It follows four outcast teenage girls at a Los Angeles parochial high school who pursue witchcraft for their own gain and subsequently experience negative repercussions.

Sarah Bailey, a troubled teenage girl with unusual abilities, moves from San Francisco to Los Angeles with her father and stepmother.

Bonnie Harper bears burn scars, Nancy Downs lives in a trailer with her mother and abusive stepfather, and Rochelle Zimmerman is a black student who is subjected to racist bullying by a group of white girls.

The spells are successful: Chris becomes infatuated with Sarah, Bonnie's scars on her back miraculously heal, Laura begins losing her hair, and Nancy causes her stepfather to have a fatal heart attack, enabling her and her mother to cash in on his life insurance policy and move into a luxurious high-rise apartment.

Nancy becomes power-hungry and encourages the others to join her in a rite called "Invocation of the Spirit", despite being warned against the spell by Lirio, the owner of a local occult shop and practicing witch.

The spells the girls cast eventually lead to negative consequences, as Bonnie becomes aggressively narcissistic, Rochelle finds Laura traumatized by her baldness, and the obsessed Chris attempts to rape Sarah after she rejects his continual advances.

The trio invades Sarah's dreams, torment her with visions of swarms of scorpions, snakes, rats, and insects, and make her believe that her family has died in a plane crash.

She warns them to be careful not to end up like Nancy, who has been committed to a psychiatric hospital, delusional and her powers bound, strapped to a bed as she desperately insists she can fly.

The concept for The Craft came from a collaboration between producer Douglas Wick, who wanted to create a film about the high school experience blended with witchcraft, and screenwriter Peter Filardi, who extensively researched the topic and wrote the initial draft.

Eighty-five actresses screen-tested for the four main roles, including Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson and Alicia Silverstone.

Sarah's home in the film was a two-story Spanish mansion and the interiors were built on a soundstage at Culver City Studios.

The room was repainted and enhanced and occult icons such as candles, stigmas, religious statues, masks, and tribal dolls were added for effect.

The beach summoning took place at Leo Carrillo State Park, which was chosen because its crest made it seem less visually boring.

The soundtrack contains a collection of songs, to suit the theme of the movie, from various artists including Heather Nova, Letters to Cleo, and Spacehog.

The tracks in film, titled "Sick Child", "Fallin'" and "Scorn", performed by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Connie Francis and Portishead, respectively, were omitted from the soundtrack due to copyright issues from their record labels.

An uncredited bonus track, "Bells, Books, and Candles", composed by Graeme Revell for the film's score, was included on the soundtrack.

[14] Emanuel Levy of Variety described it as "a neatly crafted film that begins most promisingly as a black comedy a la Heathers, but gradually succumbs to its tricky machinery of special effects".

[15] Roger Ebert also felt the film was mired in excessive special effects, but praised the performances of the four leads,[16] as did Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle.

[18] Rita Kempley of The Washington Post called it "a brew of Hawthorne, Heathers and Hollywood hocus-pocus" that was nonetheless a "bubbling mess of a movie" that "leaves us more bothered than bewitched".

[21] Angelica Jade Bastién of Vulture wrote, "The Craft earned a generation of devoted fans because of how it charts the friendship between these four girls — its tentative beginnings, the joys of its strength, and its ultimate downfall," and singled out "Fairuza Balk’s fierce performance ... [as] perhaps The Craft's greatest legacy ... She's a beguiling and fearsome portrait of female anger.

"[23] In 2013, three of the main actresses, with the exception of Fairuza Balk, reunited for a special Halloween screening of the film at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.