I’m kind of shocked it took me 14 years to finally get around to watching The Craft. Not only is it a horror movie, but it’s got Robin Tunney who was in my beloved Empire Records, Mary Jane from Half Baked, Neve Campbell who’s pretty much a non-entity in this movie and the ridiculously crazy looking Fairuza Balk who looks a lot like Tunney’s Empire Records costar Debi Mazar. And, hey, maybe if I had watched this back when it came out I would have liked it, but The Craft is a snoozefest. Ten minutes in, I knew the plot: new girl joins coven, she’s got real power, they start using it, things start getting out of control, the new girl tries to get them to stop, the other girls turn on her and she wins in the end. And hey, I was right. Plus, it was over-long. I’m a big believer that horror movies should be at a tight 90 minutes and this is 101, all of those extra minutes could have and should been cut.

I did like a few things. The actresses were all pretty. That was nice to see. But seriously, it’s always fun to see familiar actors in different roles, though I wish they wouldn’t have been so one-note. Skeet Ulrich was also in this, which is interesting because he was also in the other big 1996 horror movie, Scream, which I reviewed recently. Oh, Brekcin Meyer’s in it too and he was actually really funny. The weirdest appearance for me was Christine Taylor as the racist girl who picks on Mary Jane and actually calls her a neogroid. I think my jaw was on the floor for a full on minute and THEN I realized that it was one of my all time crushes (and one of the funniest actresses around) saying it. So weird and not okay.

Oh, hey, also, I went to a private Catholic high school and there’s no way you can get away with all of the uniform violations these kids do. Shirts hanging out, some people wearing ties, others not, short skirts. We’d get a demerit for that kind of stuff (well, not the skirt thing, it was an all guy school). The volume also jumps up and down in really annoying places, which makes it hard for me to watch this while the missus is sleeping. Uncool. All in all, if you somehow missed out on The Craft the first time around, don’t bother.