THE CRAFT (34)

Directed by: Andrew Fleming

Starring: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell

The Pitch: A quartet of teenage girls turn to black magic as a solution for high-school problems.

Theo Sez: Theory No. 3402A for the Decline and Fall of Hollywood : in a culture increasingly (not to say completely) dominated by television, movie executives desperately seek razzle-dazzle, shunning story and characters, in an attempt to avoid becoming completely marginalised - to offer something beyond TV, i.e. big and flashy, even if it means sabotaging their movies. This retread through HEATHERS territory (with CARRIE boots on) is in the end rather less fun than any episode of SABRINA, THE TEENAGE WITCH, though for much of its length it seems a worthy follow-up to director Fleming's under-rated THREESOME - undoubtedly glossy (it's only when one of the girls is magically transformed into a beauty that you realise she was supposed to be ugly before), but with enough sharp detail - stupid high-school catchphrases, teen justifications for shoplifting - to at least feel vaguely human. Then the characters get separated into good and evil camps, the FX take over, and the film dissipates into an amusingly icky bug-and-reptile show, without even the dramatic logic that redeemed the OTT climax in CARRIE itself : the point here is that our heroine is wiser than her friends, a "natural witch" as opposed to their superficial dabbling - it should end with her saving them from their foolishness, not going mano a mano against them. There is no logic - it's just a light-show ; the actors, above all the fair Fairuza, deserved better.