Creepy behind-the-scenes accounts of cult classic horror film The Craft have resurfaced online, sending fans into a frenzy.
The 1996 film about a coven of teenage witches was entirely fictional, but the show’s directors hired a real-life Wicca consultant to ensure all the spells and incantations were as accurate as possible.
But behind the scenes reports of strange occurrences on set soon began to emerge, and were later made public in a series of interviews with cast and crew.
On one occasion, during the film’s most famous scene, “The Call of the Corners,” where the girls gather on the beach to invoke a fictional deity, the tides kept coming every time the cameras rolled.
The producers had reportedly chosen a fictional deity to avoid angering pagan gods, but it has since emerged that they allegedly ignored a warning from a local witch that the beach was a “bad place for rituals.”
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During the filming of the ‘Calling of the Corners’ scene, where the girls gather on a beach to invoke a fictional deity, the tides kept rising every time the cameras rolled.
Actress Robin Tunney, who played Sarah Bailey, said of Los Angeles-based Dianic priestess Pat Devin: “She had heard that that beach didn’t like pagan ceremonies, because she heard from some witch associates that it was a bad place for pagan rituals.”
“And, uh, she got sick, so we had to finish and go back there the following week,” he further recalled in the resurfaced interview conducted shortly after the film’s release.
“All the lights went out and the tide came in and washed away our altar, and it was one thing after another,” he continued.
He added that the waves would come so close every time the cameras rolled that they would put out the fire on the set. Then, when they turned off the cameras, the tides would recede, said The Mentalist star, now 52.
Tunney continued: ‘When the water came up and washed away the set, it should have been fun and spooky.
“If it had just been four girls on the beach doing it ourselves, without a whole camera crew,” she continued, “it would have been terrifying.”
“But the fact that you have these lights on the camera rig, you know, kind of demystifies it.
Actress Robin Tunney, who played Sarah Bailey in the film, describes some of the strange events that occurred on the set in an interview shortly after the film’s release.
The showrunners hired a real Wicca consultant, Pat Devin, seen here surrounded by the main cast, to ensure all the spells and incantations were as accurate as possible.
She added: ‘You know something creepy happened that day, but it’s like, ‘ooh, the tide came in, guess what? It’s the ocean. The tide is coming in.’
“Oh! The power went out!” he added, noting how a portable generator powering the scene also went out at one point during the chaos.
‘You know, the generator wasn’t big enough for what we had to do.
“It’s kind of like, ‘We’re making this witchcraft movie, it had to be witchcraft,'” she joked.
The interview clip was recently posted on TikTok, with the caption: “You won’t believe what happened when the cast of The Craft summoned the spirit on the beach! The tides really did turn and everything went wrong. It was like reality and magic collided!”
Other fans were quick to comment, with one saying: “Makes me want to watch this tonight!”
Speaking about the same scene, a crew member added in a separate interview: ‘While we were doing the invocation on the beach, it was weird.
‘We would go into the invocation and the waves would rise higher and then fall when we stopped.’
For the film’s 20th anniversary, director Andrew Fleming also mentioned the seemingly supernatural circumstances during this scene.
“It was just a weird thing, when the girls started the incantations, the waves kind of picked up,” he said of the scene, which was filmed at Leo Carrillo Beach along Malibu’s Pacific Coast Highway.
“At one point a wave came and swept away the whole complex,” he added.
Tunney, Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell are seen acting out a scene on the beach in Malibu.
Meanwhile, Devin also chimed in and spoke to fellow Wiccan John Britshadow Yohalelm about the scene in 1998.
‘The beach scene was originally set at the winter solstice, in a circle of black candles in which the girls pretended to sacrifice the small animals they had with them, although all the animals escaped unharmed,’ the woman recalled at the time.
‘I realise that sacrifice is a traditional part of religious practice, pagan and non-pagan, but I assure you that if any of the animals had been harmed in the scene, I would have been furious.
“I actually objected to Sarah (Tunney) picking up a goldfish that was in the sand and releasing it into the ocean, as goldfish are freshwater fish!” he proclaimed.
‘(Fleming), somewhat bewildered, asked me if I really thought anyone would notice.’
He went on to reveal how he christened the deity Manon, a made-up name designed not to offend any spirits.
“As I understand it, in the early versions of the script, each of the girls had her own name for the Supreme Deity,” he said.
“Light as a feather, stiff as a board” has probably been said at countless sleepovers since the film’s release in 1996, thanks to this memorable scene.
From left to right: Campbell, Balk, Tunney and Rachel True in illustrations for the film.
‘In the first version of the script I read, Rochelle still called the Supreme Deity “Noah.”
“I told Andy to stop using ‘Noah’ and, after consulting lists and lists of God/Goddess/Demon/Angel/Spirit names, to stick with Manon, as I couldn’t find it anywhere,” she continued.
‘I didn’t want hordes of teenagers running to the beach or into the woods invoking someone real.
‘I’ve been told that Manon may be a minor water spirit. Well, I looked and other people looked and we couldn’t find it anywhere, so that’s why we used it.’
Other strange occurrences were also reported on the set; actress Fairuza Balk, who played Nancy, was rumored to be a Wicca practitioner, according to Richard Abanes’ book Religions of the Stars: What Hollywood Believes and How It Affects You.
Among them was the presence of a mysterious white owl that appeared to be following the cast members while they were filming.
In an interview, Half Baked star Rachel True, who played Rochelle Zimmerman in the film, told Talent Develop: “There was definitely a strange energy around, and a white owl followed us to several different places.”
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