Шеберлік: Қарқынды жасөсперімдер мен қара магия әлемі

1996 film by Andrew Fleming

the religion sometimes known as The Craft

The Craft is a 1996 American teen supernatural horror film directed by Andrew Fleming from a screenplay by Peter Filardi and Fleming and a story by Filardi. The film stars Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, and Rachel True. It follows four outcast teenage girls at a Los Angeles parochial high school who pursue witchcraft for their own gain and subsequently experience negative repercussions. The Craft was theatrically released in the United States on May 3, 1996, by Columbia Pictures. It was a surprise hit, earning $6.7 million in its opening weekend and $55.6 million worldwide, against a budget of $15 million. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the film's cast (especially Balk), direction, feminist messaging, and production values, but criticized its writing for succumbing to horror film clichés. The Craft was nominated for the Saturn Awards for Best Horror Film and for Best Supporting Actress (Balk), and won the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight (Balk and Tunney). In the years since its release, the film has gained a cult following. A sequel, The Craft: Legacy, was released on October 28, 2020.

Sarah Bailey, a troubled teenage girl with unusual abilities, has just moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles with her father and stepmother. At her new school, she forms a friendship with a group of girls who are outcasts for various reasons and are rumored to be witches. Bonnie Harper bears burn scars from an auto accident, Nancy Downs lives in a trailer with her mother and abusive stepfather, and Rochelle Zimmerman is a black student who is subjected to racist bullying by a gang of white girls. The girls worship a powerful earth deity they call "Manon". Popular jock Chris Hooker shows interest in Sarah, which she reciprocates. When Bonnie observes Sarah levitating a pencil in class, she and the other outcast girls are convinced that she can complete their coven as "the fourth", completing an air water earth fire circle and making them all powerful. As the girls walk home from school, Sarah is harassed by a vagrant, who had earlier tried to scare her with a snake when she moved into her new home. When the vagrant chases after Sarah, he is immediately hit by a car. The girls believe their combined will caused it to happen, which strengthens their bond. It is also revealed that Sarah once attempted suicide. After a date with Chris, Sarah is upset that he spread a false rumor that they had sex and she was terrible in bed. When Sarah confronts him, he treats her disrespectfully in front of his friends. Sarah casts a love spell on him. Rochelle then casts a revenge spell on racist bully Laura Lizzie. Bonnie casts a spell for beauty, and Nancy a spell for power. The spells are successful: Chris becomes infatuated with Sarah, Bonnie's scars on her back miraculously heal. Rochelle's bully, Laura, begins losing her hair. Nancy causes her stepfather to have a fatal heart attack, enabling her and her mother to cash in on his life insurance policy and move into a luxurious high rise apartment. Nancy becomes power hungry and encourages the others to join her in a rite called "Invocation of the Spirit," despite being warned against the spell by Lirio, the owner of a local occult shop and practicing witch. Upon completion of the spell, Nancy is struck by lightning. The following morning, the other girls see Nancy walking on water, with beached sharks and other dead animals littering the shore. In the days that follow, Nancy becomes increasingly devoid of empathy and engages in risky behavior that endangers her life and those of others. The spells the girls cast eventually lead to negative consequences, as Bonnie becomes aggressively narcissistic, Rochelle finds Laura traumatized by her baldness and sobbing hysterically, and the obsessed Chris attempts to rape Sarah after she rejects his continual advances. In supposed retaliation, Nancy uses a glamour spell to make herself look like Sarah and attempts to fool Chris into having sex with her at a party. She is interrupted by the real Sarah, who pleads with Nancy to leave with her, but it becomes obvious that Nancy's desire to control Chris is mixed with unrequited feelings. Upset at being fooled, Chris accuses Nancy of jealousy, angering her. She uses her power to kill Chris by throwing him out of a window. Sarah attempts a binding spell to prevent Nancy from doing more harm, but it does not work and the coven turns on Sarah. Sarah seeks out Lirio, but changes her mind and leaves before Lirio can offer help. The trio invades Sarah's dreams, torment her with visions of swarms of scorpions, snakes, rats, and insects, and make her believe that her family has died in a plane crash. The coven then tries to induce Sarah to commit suicide, and Nancy slashes Sarah's wrists herself. Although initially terrified, Sarah successfully invokes the spirit and is able to heal herself and fight back. She scares off Bonnie and Rochelle by showing them glamours in a mirror of Bonnie with her face scarred and Rochelle losing her hair like Laura. Sarah then defeats Nancy and binds her, preventing her from causing harm forever. Bonnie and Rochelle, finding their powers gone, visit Sarah to attempt reconciliation, only to find that she wants nothing to do with them and that Manon took their powers because they abused them. They scornfully mutter that Sarah must have lost her powers too. Sarah then conjures a lightning storm and makes a tree branch nearly crush them. She warns them to be careful not to end up like Nancy, who has been committed to a psychiatric hospital, delusional and her powers bound, strapped to a bed as she desperately insists she can fly.

