100 Fun Facts About The Craft

Which Baywatch star did The Craft beat to number one?

Pamela Anderson. Her comic-book film Barb Wire arrived with far more publicity, yet The Craft took about $7 million to top the weekend, which Columbia's own distribution chief called a nice surprise.

Which sleepover game do the four girls play in The Craft?

Light as a feather. The director says he added the game after watching his older sister and her friends play it; Rochelle's rise off the floor was filmed with the actress on a hydraulic lift.

In The Craft, who plays Sarah Bailey, the new girl who completes the coven?

Robin Tunney. Her Sarah is the 'natural witch' the three outcasts have been waiting for, which is why their spells only start to work once she joins the circle.

Which actress plays Nancy, the coven's unstable leader, in The Craft?

Fairuza Balk. When a bus driver warns the four to watch out for weirdos, it is her Nancy who answers him: 'We are the weirdos, mister.'

Which Party of Five star plays the burn-scarred witch in The Craft?

Neve Campbell. Known then as Julia from the TV drama, she was by far the best-known of the four; two horror hits in a row, both released in 1996, then made her a star of the genre.

In The Craft, Rochelle Zimmerman is played by which actress?

Rachel True. The part was written for a white actress and she had to battle for an audition; once she won it, Rochelle was rewritten as Black and given a racist classmate to contend with.

In The Craft, who plays Chris Hooker, the football player Sarah puts under a love spell?

Skeet Ulrich. The spell works far too well: his cocky Chris is soon helplessly lovesick, phoning Sarah at three in the morning to suggest they move in together.

Classmates in The Craft give the three outcast girls a nickname that puns on which film?

The Witches of Eastwick. The school calls the trio 'the Bitches of Eastwick', though Roger Ebert joked that with their black lipstick and dog collars they looked to him like normal, popular teenagers.

In The Craft, what is the name of the powerful deity the girls worship?

Manon. The screenwriter made the god up, choosing 'a beautiful woman's name with the word man in it'; Nancy explains that if God and the Devil played football, he would be the stadium.

In The Craft, what does one of the trio see Sarah do in class that marks her as 'the fourth'?

Move a pencil by thought. It happens in French class, and the three, whose rites need one witch for each point of the compass, decide she is the one they have been waiting for.

In The Craft, what happens to the vagrant who chases Sarah along the street?

He is run down in traffic. The other three are thrilled, sure that the group's combined will did it: the first hint that together the four have real power.

In The Craft, what does Chris do after their date that drives Sarah to a love spell?

Lies that they slept together. He tells the whole school, adding that she was the worst he ever had; her spell then makes him so obsessed with her that he turns violent.

In The Craft, Rochelle's curse on her racist bully has what effect?

Her hair falls out. It starts coming away at the school pool, and when Rochelle later finds the girl sobbing in the showers, the revenge stops feeling good.

In The Craft, what does Bonnie ask the spell for?

Beauty. Her scars vanish, and she promptly turns vain and cruel; in the finale Sarah frightens her off with a mirror that shows the burns come back.

In The Craft, how does Nancy's abusive stepfather die after she casts a spell for power?

A heart attack. It kills him within seconds, and the life insurance nobody knew he had lets Nancy and her mother swap their run-down trailer for a high-rise apartment.

In The Craft, what is the dangerous ritual Nancy pushes the coven to perform on the beach?

Invocation of the Spirit. Nancy describes it as calling the god and taking him into yourself until he fills you; a bolt of lightning hits her mid-ritual, and she comes out of it reckless.

In The Craft, Nancy is seen walking on water the morning after the ritual, surrounded by what?

Beached sharks. Dead sea creatures litter the sand around her; the crew simply laid plastic sharks along the shore, and the director recalls passers-by panicking at the sight.

In The Craft, who runs the shop of charms and candles and warns the girls about the ritual?

Lirio. The script introduces her as 'an ethereal Latina' who eyes the girls warily; they ignore her warning, and the ritual is what tips Nancy into recklessness.

In The Craft, how does Nancy kill Chris at the party?

Throws him out a window. She had worn Sarah's face to seduce him; when he sees through the disguise and calls her jealous, she shouts that he does not exist and hurls him out by magic.

In The Craft, what do the other three make Sarah believe to push her toward suicide?

Her family died in a plane crash. The three also overrun her house with snakes, rats and insects, and the terror backfires: Sarah calls on the same power herself and comes back stronger.

At the end of The Craft, where is Nancy?

