The year of 2020 has been filled with movie remakes, and as a good lover of teen films, I couldn’t miss the new version of the 1996 classic, The Craft: Legacy. The film is written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones with Blumhouse Productions, known in the world of horror for other hits, such as Supernatural, Get Out!, Split and Happy Death Day. The young actresses Cailee Spaeny, Lovie Simone, Gideon Adlon and Zoey Luna give life to the witch quartet in the film, which finally has its debut date set here in Brazil: The Craft: Legacy hits theaters on November 5, with distribution from Sony Pictures .
Despite introducing some new elements in its narrative, the new version of the film tries to remain faithful to the one from 1996, without disappointing fans. The story revolves around Lily, a teenager who moves to another city with her mother to live with the character’s new stepfather and his three children. At school, despite meeting several different people, she finds it difficult to fit in and ends up being humiliated in the classroom by athlete and bad boy Timmy. In this context, the character meets Franky, Tabby and Lourdes, three girls who also don’t fit in. In the course of the plot, Lily discovers that her friends practice magic in secret and together they begin to improve their gifts and spells, without knowing the problems that the future has in store.
If you´re like me and got really excited with the new trailer for the reboot, stay tuned in these 5 super cool curiosities about the movie that everyone needs to know!
- Acceptance and representativeness
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The new version of the film comes with a special meaning for viewers. In an exclusive interview with the Brazilian magazine TodaTeen, the director Zoe Lister-Jones said that in the seventh grade she shaved her head and for that reason she suffered bullying and gender aggressions, with people calling hers an “outsider”. It was watching the original version of The Craft that for the first time she felt herself seen in the world of pop culture. Therefore, in the new version of the film, she tried to bring a lot of representativeness and show the “outsiders” that there is space and people willing to represent them in productions like this. All this visibility is important for them to see that they are not alone and that their particularities and unique characteristics are special.
“With Instagram and social media, there is a lot of pressure now – and not just on young people, but on everyone — to create an image of perfection, of how we should all be or act. I wanted The Craft: Legacy to be about accepting uniqueness – what makes each of us perfect are our imperfections.”, he said.
- Women Empowerment
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Another point that the director tried to work on and highlight in her film is female empowerment. The film brings to light the incredible relationship of empathy that the girls had with Lily after seeing the character being humiliated in the classroom by a boy, it’s beautiful to see how their friendship grows throughout the narrative. In addition to showing how the relationship between girls should be, of support and care, we are introduced to the world of witchcraft, which is directly related to the sacred and divine feminine. All of these points are based on the strength and power of the woman Zoe wanted to portray in the work.
The director told TodaTeen magazine: “Without revealing too much, I wanted to make a film about women and sisterhood, about supporting each other and defending each other, about accepting difference and finding power in it, but also about the importance of the community against individualism and the power that these characters acquire when they find their clan.”
- Cast diversity
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The cast of The Craft features Zoey Luna, a transgender actress who has gained more and more space on television and movie screens. Zoey is a 19 years old latin activist and also socially engaged girl. The artist has been in some documentaries, series and reality shows, in addition to starring in the film Raising Zoey, which recorded her life from 12 to 14 years old. In the film, she gives life to Lourdes, one of the witches who is also transgender! So cool, right? And to give the paper as much legitimacy as possible, the production needed to hire a consultant on transgender issues.
- Characters particularities
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The Craft is a film about acceptance, uniqueness and, above all, self-knowledge. To represent this, the director brought particularities and differences in all the characters, each one identifies and has its style inspired by an element of nature, being: Fire, water, earth and air. Among the witches quartet we have Tabby, a gamer, Lily, who is discovering and exploring femininity and because of that her looks are a mixture of female and male clothes, Frankie, who is extremely playful and good-natured, and Lourdes, a transgender little witch. The most interesting thing in the construction of the characters is to see that, despite being totally different, they manage to overcome the obstacles and build a relationship of sisters, a true clan!
- Faithful to the original version
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The film divides viewers’ opinion, by many it is considered just a sequel, while others claim that The Craft: Legacy is a remake of the 1996 hit. But one thing that producer Douglas Wick has already made clear is that the feature will make references and will have links to the original version, in an interview with the HitFix website, he said: “There will be links to the original film, so you will see that there is a connection between what happened during The Craft era with these young women who discovered this magic many years ago after.” In the trailer it was already possible to notice that some striking phrases from the first version were kept, such as the iconic “Light as a feather, stiff as a board”, which makes the audience create even more expectations that they won’t be disappointed.
So, what do you think? I’m sure that after reading all these super interesting curiosities your desire to watch the new version of The Craft only increased! So, if you are looking for a movie with a lot of representation, female empowerment, magic and a little bit of terror, run now to the cinemas that it is waiting for you.
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The article above was edited by Gabriela Sartorato and translated by Giovanna Favero.
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