| | | Welcome to the Witching Hour.
Features: Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, Hi-fi Stereo, English, Subtitled, Spanish, Dubbed & Subtitled
Sarah has always been different. So as the newcomer at St. Benedict's Academy, she immediately falls in with the high school outsiders. But these girls won't settle for being a group of powerless misfits. They have discovered The Craft and they are going to use it.Critics are spellbound, calling The Craft "slick, shrewd, touching, funny and most appropriately, downright mean." (Arthur Salm, San Diego Union-Tribune)  What is UMDTM?
UMD, Universal Media Disc, is a brand-new and groundbreaking optical storage medium, designed for the high speed and efficient delivery of digital entertainment content that can store up to 1.8 GB of digital data on a 60mm disc -- or an entire feature film on a single UMD video. All UMD DVDs are produced in Widescreen and encoded using advanced AVC compression. UMD for PSP will play on the new PlayStation Portable handheld entertainment system.
Specifications
Diameter: 60 mmMaximum Capacity: 1.8GB (Single-sided, dual layer)Laser wavelength: 660nm (Red laser)
"Devilishly delightful and deliciously wicked...a must-see for all." Donald Reed, Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror
"Supernatural fun with attitude." Kevin A. Ranson, MovieCrypt.com
"Surprisingly witty, intelligent movie..." Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"It's Carrie meets Clueless." Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe
"Imagine "The Lost Boys," only they're girls instead of boys...and they're witches instead of vampires." Scott Weinberg, eFilmCritic.com
Editor's Note
Four teenage girls, outsiders in their clique-ridden religious school, find an outlet for their pent-up hostilities when they form a supernatural coven. Armed with the power of "the craft," these novice witches gleefully take vengeance on their enemies, but ultimately their indiscriminate use of power catches up to them.
Plot Summary
Sarah, the troubled new kid in town, has just begun attending St. Benedict's Academy. There, she draws the attention of dysfunctional outcasts Nancy, Bonnie and Rochelle -- and discovers that they, like her, can perform "the craft." By joining their clique, Robin provides the last of the four elements (earth, fire, air, water) needed for the girls to concoct magic spells.| Armed with this new supernatural ability, the bewitched quartet set out to make life a living hell for the students who taunted and abused them in the past. Revenge is indeed sweet, that is until a power struggle begins between Sarah and Nancy....
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital Stereo | | DVD Quality Picture | | Full Length Movie | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, Spanish, Arabic |
| Technical Info
|
Release Information
| | Studio: Sony Pictures |
| Release Date: 5/20/2008 |
| Running Time: 101 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1996 | | Catalog ID: 25961 | | UPC: 00043396259614 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Winner (1997) | | | MTV Award, Fairuza Balk, Robin Tunney, Best Fight |
|
| | Professional Reviews | Sight and Sound
"...It evokes a dreamy sensuousness of mood....Great visuals, sure drama and applied intelligence: a rare combination in horror movies..." 11/01/1996 p.46USA Today
"...Invoking the spirit of HEATHERS and CARRIE, THE CRAFT offers choice vignettes of voodoo revenge..." 05/03/1996 p.10D Variety
"...A neatly crafted film....[Fleming] has coaxed marvelous performances from his inviting ensemble, particularly the appealing Tunney..." 05/06/1996 DVD Times 8 of 10
The Craft is an engaging crossbreed between the high school and horror genres, and for the most part is much better than you might think. Scream was just over the horizon -- Neve Campbell went on to make that film shortly afterwards -- and soon the horror genre would descend into smirking, would-be-postmodern knowingness. Where The Craft benefits is that it plays its story straight, and its four lead actresses play their roles with conviction. Also refreshingly, the girls are the central characters: apart from Sarah's father, who barely appears, the main male character is Skeet Ulrich's Chris, who is pretty much kept in the margins. There's no doubt that Robin Tunney can act (she won an award as a woman with Tourette's Syndrome in the indie Niagara Niagara), and she's certainly capable enough in the leading role, but it's clear the writers and the filmmakers are more interested in Nancy. Fairuza Balk at her best is one of the most compelling young actresses around; as Nancy's new-found powers push her over the edge, Balk manages to stay this side of outright scenery-chewing. It's not her fault that the film jettisons any attempts at subtlety towards the end and resolves itself with a welter of special effects and possibly the greatest number of snakes and creepy-crawlies ever gathered in one place. - Gary Couzens
San Francisco Chronicle 9 of 10
High school gives "The Craft" a context within which it becomes perfectly understandable why four bright girls with a lot on the ball would develop witchcraft skills, cast spells and kill people. Not everyone wants to go out for the cheerleaders..."The Craft," directed by Andrew Fleming who did the college sex-comedy "Threesome," is the smartest and most satisfying horror thriller to come out in a while. There's plenty of spectacle, but it never takes over. Everything is consistently grounded in the separate motivations of four, clearly-drawn young women...The young actresses are superb, and they make an appealing, believable group of friends...Even when they're in the woods, mixing their blood with (nonalcoholic) wine and drinking it -- "I drink of my sisters," they say, and each takes a sip -- it seems like a healthy, if histrionic, bonding in the face of a hostile social scene...But the spells they unleash on the world have consequences, and these consequences spiral. A love spell leads to a sexual assault. A mild hate spell leads to a prissy classmate losing all her hair. And the girls become drunk with power...From there on, "The Craft" becomes a kind of supernatural "Heathers." It recognizes that the emotions set loose in high school are of the most fierce variety, even though it's just kids in school. - Mick LaSalle
|
| |
|
|
|
