‘The Craft’ Reboot Being Conjured Up by Blumhouse and Director Zoe Lister-Jones

Blumhouse will attempt to summon Manon by producing a reboot of The Craft. The ’90s witch flick has become something of a cult classic, and producers have been mulling a remake for a few years. Now, Zoe Lister-Jones is set to write and direct a The Craft reboot for Blumhouse and Columbia Pictures. But will this new take on The Craft be able to capture the magic of the original?

The Craft, a 1996 teen witch film starring Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell and Rachel True, still holds up. Sure, it’s very ’90s, but it’s also a heck of a lot of fun. The plot followed a group of teen girls dabbling in witchcraft. And I’m not talking the type of witchcraft your friend from Portland with the septum piercing and the mason jars full of weird-smelling liquid claims they practice. I’m talking full-blown, supernatural, snakes and fire, levitating off the ground witchcraft. It starts off harmless enough, and then, in true horror movie fashion, takes a turn toward darkness. In the original film, Tunney plays a troubled young woman who moves to a new town, and befriends Balk, Campbell and True. All the girls dabble in witchcraft, with Tunney being the most powerful. Along the way, Balk’s character loses her damn mind, turns a bit evil, and convinces the other two witches to turn on Tunney.

Zoe Lister-Jones, an actress and filmmaker who made her feature directorial debut with 2017’s Band Aid, will write and direct the reboot, which will presumably focus on a whole new set of teen witches casting spells and eventually turning on each other. In 2015, Honeymoon director Leigh Janiak was hired to write and direct a reboot that was described as a “spiritual successor” to the first film – a sequel, if you will. This version of the film never materialized.

While The Craft isn’t exactly a classic, it has a devoted fanbase, and Blumhouse would be wise to not screw this up. I personally have always thought a modern-day sequel, with the original cast now as adults, would work wonderfully – but I guess that’s not to be. I have nothing against a reboot, but can anyone truly recreate the manic lunacy of Fairuza Balk’s performance in the original? Witch, please.

The original Craft recently hit Blu-ray courtesy of Scream! Factory in the form of a new collector’s edition. If you’re a fan, I urge you to pick it up.