Committed to a psychiatric hospital. Sarah has bound her from doing harm, and the last we see of Nancy she is strapped to a bed, stripped of her magic and insisting she can fly.

Near the end of The Craft, what does Sarah bring crashing down beside the two witches who come to make peace?

A tree branch. Sarah turns the pair away and they grow scornful, so she drops the branch right beside them and warns them not to end up like Nancy.

In The Craft, what is the name of the fictional Catholic school the girls attend?

St. Benedict's Academy. The script called it St. Bernard's; the name had changed by the time a Los Angeles public school was dressed with religious statues to play it.

Who plays Laura Lizzie, the bully Rochelle curses, in The Craft?

Christine Taylor. A year earlier she had been the squeaky-clean Marcia in The Brady Bunch Movie, so the era's sunniest sitcom daughter became this film's racist villain.

Which future star was held for a role in The Craft but released to make another film before shooting began?

Angelina Jolie. The casting director says the studio had still not confirmed The Craft would be made when Jolie was offered Foxfire, so they had to let her go.

In The Craft, the actress who plays Sarah was first cast as which other character?

Bonnie. In what the director called a reverse-Hollywood story, she wanted to keep the smaller part and had to be talked into playing the lead.

The Craft's lead wore a wig as Sarah after cutting off all her hair for which 1995 film?

Empire Records. She had cropped her head for that film, and though the costume designer loved the pixie cut that was growing back, the studio insisted Sarah have long hair.

What was Pat Devin, whom The Craft's producers hired as an on-set adviser?

A practising Wiccan. Credited as a technical consultant, she helped write the chants, because the director wanted real witches to watch the film and say it did not offend them.

What did the actress who plays Nancy buy in Los Angeles while filming The Craft?

An occult shop. She says its owner was retiring and the store was about to become a Chinese restaurant, so she bought it to keep it open.

The actress who plays Nancy in The Craft made her film debut as the lead of which dark 1985 fantasy?

Return to Oz. She played Dorothy, packed off for electric-shock treatment before escaping to a ruined Oz; a year later she was a trainee witch in The Worst Witch.

Two of The Craft's cast later played girlfriend and boyfriend in which slasher film?

Scream. The Craft's burn-scarred witch and its football player were back on screen in December 1996 as Sidney and her boyfriend Billy, who is unmasked as one of the killers.

In The Craft, Nancy's mother spends her windfall on a jukebox that plays only which singer's songs?

Connie Francis. She says she has wanted a jukebox that played nothing else since she was a little girl, which leaves Rochelle asking, 'Who's Connie Francis?'

The actress who plays Rochelle in The Craft later led which UPN sitcom as Mona Thorne?

Half & Half. She and Essence Atkins played half-sisters who had barely known each other growing up; the show ran four seasons and was dropped when UPN's successor network drew up its first schedule.

The Craft's producer, Douglas Wick, later produced which 2000 Best Picture nominee?

Gladiator, which won him the Oscar. Wick had wanted a film about the high-school experience told through witchcraft, and says the studio only agreed to make it after seeing the four girls screen-tested together.

Which MTV Movie Award did The Craft win?

Best Fight. It went to the two leads for the Sarah-versus-Nancy finale, a duel the film's original writer cheerfully admits he never wrote: his own ending was different.

Which Beatles song does Our Lady Peace cover on The Craft's soundtrack?

Tomorrow Never Knows. A fitting opener for a film about spells: Lennon took its lyrics from a psychedelic manual based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the original closes Revolver.

Love Spit Love's cover of which Smiths song appears on The Craft's soundtrack?

How Soon Is Now? was recorded at the request of the film's music supervisor by a spin-off of the Psychedelic Furs, and the same cover later became the theme tune of the witch series Charmed.

Heather Nova covers 'I Have the Touch' over The Craft's end credits; which former Genesis singer wrote it?

Peter Gabriel. He wrote it about the hunger for human contact after reading a study of how often people in different cities touch one another.

After the four girls' first ceremony beneath an oak tree in The Craft, what swarms around them?

Butterflies. The director says the swarm blended real insects with digital ones, and that the effects house wrote its own software to make it happen.

The Craft was an inspiration for which Katy Perry hit?

Dark Horse. Perry said she wanted a 'witchy, spell-y kind of black magic-y idea', so she wrote it as a witch warning a man not to fall for her, with the 1996 film in mind.

Three of The Craft's four leads reunited for a 2013 Halloween screening at which Los Angeles landmark?

