The Craft

General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	1
Running Time	97 minutes	Commentary Tracks	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Other Extras	None
Region	4
Distributor	Columbia Tristar
RRP	$34.95

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) English (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) French (Dolby Digital 5.1) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
Macrovision	Yes
Subtitles	English  French Dutch Arabic

    Sarah meets Chris (Skeet Ulrich), a typical jock, who is only interested in her for one thing, and she also meets three other unpopular girls - Nancy (Fairuza Balk), Bonnie (Neve Campbell) and Rochelle (Rachel True). These three girls have been dabbling in witchcraft, and after a shaky start, the four of them form a coven. All of the girls are outcasts at the school for one reason or another.

    The girls all cast spells, all trying to fix their own personal inner hurt; Sarah casts a love spell on Chris, Nancy cast a spell of power on herself, Bonnie casts a spell on herself to rid herself of her horrific burn scars, and Rochelle casts a spell on Laura, a gorgeous blonde, to make her hair fall out. It becomes apparent that all of their spells are working, and initially they feel that this is a very good thing, so they pursue further witchcraft.

    Nancy 'invokes the spirit', a ceremony which gives her tremondous power, and mayhem in general is caused. Around this time, Sarah begins to realise that all this power is not such a good thing, as Chris is now obsessed with her and will not leave her alone. Rochelle also realizes this to a lesser extent.

    Nancy kills Chris in a fit of jealousy, and Sarah attempts to leave the coven. The three others are unhappy with this, particularly Nancy, and they attempt to make Sarah commit suicide. Sarah 'invokes the spirit' also, and Nancy and Sarah engage in a bewitching showdown (sorry).

Video

    The movie was razor sharp at all times. In terms of clarity, this is pretty close to the best DVD that I have ever seen. Shadow detail was brilliant with clearly defined shadow detail and no trace of noise. This movie has many low-lit sequences, and they are all rendered superbly.

    The colour is perfect throughout. Colours are well saturated throughout, without ever appearing oversaturated.

    One MPEG artefact is seen during the titles - at 1:17, which is a very rapid one second pan shot over water, where the motion was jerky, as if frames were being dropped. Other than that, no other MPEG artefacts were seen. Film artefacts were extremely rare and not bothersome at all. [Update 19th November 1998: The VHS version of The Craft exhibits the same jerky motion over the same shot, so this is inherent in the film rather than an MPEG artefact. Thanks to Strudo for pointing this out to me.]

Audio

    Dialogue was usually clear and completely intelligible. The music, did, however, intrude significantly onto the dialogue at times, making the dialogue quite difficult to understand at these moments. This is most apparent early in the movie.

    The music has a characteristic sound about it, which fits superbly with the grungy appearance and attitude of the movie. This is the sort of music you would feel right at home smashing things to, though you won't see me rushing out and buying this soundtrack in a hurry.

     The surround channels were used throughout almost the entire movie to create an all-encompassing sound field. Surround information was present during action sequences, during much of the musical underscoring, and often for ambient effect. Split surrounds were used effectively, once again helping to create an enveloping sound field. There was a lot of storms in this movie, and the soundtrack made it feel as if the storm was present all around you.

    The .1 channel was used often both to enhance the music, and to underscore the action sequences.

    I would have given this audio soundtrack a reference level rating had it not been for the difficulty in understanding the dialogue occasionally.

    The video quality is superb, one of the clearest that I have seen so far, except for the one trivial MPEG artefact as detailed above. This is reference quality video material.

    The audio quality is very very good, with a superb, enveloping sound field. In terms of the overall effect of the soundtrack in enveloping you in the movie, this soundtrack worked extremely well. The only problem with the audio was the occasional difficulty in understanding the dialogue over the music.

Video
Audio
Extras	nil
Plot
Overall

Michael Demtschyna
2nd October 1998