The Craft: Legacy

I watched The Craft: Legacy on a Tuesday night while my cat, Barnaby, spent forty minutes trying to fight his own reflection in a toaster. Honestly, the toaster put up a more convincing fight than the third act of this movie.

When the original The Craft hit theaters in 1996, it felt like a dangerous, jagged little pill. It was the movie that launched a thousand Hot Topic shopping sprees and made "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" a sleepover staple. Fast forward to 2020, and we find ourselves in the era of the "legacy sequel"—that specific brand of Hollywood alchemy that tries to turn nostalgia into fresh IP. Director Zoe Lister-Jones (who gave us the sharp Band Aid) steps into the circle here, attempting to trade the 90s grunge-goth aesthetic for something that feels more like a Gen Z mood board.

A Different Kind of Magic

The setup feels familiar because it’s designed to. Lily (Cailee Spaeny) moves to a new town with her mother (Michelle Monaghan) to live with her mom’s new boyfriend (David Duchovny) and his three sons. Lily is the "fourth" that a local trio of amateur witches—Lourdes (Zoey Luna), Frankie (Gideon Adlon), and Tabby (Lovie Simone)—have been waiting for.

What’s immediately striking is how much kinder this coven is. In the 90s, the horror stemmed from the girls turning on one another; Nancy Downs was a cautionary tale about how power curdles in the hands of the traumatized. In Legacy, the central foursome is defined by radical support. They’re inclusive, they’re emotionally intelligent, and they’re navigating the complexities of 2020’s social landscape. It’s basically 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' but with more sage and a much weirder climax.

Cailee Spaeny, long before she was winning awards for Priscilla, carries the film with a quiet, saucer-eyed intensity. She’s a fantastic lead, and the chemistry between the four girls feels genuine. I actually found myself wishing the movie would just let them hang out in a bedroom and talk about their lives for 90 minutes instead of rushing toward a supernatural showdown.

The Blumhouse Shift

The first hour is a decent coming-of-age drama with some sparkly supernatural trimmings. But then, the "Blumhouse" of it all kicks in. Jason Blum’s production house has a specific DNA—high concept, low budget, often ending in a flurry of CGI and jump scares. About two-thirds of the way through, Legacy remembers it’s supposed to be a horror movie and panics.

It pivots from a story about female empowerment and identity into a bizarrely rushed battle against David Duchovny, who plays a men's rights "alpha male" guru. David Duchovny’s performance here feels like he was accidentally teleported from a different, weirder movie. He’s leaning into a villainous archetype that feels a bit too on-the-nose for 2020, and the final confrontation involves some of the most budget-stretching CGI fireballs I've seen in a major studio release.

The film was released during the height of the pandemic as a premium VOD title, skipping most theaters entirely. In that context, it feels like a "safe" watch—something that would have dominated a Netflix "Top 10" list for three days before vanishing into the algorithm. It lacks the teeth and the transgressive spirit that made the original a cult classic. It’s too polite to be truly scary.

Stuff You Didn't Notice

One of the more interesting choices Zoe Lister-Jones made was hiring a group of actual practicing witches and occultists to serve as consultants. They didn't just want the girls waving their hands around; they wanted the rituals to feel grounded in actual Neopagan practices. If you look closely at the altars and the way the girls cast their circles, it's significantly more "accurate" than the Hollywood-ified magic of the 90s.

Also, for the die-hard fans of the 1996 film, there is a very specific, very famous cameo toward the end that serves as the "legacy" bridge. It’s a moment that should feel like a massive payoff, but because the rest of the movie has been so grounded in "soft magic," the sudden jump into deep lore feels a bit like a "please like us" plea to the older fans.

The budget was a modest $18 million, which explains why the film feels intimate, but it also highlights why the supernatural finale feels so small. When you’re dealing with the current era of superhero saturation, a "magic battle" that looks like a high-end TikTok filter is always going to struggle to impress.

Ultimately, The Craft: Legacy is a film caught between two worlds. It wants to be a progressive, thoughtful drama for a new generation of girls who value sisterhood over rivalry, but it’s forced to wear the skin of a horror franchise that it doesn't quite fit into. It’s well-acted and beautifully shot by Hillary Spera, but it lacks the grit and the danger that made the original a mainstay of teenage rebellion. I didn't hate my time with it, but like a salt circle in a rainstorm, it washed away from my memory almost as soon as the credits rolled.