What actually happens
A new school with a coven in the cafeteria
Sarah Bailey relocates from San Francisco to Los Angeles, living with her father and her stepmother. She has unusual abilities and a rough history. At her new school she befriends three outcasts who are rumored to be witches: Bonnie Harper, who has burn scars, Nancy Downs, who shares a trailer with her mother and an abusive stepfather, and Rochelle Zimmerman, who is the target of racist bullying by a group of girls at school. The three worship a powerful earth deity called Manon. Chris Hooker, a popular jock, takes an interest in Sarah. When Bonnie sees Sarah float a pencil in class, the girls conclude Sarah is the missing fourth member their coven needs, representing the Four Elements. On the way home from school a vagrant who had earlier scared Sarah with a snake chases her and gets hit by a car. The girls decide their joint willpower caused it.
Reading this instead of watching it is the correct decision. Scaredy Cat makes that decision automatic, for free.
Four wishes and one very expensive heart attack
After a date, Sarah learns that Chris has spread a false rumor about the two of them. Each of the girls casts a spell. Sarah puts Chris under a love spell, Rochelle puts a curse on Laura Lizzie, who bullies her, Bonnie asks to be beautiful, and Nancy requests power. All of them work. Chris becomes obsessed with Sarah, Bonnie's scars heal, Laura's hair starts falling out, and Nancy's stepfather has a heart attack, which gets Nancy and her mother his life insurance and a luxury apartment. Nancy then talks the others into a ritual called Invocation of the Spirit, over the warnings of Lirio, who owns a local occult shop and is a practicing witch. Nancy is struck by lightning during it. The next morning she walks on water while beached sharks and dead sea creatures lie around her, and she becomes more reckless.
The spells start charging interest
The spells have consequences nobody planned for. Bonnie turns vain and cruel, Rochelle finds Laura traumatized by her bald head, and Chris's obsession becomes violent: when Sarah turns him down, he attacks her. Nancy decides to punish him by using a glamour to pass as Sarah and flirt with him at a party. The real Sarah steps in, and Chris realizes what Nancy did and accuses her of being jealous. Nancy kills Chris by throwing him out a window.
A bedroom with too many bugs
Sarah tries a binding spell to stop Nancy, but it fails and the coven turns on her. This is the sequence people dread, and it comes after Chris dies. The coven gets into her dreams, conjures swarms of insects, and tricks her into believing her family died in a plane crash, which pushes her toward suicide. Sarah overcomes her fear and invokes the spirit herself, which heals and empowers her. She then uses mirror illusions on Bonnie and Rochelle, re-scarring Bonnie's face and making Rochelle's hair fall out, before defeating Nancy and binding her so she can do no more harm.
The ending, explained
Some time afterward, Bonnie and Rochelle come over to Sarah's, hoping to patch things up. She turns them down and tells them Manon took their powers because they abused them. They scoff and say she must have lost hers too, until she calls up a lightning storm and nearly flattens them with a falling tree branch. She tells them not to turn out like Nancy, who now lives in a psychiatric hospital, delusional and strapped down, still insisting that she can fly. Sarah keeps her powers, Bonnie and Rochelle lose theirs, and Nancy is bound.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, and nobody harms it.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is The Craft scary?
Yes, The Craft is a 5 out of 10 with medium dread. The scares come from creepy images such as snakes and insects, plus a handful of light jump scares.
How does The Craft end?
Sarah defeats and binds Nancy, who ends up in a psychiatric hospital. Bonnie and Rochelle lose their powers, and Sarah keeps hers.
Does the dog die in The Craft?
No, no dog dies in The Craft. The only dog on screen is sad but never harmed. Many dead sharks wash up on a beach, though, so animal lovers should know that.
Is there a post-credits scene in The Craft?
No. The Craft has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
What happens to Nancy at the end of The Craft?
Sarah binds Nancy's powers, and Nancy is committed to a psychiatric hospital. In The Craft she is delusional and restrained, insisting that she can fly.
