- "Well, excuse me, but I've spent a big chunk of my life being a monster and now that I'm not, I'm having a good time; I'm sorry that bothers you."
- — Bonnie
Bonnie Harper is a main character in The Craft. She is a practicing witch. Bonnie is presented as a shy, insecure teenager who suffers from burn scars along her back and shoulders as a result of a fire when she was a child. Once Sarah Bailey joins her coven, she is able to cast a spell which relieves her of both her physical and emotional scarring, causing her to become both beautiful and conceited.
She is portrayed by Neve Campbell.
Biography[]
Background[]
Bonnie was born in 1980, presumably in Los Angeles, California. Sometime prior to the beginning of the film, Bonnie was involved in an accident involving fire, which left her back and shoulders severely scarred. This evidently had a significant impact on Bonnie's mentality that it is implied that she tried or at least thought of committing suicide by cutting her wrists.
The Craft[]
Initially, Bonnie is presented as very underconfident, mostly as a result of her burn scars. She wears her hair over her face and dresses in dark, loosely cut clothing, covering most of her skin. She is best friends with Nancy Downs, an outcast with a gothic aesthetic, and Rochelle, the only African-American student in her school. Together, the girls practice witchcraft. According to Bonnie, they need to find a fourth member for their coven so that they can achieve full power.
Sarah Bailey, a new student, immediately attracts Bonnie's attention. Whilst in class, Sarah absent-mindedly focuses on a pencil, causing it to stay upright and rotate on her desk, until she is brought back to reality by Bonnie's gasp. Bonnie expresses her belief to the others after class that someone has arrived to be the fourth. Initially reluctant, Nancy and Rochelle slowly befriend Sarah and accept her into their coven.
They all cast spells as part of an initiation rite. Bonnie, who is undergoing experimental treatment for her scars, casts a spell to become beautiful, "outside as well as in", which is successful and results in her scars disappearing. Unfortunately, since her emotional scars as well as her physical scars are now gone, this results in Bonnie becoming gradually more conceited and self-absorbed, until she is a vain and shallow shell of her former self. Now at full power, the girls cast individual spells for personal gain.
Sarah believes that using magic inappropriately will invoke the Rule of Three, a Wiccan law which states that "what you send out, you get back threefold". After Nancy invokes the spirit of Manon, she becomes much more powerful as a result and starts to use her powers in a dark, murderous fashion. Both Bonnie and Rochelle are nonchalant towards Nancy's actions. Sarah tries to reason with them, citing the Rule of Three, but Bonnie and the other girls blow Sarah off and dismiss her warnings. As Sarah becomes more uncomfortable, she tries to leave the circle. Sarah tries to cast a binding spell on Nancy to prevent her causing harm, but it is unsuccessful. As a result, Nancy begins to use her powers to torment Sarah. In a final attack at Sarah's house, the girls use glamours to convince Sarah that her parents have been killed in an accident, and torment her with hallucinations of vast quantities of bugs attacking her. Eventually, Nancy slits Sarah's wrists with an athame, causing her to flee upstairs to her room. A fading Sarah invokes Manon herself. Nancy, meanwhile, has ordered Bonnie and Rochelle to retrieve Sarah. Sarah uses her newfound power to glamour a mirror, causing it to show Bonnie and Rochelle their reflections after the Rule of Three has come to pass, portraying Rochelle as bald as a result of her spell on Laura Lizzie, and Bonnie with her burn scars having returned - only this time, covering her face. Believing this to be the 'Rule of Three' at work, Bonnie ceases her attack on Sarah and flees with Rochelle. After successfully beating Nancy in a final magical battle, Sarah later binds Bonnie's powers, along with Nancy and Rochelle's powers.
Bonnie goes with Rochelle to see Sarah at the end of the film, apologizing for what happened earlier and offering to let Sarah hang out with them. She also greets Sarah's father, who is oblivious to what has been going on; Rochelle glibly apologises for the glamour showing the death of Sarah's parents, calling it "a practical joke". The girls let slip that they have lost their powers, which is the real reason that they want Sarah to hang out with them. Bonnie does not seem very sincere, which Sarah clearly picks up on, and she tells Bonnie and Rochelle to "hold [their] breath" until she calls. As Bonnie leaves with Rochelle, she snickers and says that Sarah "probably does not have any powers anymore anyway", prompting Sarah to prove her wrong by using magic to break a tree branch above their heads, which nearly falls on Bonnie and Rochelle. As a parting shot, Sarah tells Bonnie and Rochelle to be careful, as they do not want to end up like Nancy.
Personality[]
At the beginning of the film, Bonnie is shown to be kind and sweet-natured, though also very shy and weak-willed. This largely stemmed from her severe scarring, which Bonnie felt very self-conscious about, to the point where she even referred to herself as a "monster" and was willing to do just about anything to get rid of them. After seeing Sarah use magic in class, she was the first to believe Sarah should join their coven.
After using magic to heal her scars, Bonnie changes drastically, becoming far more confident and outspoken. She dresses in more revealing clothes, wears make-up, and carries herself with dignity. She also flirts with boys or states her opinion on things. Unfortunately, Bonnie also becomes increasingly self-absorbed and vain, with Sarah saying she has become "completely narcissistic". Bonnie dismisses this and turns on Sarah, using magic to attack and frighten her, demonstrating her darker and more malicious side.
