Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Craft: Legacy Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 6, 2021

Sony makes use of some witchcraft, and some movie magic wizardry, to resurrect The Craft with The Craft: Legacy, 2020's follow-up to the popular 1996 film. Writer/Director Zoe Lister-Jones (Band Aid) fully steeps the film in genre and character cliche and adds complex teenage sexuality and "woke" culture to the cauldron in an effort to appeal it to the widest possible audience. The result is a lackluster, though passably enjoyable, follow-up to a film that was made before most in the target audience were even born.

Three teenage witches – Lourdes (Zoey Luna), Frankie (Gideon Adlon), and Tabby (Lovie Simone) -- are struggling to grow in their magic. They’ve stagnated without a vital fourth member to compliment their strengths and elemental assignments. Without that fourth, they cannot summon more powerful spirits and perform more advanced magic. When a new girl, Lily (Cailee Spaeny), arrives at school, the girls clue into the fact that fate may have brought the coven its coveted fourth member. They telepathically summon Lily after a humiliating incident in which class bully Timmy (Nicholas Galitzine) leave her in tears. The girls quickly bond, grow close together, and suddenly find themselves capable of performing magic beyond their dreams. But as they dabble in ever more potent spells, they come to learn that there’s a danger to their powers and are ultimately alerted to a dark presence aiming to strengthen itself through their bond.

One need not be intimately familiar with the original film – or even realize it exists at all -- to get something out of this one, even if it offers mostly recycled content and tired tropes. There’s a modest charm, thanks largely to amiable performances and the stale, yet effective, emotional baggage that helps propel the characters and their stories forward. While witchcraft shenanigans and burgeoning and building friendships within the coven offer the lighter side of the film’s draw, it’s Lily’s journey of discovery about who she is – from where she comes, what powers she holds, and what dangers await her – where the film finds its meatiest content. Fans of the original will ultimately be most rewarded by her journey’s specifics, but at the same time the film is smart enough to understand the original debuted nearly a quarter of a century ago and to ensure it works well enough as a standalone film which might pique one’s curiosity about The Craft, but it is by no means required viewing prior to sitting down with Legacy.

Certainly nothing about the movie will leave a lasting impact on the audience but Lister-Jones crafts a capable tale with enough movie magic – literal and figurative – to deliver a serviceable time waster. Her cast highlights, with each of the four young witches doing not only magic, but also life, together. It’s where those two things intersect – when they stop dabbling in simple magics that allow them to pause time or adorn themselves with magical decorations and attempt to influence attitudes and love in the process – that things spiral out of control. Of course, something even darker and more sinister lurks, and fans familiar with stories of this sort won’t find it difficult to pinpoint which character is holding a secret. Still, there’s enough forward momentum and amiable surface elements to make The Craft: Legacy a worthwhile, if not entirely fleeting and ultimately forgettable, movie watching experience.

The Craft: Legacy Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For The Craft: Legacy, Sony conjures up a quality 1080p Blu-ray transfer. The movie sports some photographically softer corners but is otherwise sharp and well defined where it counts the most. The digitally sourced film is visually proficient, not the sharpest or most exciting ever released to Blu-ray but stable and satisfying in all critical manners. Facial close-ups, as they almost always are, serve as the textural standard-bearers. Viewers will find crisp, pleasing definition to pores, hairs, freckles, applied makeup, and other critical details that help to gain intimacy with the characters, particularly the witches and perhaps most evidently when they use magical spells to adorn their faces with various jewels and other decorations. Clarity extends beyond to bedrooms, classrooms, wooded exteriors, and other densely populated environments. While some of the softer edges limit the corner-to-corner sharpness, there's enough definition to trinkets, desks, leaves, and the like to satisfy core HD expectations in 2021. Color output is quite good. There's plenty of pop and sparkle to the image but not enough to overwhelm. Balance is excellent and the image adds a bit of extra zip to some of the subtle magical cues as the girls are embracing their newfound powers. Nighttime black levels are nice and deep. Look at a scene when the four girls walk towards Timmy's house in the 27-minute mark (and run away from it a few minutes later). The pavement, night sky, and background shadows all hold deep but with enough separation and low light detail to bring the scene to life. Skin tones are healthy, too. The image suffers from no obvious encode shortfalls and noise is kept to a minimum.

The Craft: Legacy Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Craft: Legacy's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is a witch's brew of sonic delights. Musical output is a notable highlight, whether upbeat score and Pop beats or more airy fare. Clarity is superb in every instance and stage engagement is excellent, not so wide and seamless as some others but offering plenty of space, separation, and immersion to draw the listener into the film's musical center. Action effects are potent, including various sound elements heard in the finale, which offers the most aggressive examples of the track's sound design prowess. Stage stretch and depth and low end engagement rate as excellent here. Listeners will also enjoy full-on hallway din at schools – ringing bells, slamming lockers, chatty students – that offer effortless draw into the environment. Elsewhere, rustling leaves and other light natural sounds play critical roles in fully selling the movie's location illusions. Dialogue propels most scenes forward. It's clear and clean, well prioritized, and consistently found in the front-center channel.

The Craft: Legacy Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Craft: Legacy contains two featurettes and a collection of extended and alternate scenes. A DVD copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital copy code are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

• Franchise Legacy (1080p, 2:27): Cast and crew reflect on the original film's qualities and legacy.
• Powerful Story, Magical Director (1080p, 3:11): A plot recap and a theme exploration.
• Extended & Alternate Scenes (1080p, 11:39 total runtime): Following a Filmmaker Introduction are the following scenes: Abuela, A Witchual, Her Grandma is a Bruja, and Abuela Mirror - The Reckoning.
• Previews (1080p): Additional Sony titles: Ghostbusters Afterlife, Monster Hunter, Fantasy Island, and Broken Hearts Gallery.

The Craft: Legacy Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Craft: Legacy's title hints at more than its sequel status, but it plays just well enough as a standalone teenage witchcraft film. There's a hodgepodge of themes and emotions and contemporary beats in play, enough to satisfy a wide-berth audience, and the film's technical merits are strong enough to support its diverse content output. It's not a film with much long-term replay value but fans will be pleased with another quality high definition disc effort from Sony: classy video, potent audio, and a few extras make for a fine Blu-ray. Recommended for fans of the film (and now the franchise) and similar genre fare.