The concept for The Craft came from a collaboration between producer Douglas Wick, who wanted to create a film about the high school experience blended with witchcraft, and screenwriter Peter Filardi, who extensively researched the topic and wrote the initial draft. The makeup effects were designed and created by Tony Gardner and his special effects company Alterian, Inc., which also created the beached sharks for the film.

The Craft: Music from the Motion Picture was released on April 30, 1996, by Columbia Records on CD and cassette, one month before the film's official theatrical release in the United States. The soundtrack contains a collection of songs, to suit the theme of the movie, from various artists including Heather Nova, Letters to Cleo, and Spacehog. Nova's version of "I Have the Touch", originally performed by Peter Gabriel, which featured during the end credits of the film, was exclusively included on the soundtrack, and is not available as a single, or on any of Nova's albums, nor does she perform the song in concert. The tracks in film, titled "Sick Child", "Fallin'" and "Scorn", performed by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Connie Francis and Portishead, respectively, were omitted from the soundtrack due to copyright issues from their record labels. However, they were only included in the film as part of an arrangement with PolyGram Film & Television Licensing. An uncredited bonus track, "Bells, Books, and Candles", composed by Graeme Revell for the film's score, was included on the soundtrack. A follow up soundtrack, The Original Motion Picture Score, was released on June 18, 1996, from Varèse Sarabande, and contained the film's score which was entirely composed and produced by Graeme Revell.

The Craft was theatrically released in the United States on May 3, 1996, by Columbia Pictures.

The film was released on VHS and DVD on July 22, 1997, and rereleased on a special edition DVD on September 12, 2000. The film debuted on the Blu ray format for the first time on October 13, 2009. The film was given a special collector's edition on March 12, 2019, by Shout Factory. Though the new collection of special features was praised, the disc received negative reviews for not remastering the image and simply porting over the old scan from the 2009 disc. The film was re released by Shout Factory on 4K UHD on May 17, 2022, for the film's 25th Anniversary. The film was given a fresh new 4K scan from the original camera negative.

The film opened at number one at the North American box office, making US$6,710,995. The movie was a sleeper hit, which Columbia attributed to teenagers and young women, who responded to its themes. According to Box Office Mojo, The Craft is the 11th highest grossing film since 1980 dealing with the genre of witches.

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 57% approval rating based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The site's consensus reads: "The Crafts campy magic often overrides the feminist message at the film's core, but its appealing cast and postmodern perspective still cast a sporadic spell". Emanuel Levy of Variety described it as "a neatly crafted film that begins most promisingly as a black comedy a la Heathers, but gradually succumbs to its tricky machinery of special effects". Roger Ebert also felt the film was mired in excessive special effects, but praised the performances of the four leads, as did Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle. Stephen Holden of The New York Times echoed other reviews, praising the first half of the film as a "celebration of adolescent nonconformity and female independence", but criticized the last half as a "heavy handed sermon about karma" with "garish" special effects. Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called it "a brew of Hawthorne, Heathers and Hollywood hocus pocus" that was nonetheless a "bubbling mess of a movie" that "leaves us more bothered than bewitched". The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film and Fairuza Balk for Best Supporting Actress. Balk and Tunney also won the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight.

The film is often labeled a "cult classic" and has acquired a loyal fan base and social media presence. In 2013, three of the main actresses, with the exception of Fairuza Balk, reunited for a special Halloween screening of the film at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

A straight to DVD sequel was in the works, but it was terminated. In May 2016, Sony Pictures announced that a sequel of The Craft was currently in development and it would be written and directed by Leigh Janiak. The announcement of the sequel spawned negative reactions from fans of the original film. In March 2019, it was announced that the development of the sequel had been taken over by Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Productions company, and it was also announced that the film would be distributed by Columbia Pictures. Zoe Lister Jones signed on to write the script and direct the film with filming scheduled to begin in July 2019. Daniel Casey later joined the production as screenwriter. In June 2019, Cailee Spaeny was cast as one of the leads. In September 2019, Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone and Zoey Luna were cast for the remaining three lead roles. In October 2019, David Duchovny joined the cast in an undisclosed role. Later, Michelle Monaghan joined the film in an undisclosed role. Two more casting announcements were made in October 2019, also in undisclosed roles, Nicholas Galitzine and Julian Grey. Filming began on October 22, 2019. In late September 2020, Sony released an official trailer and announced that instead of a theatrical release, the film would be released on demand everywhere on October 28, 2020.