| “ | We are the weirdos, mister. | „ |
| ~ Nancy Downs about herself and her coven. |
| “ | Can I help you? | „ |
| ~ Nancy to Lily when she visits her. |
Nancy Downs is the main antagonist of the 1996 supernatural horror film The Craft and a minor character of the 2020 sequel The Craft Legacy. She is a sexually aggressive, ill-tempered, and cantankerous girl and witch who has a tumultuous personal life, including a drunken mother named Grace Downs and an abusive stepfather named Ray Sanders. In The Craft Legacy, she is the biological mother of Lily Schechner.
She was portrayed by Fairuza Balk who also voiced Connie DiMico in the Family Guy episode "Let's Go To the Hop".
Biography[]
Sixteen-year-old Nancy was born on January 29, 1980, and was the only child of Grace Downs. It’s implied that Grace was at one point in her life a Prostitute, and that is how Nancy was conceived. Nancy grew up in a Trailer Park with her mother. Many years later, Grace married a man named Ray Sanders, whom Nancy was never comfortable to be around with. He often made inappropriate remarks to her and irritated her. Ray was abusive; occasionally even physically attacking Grace and Nancy. Despite this, Nancy loved her slightly neglectful mother very much.
When Nancy began attending a Catholic high school somewhere around 1994 or 1995, she dated Chris Hooker, a popular Football player at the school. Nancy and Chris had sex, and the next day Chris told the whole school about it. Chris broke up with Nancy and led the whole school in bullying her, addressing her as a “slut” thereafter. It’s also implied Nancy got an STI from Chris. Nancy befriended Rochelle, the only Black student at the school when nobody else would talk to her. They later befriended Bonnie, an insecure girl with bad burn scars around her body. The three had a mutual interest in witchcraft, so they formed a coven. They yet exhibited no supernatural powers until the arrival of a natural witch, a lonely young girl with a tragic past of her own named Sarah Bailey.
Bonnie, who was the only person caught a glimpse of Sarah using magic to make a pencil standing still on her desk in class, ran to Nancy and tells her that Sarah is the fourth girl to complete their coven. But Nancy shrugs her off by telling her that they do not require a fourth person. Finally, Nancy accepts Bonnie's theory and introduces herself to Sarah. Nancy, Bonnie and Rochelle took Sarah to an occult shop run by the wise and kind witch named Lirio, which the trio visit and even steal frequently, and this is how Sarah discovers that the three young ladies were practicing witches.
When the same snake-loving vagrant who was trespassing at Sarah's new house in Los Angeles begins to harass her, the four girls suddenly share a thought; a car would hit the homeless man (who keeps claiming to be contact with the nature spirit Manon who he calls "The Man") and it did, leading Nancy to believe that with Sarah the quad, capable of having actual supernatural talents, which goes to Nancy's head.
Nancy began to delve deeper and deeper into the art of magic that her addiction for ultimate power consumes her that she invokes the deity Manon. Lirio stated that Nancy took this invocation to a dark place, using the power she was channeling the spirit of Manon (who himself is like nature because nature itself, as stated by Lirio, is both light and dark, loving and cruel, all at the same time), allowing Nancy to finally murder her repulsive stepfather Ray, who died of a Heart Attack. It turned out that Ray had a big pension of $175, 000, meaning Nancy and her mother could move out of the Trailer they lived in and into an apartment. Nancy later murdered Chris Hooker, the boy who treated Nancy the same way he treated women like harlots. Yet, it did not end there, for this causes "Mean Nancy" to go completely mad and attempts to use her powers to threaten Sarah as shown that night while Sarah was dreaming, Nancy, Bonnie, and Rochelle, came to her in her nightmare were sadistically choking her and laughing at her before Sarah wakes up screaming. Sarah tried the first time a binding spell in order to prevent her from harming other people as well as herself, and it did not worked. Sarah, who also invoked Manon upon death and rebirth during the three young witches' assault at her house, not only make both Bonnie and Rochelle see the errors of their ways via the Rule of Three, but also to combat Nancy and successfully cast a binding spell which removed her magical abilities on Manon’s behalf. Being unable to perform magic, Nancy went insane. Her mother was forced to send her to a Mental Asylum.
The Craft: Legacy confirmed that Nancy is the main character Lily Schechner's biological mother. It can be presumed that Nancy was sexually assaulted by a male patient at the Asylum. Lily was given to Helen Schechner, who was Nancy's therapist. Nancy made sure that her daughter would never learn about her real identity, believing that it would protect the child from her enemies. However, Lily in her darkest times found a document of Helen’s adoption certificate with an unknown father. Lily visited Nancy, who is still confined in the Asylum. Adam Harrison, who was a dangerous, misogynistic warlock and Helen's Fiancé knew exactly who Lily's biological mother is and came after her and her powers because of it. While he was ultimately destroyed, the world has other warlocks as well as other types are bound to come after them.
Personality[]
Nancy is mentally unstable from the beginning. She is cold and arrogant; though does have a good heart at first. She was originally rude to Sarah, but warmed up to her gradually. She was mean and cruel and took no prisoners when it came to her victims. Despite all of this, Nancy had redeemable qualities. She genuinely loved her mother and when in Freshman year Nancy was the only person to talk to Rochelle (the only Black student), she was also sympathetic with Bonnie’s insecurities. Nancy is capable of non-familial love, she dated Chris Hooker who gave her an STI and told the whole school about them having sex, which caused Nancy to be badly bullied. Nancy’s abuse at the hands of her stepfather and the bullying she endured in school is what likely led to her mental state. At the end of the first film, Nancy is shown tied up to a bed in a Mental Asylum to stop her escaping, with Nancy desperately trying to escape, while laughing maniacally, screaming in terror and crying in sadness all at the same time. This is proof that Nancy has gone completely insane.
In "The Craft: Legacy", Nancy is still in the Mental Asylum, meaning she’s still mentally ill. However, she is no longer tied up and is apparently allowed to roam free, or at least was at one point, seeing as a male patient is implied to have gotten close enough to sexually assault her. Nancy’s therapist, Helen, adopted the daughter Nancy gave birth to and made sure Helen protect Lily at all costs, showing she cared for her daughter. Though still with mental health issues, Nancy seems in a slightly better state, but she also seemed unhappy as she seems to just spend her days sitting alone in silence.
Physical Appearance[]
Nancy is of average height. Nancy wears gothic, dark makeup. She has short Jet-Black hair, which she wore in a ponytail or bunches at the start of the film. After she and her mother get her stepfather’s $175000 pension, Nancy has her hair done and it becomes curly from then on. Nancy’s most defining physical feature are her piercing, slate grey eyes.
In "The Craft: Legacy", Nancy (middle-aged and in a Mental Asylum) never wears makeup and her hair is long and all over the place, sort of being worn like curtains. The only thing that hasn’t changed is Nancy’s piercing Grey eyes.
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