It's an interesting experience to go back and re-watch a movie that you haven't seen in a while. It's been at least a decade since I last watched The Craft (originally released in 1996) and what a difference a decade makes. I used to consider The Craft a guilty pleasure, and spent many a lovely Sunday afternoon sacked out on the couch watching it on VHS while smoking and eating popcorn. It used to seem like a fable of female empowerment, but now it strikes me as a clumsy parable about the dangers of drug use. (Same difference?)
Once upon a time, a teenage girl moved into a ramshackle mansion surrounded by swamps and draped in climbing roses. But that mansion was actually (however improbably) located in Los Angeles. When she went to her new school, she fell in with a group of self-styled witches (actually just goth chicks). They claimed to need her, to embrace her as one of them, but in the end they reject her, or she rejects them, or they each reject each other, in one of those confusing falling outs that are so endemic to high school.
The Craft could easily play as a movie made yesterday. It makes the wise choice to keep its outfits and hair styles relatively toned down, and the goth look is still just as fresh today as it was in 1996. It probably helps that it led so seamlessly into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which debuted in spring of the next year, and which helps to provide mental continuity with the movie.
One of the few things that brands this as a true movie of the 90s is the soundtrack. It features songs by Jewel, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Portishead (actually I still listen to Portishead), and Elastica, as well as prominently featuring "How Soon is Now?" by The Smiths.
As a whole, the movie has many flaws. (I always did wonder what the deal was with the guy who broke into their house and tried to give her a snake, though. That guy is Checkov's un-fired pistol on the mantel.) And these days I'm struck more by the lack of presence of any adults than I am by the girls' rise to power and solidarity. But if you want to break out the purple lipstick and lace corsets for a 90s Night, this would definitely be the right movie for the job!