Hollywood Forever Cemetery. The film's producer says he took his grown-up daughters along; as children they had played the three little girls sitting across from the witches on the bus.

Who wrote and directed the 2020 sequel The Craft: Legacy?

Zoe Lister-Jones. She inherited a sequel that had been announced three years earlier under another director, and has said she always wrote it with a third film in mind.

Who plays Lily, the new fourth witch, in The Craft: Legacy?

Cailee Spaeny. Her Lily is the 'fourth' that three school witches have been looking for: they find her in tears on a humiliating first day and sense her powers at once.

Which X-Files star plays Adam, the mother's new boyfriend revealed as the villain of The Craft: Legacy?

David Duchovny. His Adam seems friendly enough, a father of three who runs workshops on manhood in his living room, until the finale unmasks him as a cultist who has wanted Lily's powers all along.

In the final scene of The Craft: Legacy, who is revealed to be Lily's birth mother?

Nancy Downs. The first film's villain returns in the closing scene, played by the original actress, after Lily has learned that the mother who raised her had adopted her.

How was The Craft: Legacy released in the United States in October 2020, with many cinemas closed?

Premium video on demand. American viewers rented it at home from 28 October, so its only box office came from cinemas abroad, about $2 million in all.

Who plays Helen, Lily's doting mother, in The Craft: Legacy?

Michelle Monaghan. Her Helen uproots Lily to move in with a new boyfriend, and the ending reveals a secret she has kept all along: Lily is adopted.

Peter Filardi, who wrote The Craft's first draft, had earlier written which 1990 film?

Flatliners, about medical students who stop their own hearts. For The Craft he says he built each girl on a goddess archetype and an element, with Sarah as earth and Nancy, of course, as fire.

The campus that plays The Craft's Catholic school had earlier appeared in which teen film?

Heathers. Verdugo Hills High in Tujunga supplied that film's gym scenes before lending The Craft its halls and football field, which suits a film critics called a supernatural Heathers.

The actress who plays Rochelle in The Craft later took up which kind of fortune-telling professionally?

Tarot reading. She worked as a reader in Los Angeles and in 2020 published her own deck with a guidebook that is part memoir, calling the cards 'a shrink in a box'.

Love Spit Love's Smiths cover from The Craft's soundtrack later became the theme of which WB series?

Charmed opened with the cover for eight seasons, starting two years after the film. The series follows the Halliwell sisters, good witches who protect innocents from demons.

The actress who plays Sarah in The Craft later starred as agent Teresa Lisbon in which crime series?

The Mentalist cast her as the boss of Simon Baker's former fake psychic, who consults for the California Bureau of Investigation. It ran from 2008 to 2015.

The actress behind Nancy in The Craft was Adam Sandler's crush Vicki Vallencourt in which comedy?

The Waterboy made her the sweetheart with a rap sheet who wins over Sandler's Bobby two years after the witch film. His mother forbids him from ever seeing her again.

The actor who plays Chris Hooker in The Craft later played gang leader F.P. Jones in which CW drama?

Riverdale cast him as the father of Jughead and former leader of the Southside Serpents gang. He starred in the series from 2017 to 2021.

The actress who plays bully Laura Lizzie in The Craft had just played which Brady Bunch character?

Marcia was her part in The Brady Bunch Movie a year earlier, and she returned for the sequel the same year the witch film came out. The sunny eldest daughter became a racist tormentor.

Which future Marvel star, then still a child, read for the lead role of Sarah in The Craft?

Scarlett Johansson read for Sarah, as did Alicia Silverstone, who had shot Clueless but not yet seen it released. Finding the four leads took nine months of tests.

Nancy's stepfather in The Craft is played, uncredited, by the janitor from which John Hughes film?

The Breakfast Club's janitor, Carl, was John Kapelos, who appears unbilled as the abusive Ray. He also turns up in Sixteen Candles and Weird Science.

Which horror studio, famed for hits made on tiny budgets, took over The Craft's sequel in 2019?

Blumhouse, the company behind Get Out and Paranormal Activity, took the sequel on after an earlier version stalled. The result is also known as Blumhouse's The Craft: Legacy.

During the beach ritual in The Craft, what strikes Nancy hours before she is seen walking on water?

Lightning hits her as the four call on their deity, and by morning she is drunk on power. A practising witch who runs a local shop had warned them against the ritual.

At the start of The Craft, Nancy lives with her mother and abusive stepfather in what kind of home?

A trailer is home until her spell for power comes true and the family's fortunes change overnight. Her mother swaps it for a luxury high-rise apartment.

