In 2026, teenage girls have more options when it comes to horror movies than ever before. Most recently, Forbidden Fruits was made specifically for this once-underserved demographic, as I noted in Inverse’s review of the film. But a decade before “girl horror” was a twinkle in Diablo Cody’s eye, one horror movie reigned supreme in the hearts of witchy teenage girls everywhere.
The Craft was released on May 3, 1996, and met with indifferent reviews from mostly male reviewers. It was a sleeper hit at the box office, however, building a cult following that only grew after it was released on VHS and DVD in the summer of 1997. That’s how I first encountered The Craft, at a slumber party in the late ‘90s where we tried playing “light as a feather, stiff as a board” after watching the film. Nobody floated a couple of feet off the ground, like Rochelle (Rachel True) did in the movie, but I could have sworn that I felt my friend’s body getting lighter as we continued to chant. Were my fingers just going numb? Probably. But it was magical nonetheless.
