American cinema
Category=ATFA
Category=ATMN
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eq_non-fiction
horror cinema
identity politics
satanic panic
witchcraft
Product details
- ISBN 9781836244042
- Dimensions: 140 x 191mm
- Publication Date: 06 May 2025
- Publisher: Liverpool University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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In recent years, teen witches have become highly visible figures. Fictional adolescent witches have headlined popular television shows like The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018-2021) and American Horror Story: Coven (2013-2014), while their real-life counterparts have become minor celebrities on Instagram and TikTok. As such, now is the ideal time to revisit Andrew Fleming’s 1996 supernatural horror film The Craft. A cult favourite, especially amongst young women, The Craft is a story about teen witches that employs the conventions of occult horror to explore themes of power, friendship and responsibility.
This entry in the Devil’s Advocates series is a deep dive into the history, production and meaning of The Craft. Situating The Craft within the teen horror revival of the 1990s, Miranda Corcoran analyses the film within the context of nineties popular and political culture, while also discussing its treatment of issues such as race, gender, sexuality and class. Delving into the history of witchcraft beliefs and persecutions, this book also investigates how The Craft modifies the archetype of the witch and traces the film’s influence on subsequent popular culture.
Miranda Corcoran is currently a lecturer in University College Cork, Ireland. She is the author of Witchcraft and Adolescence in American Popular Culture: Teen Witches (forthcoming, University of Wales Press). Alongside Steve Gronert-Ellerhoff, she is the co-editor of Exploring the Horror of Supernatural Fiction: Ray Bradbury’s Elliott Family (Routledge, 2020). She is currently working on an edited collection about Satanism and feminism in popular culture, and is a regular contributor to Diabolique magazine.
