Neve Campbell's 101-Minute Fantasy Horror Movie Is An HBO Max Streaming Hit 30 Years Later

30 years later, "The Craft" still has some magic up its sleeve. According to streaming data tracker FlixPatrol, the cult horror classic is currently one of the top 10 most-watched movies on HBO Max in the United States. Indeed, it appears folks are getting a head-start on the scary season in general, with "Beetlejuice," "Practical Magic," and the 1994 film version of "Interview with the Vampire" also doing numbers on the platform. Not so coincidentally, this week marks the arrival of the long-awaited "Practical Magic 2" as well. (You can read our review here.)

Directed by Andrew Fleming (who co-wrote the film with Peter Filardi), "The Craft" centers on a group of outcast teen girls who use witchcraft to get back at the people who've wronged them. However, unlike virtually every other dark high school flick about young women ever made (see: "Heathers," "Jawbreaker," "Jennifer's Body," and so on), Fleming's movie was actually a modest box office success. At the same time, though, critics were mostly ho-hum on the film, as many of them were too busy griping about the movie's visual effects to extoll its nuanced depiction of feminine rage. (Sorry, but I'm looking at you, Roger Ebert.)

Since then, of course, the movie has garnered a devoted following and even got a 2020 legacy sequel (albeit with the on-the-nose title "The Craft: Legacy"). As a result, its four leads are now proper scream queens, including Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Rachel True, and Sidney Prescott herself, "Scream" legend Neve Campbell.

"The Craft" hit the big screen on May 3, 1996, about seven months before the original "Scream" rocked the box office on its way to saving the slasher genre. As such, Neve Campbell was mainly known for her work on the '90s TV series "Party of Five" when it premiered in theaters. Meanwhile, her eventual "Scream" co-star Skeet Ulrich plays a sleazy love interest in Andrew Fleming's film, so he definitely had the market cornered on bad '90s high school boyfriends.

Beyond making bigger names of its actors, you can feel the influence of "The Craft" on the greater horror film landscape. One could certainly trace a line between it and the way that "Jennifer's Body" uses supernatural horror to explore the messiness of girlhood and toxic high school relationships. By the same token, this year's entertaining horror comedy flick "Forbidden Fruits" plays like a spiritual successor to Fleming's movie, acknowledging that performative witchy sisterhoods won't fix our patriarchal hellscape.

None of that is to imply that "The Craft" isn't worth revisiting or watching for the first time in 2026. Quite the opposite! It's the kind of bold, brazen, women-oriented horror movie that we need just as much in our not-so-pleasant present as we did three decades ago. Here's to celebrating the season of the witch in style this year.