However, Bonnie does express reluctance at actually causing serious harm to Sarah, feeling that Nancy has taken things too far. Despite this, she dismisses it as a joke and even asks Sarah if she wants to hang out some time, though Sarah clearly does not see the funny side and lets Bonnie know exactly what she thinks of her and her so-called 'pranks'.
Physical Appearance[]
Bonnie is a teenage girl of medium height and slim figure. In the beginning she hid her pale face which appears to have freckles around her nose cheeks and forehead and full pink lips and dark brown eyes with her dark brown shoulder length hair which appeared greasy and stringy and wore baggy black clothes from head to toe to hide her scars. After her scars were healed she turned out beautiful as her hair appeared more cleaner and more voluminous with some slight waves and wears her hair loose or clipped up or buns or French braids. She wore more makeup jewelry mini skirts knee high socks and high heels and has long legs and tall standing at 5’7. Her most distinctive features are her long sculpted legs.
Powers and abilities[]
Bonnie is a witch, thus possessing magical talents. She is capable of focusing on an intent and outcome and willing it to happen. Once her coven was at full quota and full magical power, she (along with the others) was able to manipulate magic at your disposal without much effort .
- Magical Channeling: Bonnie , like her other friends, was unable to manifest her powers until Sarah Bailey came to the group. Channeling her magic through Manon and nature in a series of varied rituals and spells with her coven, Bonnie has managed to awaken her magic to use it for whatever she wants.
- Supernatural connection: Bonnie has demonstrated that he is able to communicate psychically with the other members of the coven to wish for something to happen. This was shown when she telekinetically pushed a car to run over a bum who was harassing Sarah.
- Glamour: She had the ability shared with her witch sisters to hide reality from someone's eyes and make them believe convincing illusions. Bonnie used this to destabilize Sarah by showing her a false aerial disaster that resulted in the death of her family and the presence of venomous animals in the house.
- Pyrokinesis: Although Bonnie has not shown her pyrokinetic powers throughout history, she is the bearer of the fire element. This makes it exercise restricted domain to conjure, control and manipulate fire in its own way.
- Telekinesis: She it has the ability to move and control physical matter through the strength of the mind. Bonnie displays your telekinetic powers when she mentally caused a tramp to be run over with her coven. Later, she and her friends were seen using this power to open the bathroom door where Sarah was hiding.
- Levitation: A ritual with her friends, she helped, through her magic, to levitate Rochelle from the ground. Bonnie can lift herself off the ground and float telekinetically without the slightest effort. During the invasion of dreams, Bonnie was able to take a flight alongside her coven by entering the window and scaring Sarah Bailey.
- Electromagnetic Interference: In the final confrontation against Sarah, Bonnie and her coven were able to cause a failure and result in a power outage at the Bailey house .
- Dream Manipulation/Entering: Bonnie was able to invade Sarah's dreams alongside Nancy and Rochelle with extreme ease and efficiency.
- Witchcraft: Bonnie was inclined to perform extraordinary rituals and spells with her witch friends. She showed exceptional affinity by casting charms on Sarah during the final confrontation.
- Healing Spell: Bonnie wished through a magic ritual with her friends, that she could heal her burn scars. With the addition of Sarah to the group, she can have her spell completed.
- Conjuration of Butterflies: During the first ritual in which Sarah participated offered to Manon, a flock of butterflies appeared around them and Bonnie.
- Ritual of Change: Bonnie participated in a ritual alongside her coven to make physical changes to them. Although Bonnie does not appear using the effects of this spell, Sarah was able to change the color of her hair.
- Spirit Summoning Ritual: Under Nancy at the helm, Bonnie and her friends were able to perform a ritual to communicate and invoke deceased beings from other astral planes. This witchcraft resulted in a strengthening of their magic in the astral area.
- Persuasion Spell (limited): She and her friends tried to get Sarah to kill herself freely and spontaneously . This spell was working at first, but when Sarah "invoked the Spirit", it was totally broken.
Quotes[]
- "You know, every morning I wake up, and for a split second, I think I'm normal... then I remember."
- —Bonnie to Sarah about her scarring
- "Excuse me, but I've spent a big part of my life being a monster and now that I'm not; I'm having a good time, I'm sorry that bothers you."
- —Bonnie to Sarah after Sarah accuses her of being narcisstic
- "Nice ass!"
- —Bonnie catcalling a man after her spell is successful
Trivia[]
- In a deleted scene, it is implied that Bonnie's scars were healed with the help of Sarah, who performed a healing ritual on Bonnie while she was at the hospital.
- Neve Campbell, who played Bonnie, became best friends with Rachel True (Rochelle) during filming.
- Bonnie was portrayed by Neve Campbell, who also portrayed Sidney Prescott, a character from the Scream franchise. The Craft came out the same year as the movie Scream. It also starred Skeet Ulrich, who portrays Chris Hooker.
- Producers spotted Neve Campbell from her TV show Party of Five. Prior to The Craft, Neve had never done movie work. She was asked to read and the producers eventually decided that she'd "make a good Bonnie".
- According to the filmmakers, Bonnie's classical element is fire.
- Which is ironic since she was badly burned in a fire when she was an kid prior to the movie.