The cocaine fueled Everything Is A Good Idea 1990s era of filmmaking produced some of the most insane garbage in the history of cinema. Every decade has its share of bad movies, except the 1990s. In the 90s, “bad” as a category was replaced with “Jesus Christ, how much blow did you DO?” Everything that came out in that decade is so goddamn weird that there is a movie for every niche, like The Craft, which fills the Teenage Occult Power Fantasy square on the 1990’s What The F*CK Is This Even? bingo card. The Craft is awesome in that so-bad-it’s-good way and it has a significant cult following, so I guess it’s inevitable that a remake would get greenlit, given that mainstream movies today are driven primarily by nostalgia.
Based on the emails I’m getting and my own “please, no” reaction, no grown up is into a remake of The Craft. It’s the kind of movie that can’t survive outside the 1990s cocaine bubble in which it was conceived, when Notable Weirdo Fairuza Balk and Bargain Bin Winona Ryder, Robin Tunney, were movie stars. But, um, I can see it. I can see why someone wants to remake it for today’s teenage audience. Female-lead power fantasies sell REALLY well to teens right now (see also: Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent), so there’s definitely a market for it—among teens.
In order to avoid a Jem situation in which we’re all sad, we should just agree right now that The Craft remake is not for us. We have OG Craft, and the YouTube generation can have whatever cocaine-free version of the story they end up getting. The remake is set to be directed by Leigh Janiak, who made the creepy and effective horror movie Honeymoon, so they’ll probably get a decent horror flick out of it, if nothing else. The nostalgia machine is in overdrive—undoubtedly there will be more disappointing remakes in our future. And it’s only a matter of time until someone does a live-action My Little Pony movie.