It’s Halloween, which means it’s time to close out Spooktober for 2020. It also means October is coming to an end, which means I’m about to crawl back into my horror hole where I’ll sit and wait until it’s once again the time of year where we can appropriately love ghosts and monsters and witches and blood and death and all that other fun stuff. R.I.P., October. We barely knew ye.
But before we can say goodbye to October for the rest of 2020, we’ve got one more final horror movie to look at. And then at the end, for no reason whatsoever except for the fun of it, I’m going to look back at the second year of Spooktober to examine how successful this Spooktober season was compared to last season. Prepare yourselves.
Cue the creepy, atmospheric thunder and lightning.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I almost feel like The Craft: Legacy needs no introduction. If you’re not familiar with the 1996 movie that this movie is based on/is a sequel of, then… I don’t know how you ended up here. You should go watch it and come back. Whenever you’re ready.
The Craft (1996)
When I started watching The Craft: Legacy (written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones), I couldn’t figure out if it was supposed to be a sequel or a remake. I mean, I’d read that it was a sequel, but everything about the set up suggested in was a pretty close replica of the original. Even down to the new girl in town being scared by a snake when she first comes to her new home. It becomes clear later that this is a sequel and it is connected to the original, but only in the most tenuous eye-roll-inducing kind of ways.
I was excited, however, to see Cailee Spaeny in the lead role. She gave a standout performance in DEVS, and she didn’t disappoint here. She’s charismatic and vulnerable, two things that are absolutely essential for a lead actress who is going to have to carry a whole movie.
But then… there’s another problem with this movie. Cailee Spaeny’s character Lily is the only character with any backstory and any true depth. I can’t even remember the other three girls’ names, let alone point out any character traits. While in the original Craft movie, Robin Tunney as Sarah was definitely the lead role, the three other characters (Fairuza Balk as Nancy, Neve Campbell as Bonnie, and Rachel True as Rochelle) all have back stories, moments of character development, and their own motives for wanting to perform magic. I really wanted to get excited about the core friendship of Lily and company, but I had trouble because… who are these other people?
Also! Are you really a teen movie if you don’t include a scene of the main clique walking down the hallway in slow motion?
And this is pretty much how the whole movie went for me. There would be something that happened that was really exciting and interesting. And then something that would be disappointing. And there are actually a lot of things this movie does better than the original film. For instance, if you think too hard about The Craft, you might come away thinking that the film is warning against what happens when women are able to harness too much feminine power. And there’s a really problematic sexual assault scene. None of that messaging is in this version. For more about how the new Craft film has a stronger girl power message, check out Mary Kay McBrayer’s review over at Killer Horror Critic.
Overall, I stepped away from The Craft: Legacy feeling entertained but unenthusiastic. And the more time I’m spending away from the film, the less excited I am about it. I think what it boils down to is this. The Craft: Legacy had all the working parts to make this successful. Good acting. Beautifully stylized clothing and make-up that is reminiscent of the original while updating it for 2020. Awesome girl-power messaging. Cool magic. I especially loved how this new batch of witches had the ability to stop time. All the working parts we needed were here.
However! And this is a big however. This movie needed a loooot more development. I’ve already mentioned the fact that all of the characters aside from Lily were incredibly half-baked. I also don’t feel like enough bad shit happened. This movie isn’t scary at all, which is fine. I don’t find the original scary either. But there weren’t enough consequences for the magic, even though there was a big build up that there would be. Okay, yes, one person does die (I won’t say who… for spoiler reasons) but it’s not directly because of their magic.
There’s a villain in this version of the story that could have been really interesting, but that plot was not developed at all. There’s also a brief cameo from one of the original cast members, but as I mentioned earlier, the connections this movie tries to make to the original Craft movie are underwhelming and kind of silly. This movie was fairly short at 90 minutes, and we could have spent more time on some of this stuff.
Also… SURPRISE! David Duchovny is in this movie.
So that’s it. The final movie of Spooktober 2: 2 Spook 2 Tober. I hope you enjoyed it. I’ll probably do another film series soon, but no promises.
But since we’re looking at sequels and originals in this blog post anyway, I have a question for myself. How did Spooktober 2 compare to the original Spooktober? To rate the latest Spooktober, I’m going to look back at every week of this season and compare it to every week of last season, and we’ll come out with a winner. I’m going to try to rapid fire this as much as possible because we’ve already been here a while. Here we go.
Week 1: Ready Or Not vsThe Rental. Since Ready Or Not is legitimately a solid movie that everyone should watch, I have to go with Ready Or Not for this one. Point for the original.
Week 2: Malevolent vs Pooka Lives! Both of these movies were bad, but Pooka Lives! was more tolerable, so we gotta go with Pooka Lives! So point goes to the sequel.
Week 3: It: Chapter 2 vs The Babysitter: Killer Queen. Apparently Week 3 is all about sequels, and while I was kinda meh about It: Chapter 2, I really did not like The Babysitter: Killer Queen. So point for the original!
Week 4: The Haunting of Sharon Tate vs The Owners. Oh lord help me. The Haunting of Sharon Tate might be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Point for the sequel.
Week 5: The Hole in the Ground vs Antebellum. I truly adored The Hole in the Ground. Antebellum was a mess. Point to the original here.
Week 6: The Perfection vs American Murder. What a weird match up here. Two Netflix original. One a twisty psychological horror, and one the only true crime movie ever reviewed for Spooktober. I’ll have to give it to The Perfection here, because a lot of American Murder was stuff I’d seen on YouTube already. Another point to the original.
Week 7: The Blackcoat’s Daughter vs Books of Blood. Hello everyone, I know you didn’t get to hear my opinions on Books of Blood because we had a guest blogger for this week. But I did watch the movie, so let me just be clear. I thought it sucked. Meanwhile, The Blackcoat’s Daughter is delightful. Point for the original.
Week 8: Crawl vs Nocturne. Another weird match up. Crawl was kind of fun, kind of garbage. Nocturne was kind of fun, kind of Black Swan but not good. Still, I gotta give this one to Nocturne. Point for the sequel.
Week 9: Zombieland: Double Tap vs Bad Hair. Two horror comedies for Week 9. And while I said Bad Hair wasn’t really that funny, I still liked it better than the Zombieland sequel by quite a bit. So this easily goes to the sequel (not the Zombieland sequel).
Week 10: Countdown vs The Craft: Legacy. Oh wow. Y’all remember Countdown? Yeah, me neither. What a let down of a horror movie, right? And while (as I mentioned above) The Craft: Legacy wasn’t great either, I feel like it maybe has something more interesting to say than Countdown did. So we’re going with the sequel again.
So you know what this means? We’ve got 5 points for the original and 5 for the sequel. I guess that means Spooktober didn’t get any better, but it didn’t get any worse either. And I’m going to take that as a win for 2020, a year in which everything else has been a little bit (or a lot a bit) worse than the year before. Can we top it in 2021? Maybe? If we’re not all dead by then. Mwahahahaha! But seriously.
HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEEEN!