| “ | Maybe you're a natural witch, your power comes from within | „ |
| ~ Lirio to Sarah Bailey |
Sarah Bailey is the main protagonist of the 1996 witch movie, The Craft. She was played by Robin Tunney.
Biography
Sarah Bailey, a troubled teenager, has just moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles with her father and stepmother. At her new Catholic school, she forms a friendship with a group of girls rumored to be witches, Bonnie, Nancy and Rochelle. At the same time, Sarah becomes attracted to the popular Chris (Skeet Ulrich). Bonnie, Nancy and Rochelle worship a powerful deity named "Manon". Sarah exhibits supernatural powers from the onset of the film, and her new friends believe that she will complete their coven, making them all powerful. When Sarah is harassed by a vagrant with a snake (whom she had encountered before in her new house), he is immediately hit by a car to die and the girls believe that together they willed it to happen. After a date with Chris, Sarah is upset to find that he has spread a false rumor that they had sex, and he treats her disrespectfully in other ways. In response, Sarah casts a love spell upon him, while Rochelle casts a revenge spell on a hateful racist bully Laura Lizzie (Christine Taylor), Bonnie casts a spell for beauty, and Nancy for power. It very soon becomes clear that the spells have been successful: Chris becomes infatuated with Sarah, scars that Bonnie has on her back miraculously heal, and Rochelle's bully Laura begins to lose her hair. Nancy goes further by causing her abusive stepfather to have a heart attack and die. Nancy becomes greedy for power and encourages the others to join her in a rite called "Invocation of the Spirit". Upon completion of the spell, she is struck by lightning. Afterward she lacks empathy and begins taking risks with her life and those of others. The spells that the girls have cast soon begin to show negative consequences: Bonnie becomes aggressively narcissistic; Rochelle finds Laura Lizzie traumatized by her baldness and sobbing hysterically; Chris attempts to rape Sarah when she rejects his continual advances. In retaliation, Nancy uses her power to kill Chris by causing him to fall out of a window to his death. Sarah performs a binding spell to prevent Nancy from doing more harm, but this does not work and the coven turns on Sarah. They invade her dreams, threaten her and use their powers of illusion to make Sarah believe that her father has been killed in an accident. They taunt her with visions of swarms of insects and snakes and try to persuade her to commit suicide, before Nancy cuts Sarah's wrists herself. Sarah successfully "invokes the spirit" and is able to heal herself and fight back. Sarah scares off Bonnie and Rochelle and defeats Nancy, binding her power to prevent her from doing harm. As the film closes, Nancy is committed to a psychiatric hospital, and Sarah is the only coven member who does not lose her powers.