In The Craft, which kind of magic does Sarah work to stop Nancy from doing any more harm?

A binding spell is her answer after Chris is killed, but it fails at first and turns the other three against her. She manages it only once she has gained far greater power.

In The Craft, Sarah Bailey arrives in Los Angeles with her father and stepmother from which city?

San Francisco is the home she leaves behind. On moving day a vagrant turns up at the new house and frightens her with a snake.

In The Craft, what pays for Nancy and her mother's sudden move into a luxury high-rise apartment?

Life insurance on her stepfather pays out soon after Nancy casts her spell for power. His death is the dark way her wish comes true.

Which rating did the MPAA impose on The Craft before a frame was shot, citing teens and black magic?

R was fixed whatever the film-makers cut, though they had dropped swearing and nudity to aim lower. The director argued in vain that the witchcraft shown is not devil worship.

The Craft's lead coped with thousands of real snakes on set but has a phobia of which animals?

Birds were kept off the set for her sake, the director said, while the wrangler counted 10,000 snakes at one point. Only the shot of hair turning to serpents was faked.

While The Craft's cast chanted during the beach ritual shoot, what came in and wiped out the set?

A wave came further up the beach than a park ranger had said the tide would reach, and it is briefly in the film. Power cuts during the shoot added to the spooky mood.

The Craft's director wanted his teen witches dressed as if they played in which gothic rock band?

The Cure was his premise for the costumes, with a punk edge, at a time when he felt goth was not yet a look. The studio understood the film only once it saw the clothes and candles on screen.

Why did The Craft's makers invent the coven's god instead of using a real one?

To avoid offending believers, the director said, the film-makers made up their own deity rather than borrow anyone's real god. He wanted practitioners to see their faith shown fairly.

A decade before The Craft, the actress behind Nancy played Mildred Hubble in which film?

The Worst Witch, a 1986 British musical for television, is set at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches. Diana Rigg played a teacher and Tim Curry the Grand Wizard.

Which actor, Clueless's skateboarding stoner Travis, plays Mitt in The Craft the following year?

Breckin Meyer followed Travis Birkenstock with a supporting part in the witch film. He broke out in Road Trip and went on to play Jon Arbuckle in two Garfield films.

The actress who plays Nancy's mother in The Craft played a psychic in which haunted-house film?

The Amityville Horror cast Helen Shaver as Carolyn, who breaks through a basement wall. Having worked in that arena before, she felt no need to research witchcraft for Grace.

The actress who plays the magic-shop owner in The Craft was already a film star in which country?

Spain made Assumpta Serna a star, and she believes the director asked for her after seeing Pedro Almodóvar's Matador. She toured Los Angeles magic shops buying things for the role.

Which director of The Craft later made the Watergate comedy Dick and the school satire Hamlet 2?

Andrew Fleming also rewrote the script, drawing on his own schooldays for the bigotry Rochelle faces. He came to the job from the slasher Bad Dreams and the comedy Threesome.

Which Sony-owned studio released The Craft in cinemas in 1996?

Columbia Pictures opened the film at number one and credited teenagers and young women with turning it into a sleeper hit. It took more than three times its budget worldwide.

Filming of The Craft: Legacy began in 2019 in which city, far from the original's Los Angeles?

Toronto hosted the shoot, where the director told a visiting reporter the sequel was about young women coming into their power. The 1996 film had been shot all over Los Angeles.

Letters to Cleo's Dangerous Type on The Craft's soundtrack covers which fellow Boston band's song?

The Cars put the original on their 1979 album Candy-O, written by Ric Ocasek. The younger band recorded the cover specially for the film.

Which Bristol trip-hop band's song plays in The Craft but was left off the soundtrack album?

Portishead's Scorn and a Siouxsie and the Banshees track are heard in the film but missing from the album, kept off by rights problems with their record labels.

Which Marvel television series briefly shows The Craft in its end credits?

Agatha All Along slips the film into its closing credits, a nod from one coven story to another nearly thirty years on. Its witch gathers a new circle to walk the Witches' Road.

Which future star of Red, White & Royal Blue plays the bully Timmy in The Craft: Legacy?

Nicholas Galitzine plays the tormentor whom the coven's spell turns gentle, to the point of confiding in Lily that he is bisexual. He later starred in The Idea of You.

In The Craft: Legacy, what does Lily do to the bully Timmy that shows three classmates her power?

Shoves him into lockers, and by thought alone. Frankie, Tabby and Lourdes see it, speak to her telepathically and invite her into their coven.

