.
Lily (Cailee Spaeny, “Pacific Rim: Uprising”) is a tiny loner and a shutterbug with an old Polaroid camera, whose mother Eunice (Michele Monaghan) sings along to Alanis Morrissette with her in the car. Eunice is pulling a U-Haul and in the process of moving along with Lily into the home of Eunice’s strange, new boyfriend, Adam (David Duchovny), and his three biblical-named sons, Isaiah, Jacob and Abraham.
At school, “new girl” Lily has a menstrual accident of “Carrie” proportions on her first day in class, where the teacher was just reading Maya Angelou. She is aided and comforted in the girl’s bathroom by young witches Frankie (Gideon Adlon, “The Mustang”), Lourdes (Zoey Luna) and Tabby (Lovie Simone), who all seem to be under a dark curse of overacting. The four of them cast a spell on Timmy (Nicholas Galitzine), a big, handsome bully who humiliated Lily in front of everyone. The new “woke” Timmy talks altogether too much. Lily chants, rubs herself with Timmy’s sweatshirt and lights a candle. One of Adam’s sons keeps a snake in a glass cage and watches porn on his laptop. Just an ordinary blended family with teenagers in America, I say. When the young witches “hex” Timmy, they cast the spell using a bong as a cauldron. “Double, double, toil and trouble.” In one scene, Lily confesses that she doesn’t know her dad’s name. Does Pazuzu ring a bell, young lady?
Written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, who filmed the 2017 release “Band Aid” with an all-female crew, “The Craft: Legacy” repeats the beats of the 1996 original with a female-fronted plot ready for the woke generation. Adam is a strict patriarchal figure, who makes his living writing books about manhood and giving motivational speeches. He is a kind of high priest of toxic masculinity, and you know that is not good. He slowly reveals a darker side to Lily while her mother, Eunice, is off-screen doing heavens knows what. One of Eunice’s more memorable lines is, “I’ll get the chicken.” When Lily and Timmy make out, it’s awkward since he’s like a foot and a half taller than she is. A funeral gives the young ladies a chance to show off their Goth fashions. Lily stumbles upon a late-night meeting of the men of Adam’s house. Adam gives a pep talk while the listeners snap their fingers. You think they all might break into Bob Fosse-choreographed dance moves to the tune of “That Old Black Magic.” Duchovny seems trapped in an episode of “The X-Files” that they forgot to show on TV.
The new cast will not make anyone forget Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Rachel True of the original film. Some of the staging of this new entry is awkward. The ending sets up a probably inevitable second sequel. “That’s wack” is no “Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
(“The Craft: Legacy” contains crude and sexual language, drug use and profanity.)