The Craft: Legacy

The Craft: Legacy is a smart, edgy, wickedly funny and wild ride from the talented writer-director Zoe Lister-Jones.

Lister-Jones is clearly focused on character, and less so on genre conventions, so “The Craft: Legacy” could turn off some of the first movie’s fan base while simultaneously bringing new fans into the fold. As far as franchise revivals go, this one’s got the right elements.

Though this horror sequel about a coven of teen witches wastes time on delivering scares instead of developing character, the feminist fire of filmmaker Zoe Lister-Jones sees to it that there’s more here than a Halloween throwaway.

Legacy wears its heart on its sleeve and you can feel the love for the source material. There’s an endearing and timely focus on building community, which is foundational to real witchcraft, and the message that our differences are what make us strong is one worth repeating at every opportunity. Unfortunately, there are key ingredients missing in the cauldron, and the film feels stilted by its narrative arc.

Lister-Jones has a lot of good ideas that are given short shrift in this film. The potency of their implications is sapped by, among other things, the film’s seemingly hyper-conscious worry that it might put a foot wrong, especially within such a limited run time. Which may actually be The Craft: Legacy’s most modern dimension: it probably should have been a Netflix series.

They’re progressive, positive young women, and they’re tragically boring, which is less the fault of their woke makeover than the film’s conviction that it’s incompatible with conflict or distinct personalities.

Stripping it of its cruelty, sense of grievance and teen-impulsive passion for violent revenge rubs off too much of what made the first film work from this “sequel.” And no cameo from the first film can atone for that.

Amazing film, even better then the first one!! The writer and director actually made it about sisterhood and empowerment for so many people throughout the movie!! Loved it

Just watched it. Talented actors, very interesting characters that I wanted to delve deeper into, and a very interesting story. However, the pacing was way off, some things happened too fast, and the characters were not well developed. It feels like a chunk of the film is missing. The final battle needed less bad CGI as well. This could have been a great movie, but it feels like they made a portion of it and stopped. I don't like social justice warrior stuff and anti-male agenda, but the storyline worked.

Although the 96 film is nothing out of the ordinary, I understand the affection that many people have for it and the cult it has grown over the years. I never would have thought it needed a sequel and it never did, but here we are 24 years later. To tell you the truth, I don't know what this film is trying to say or show. The Craft: Legacy, it's not about exploring anything new, if at all commercially exploiting feminism and criticizing the patriarchy. This is a film that obviously plays it safe, way too safe, and it never intends to risk anything, and I find it ridiculous - regardless of the movie rating rules - that it has such a tame attitude, because for our time, this film should've been decidedly more cheeky and direct. And that ending. What can I say? If they're seriously considering a third one, they should cancel that idea immediately.

Richard Roeper gives this an 88 LOL. SO much for those two actually having standards! This movie was actually tolerable until approximately half way through when the LGBQT and feminist crap and all the politics started showing up. They literally made the main guy character into a complete tool. It became pretty much unwatchable at this point. The politics in this film completely destroys it.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]