In The Craft: Legacy, which feat can the coven attempt only once Lily becomes its fourth member?

Freezing time takes four witches, which is why the trio wanted Lily so badly. They try it against Adam in the forest and he overpowers them at first.

In The Craft: Legacy, what does the dead Timmy use to tell the coven that Adam murdered him?

A Ouija board carries his message to Frankie, Tabby and Lourdes, who had cut Lily off after his death. They rush to the forest to save her.

In The Craft: Legacy, what job does Helen have when she moves Lily in with Adam and his sons?

Therapist is the job, and it matters to the plot: Lily's birth mother turns out to be one of Helen's patients.

The Craft: Legacy earned a 2021 nomination for Outstanding Film from which body?

GLAAD shortlisted it for Outstanding Film at its 2021 media honours, despite mixed reviews for the sequel. The film had skipped American cinemas, shut by the pandemic.

Which director of the Fear Street trilogy was first hired to write and direct a new Craft film?

Leigh Janiak, then known for her debut Honeymoon, was Sony's choice years before the sequel was made. By the time cameras rolled, the project had passed to another writer-director.

The Craft and the actress behind its villain Nancy were both nominated for which genre-film honour?

Saturn Award voters, who honour science fiction, fantasy and horror, shortlisted it for Best Horror Film and her for Best Supporting Actress.

Juliana Hatfield's Witches' Song on The Craft's soundtrack was first sung by which English singer?

Marianne Faithfull co-wrote it for Broken English, the 1979 comeback album she called her masterpiece. It followed years of addiction and homelessness.

Which New Zealand composer, who had scored The Crow, wrote the score for The Craft?

Graeme Revell led the industrial band SPK before turning to film. One of his cues for the witches, Bells, Books and Candles, sits uncredited on the song album.

In The Craft's final scene, a defeated Nancy keeps insisting that she still has which power?

Flight is her claim, repeated long after Sarah's magic has left her harmless. Sarah has just warned the other two not to end up the same way.

The Craft's Party of Five star went on to play outcast Suzie Toller in which Florida-set thriller?

Wild Things set her beside Denise Richards, Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon two years after the witch film. Once again she played an outsider, this time a poor girl from the Everglades.

The actress who plays Laura Lizzie in The Craft married which co-star of Zoolander and Dodgeball?

Ben Stiller married her in May 2000, a year after they met making the TV pilot Heat Vision and Jack. She starred beside him in Zoolander the following year.

In The Craft: Legacy, Adam confesses to Lily that he has belonged all along to what?

A pagan cult claims him, and he admits he has wanted Lily's powers from the start. He had used his own magic to take on her mother's shape and ask for them.

Douglas Wick, who produced The Craft, traced his interest in female empowerment to which 1988 film?

Working Girl, about an ambitious secretary whose boss steals her idea, was his first film, eight years before the witch one. He saw witchcraft as an age-old metaphor for women's power.

The Craft's eventual lead first came to the Sony screen tests only to do which job?

Read opposite the hopefuls: that was all the casting director, who knew her from New York, had asked. Everyone who watched the tests wanted to know about her instead.

Which Hole album did screenwriter Peter Filardi call musically spot-on while he wrote The Craft?

Live Through This caught the raw adolescent pain he wanted on the page, he said, and hearing its songs still brings the film to mind. It was Hole's second album, from 1994.

Whose three young daughters appear as the girls sitting across from the coven on The Craft's bus?

The producer's daughters made the cameo as three innocent-looking blonde girls. Grown up, they joined him at a packed screening where fans came dressed as the witches.

The Craft's beach ritual was filmed on which stretch of the Malibu coast, named for an actor?

Leo Carrillo State Park was chosen because the production designer felt its crest made the shore less dull to look at. Its namesake also served on the state parks commission.

Love Spit Love, heard on The Craft's soundtrack, was formed by the singer of which English band?

The Psychedelic Furs went on hiatus in 1992, and their singer Richard Butler started the new group. Its cover for the witch film came after the music supervisor approached it late in 1995.

In The Craft, which kind of magic lets Nancy take on Sarah's appearance to fool Chris at a party?

A glamour makes her Sarah's double, but the real Sarah walks in and Chris sees through the trick. When he accuses Nancy of jealousy, her fury turns deadly.

Which Oscar-winning actor told The Craft's lead that he knew her work from the witch movie?

Sean Penn gave that answer, the director recalled, when she asked at the end of a meeting how he knew her work. It showed him how many people had seen the film.