[6.7/10] The witches of *Hocus Pocus* are fun. Bette Middler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker all definitely go broad with their witchy personae. The snarl and vamp and cackle and mug at every opportunity. But it’s that kind of movie, one that revels in camp and the outsized ridiculousness of it all. When the movie leans into their particular brand of live action cartoonishness, it’s an All Hallow’s Hoot.

The problem is that those spell-casting wenches only get about half the movie. Director Kenny Ortega and a trio of screen-writers force the audience to endure the misadventures of the usual set of insipid Disney kids in the other half. I couldn’t care less about the irksome protagonist Max, his underwritten crush Allison, or their generic kid escapades that are supposed to be our bridge to the witchy goings on otherwise. A young Thora Birch manages to break this trend a bit, breathing pluck and charm into little sister Dani, but even she’s weighed down by a weak story in a film where the perspective characters are the least essential part.

Somewhere in all those hijinks is a decent throughline about loving and protecting one’s younger siblings. [spoiler]The witches turn Thackery Binx into a cat for trying to save his sister, and he yearns to pass on into the next life so that he can reunite with her. Max initially laments having to take Dani out trick-or-treating and blames her for all that goes wrong. And yet, when the tension is at its highest, he drinks the life-stealing potion so that Winifred can’t inflict it on his little sister, prompting the pair’s closing embrace.[/spoiler]

It’s not much, and the film doesn’t do a whole hell of a lot to earn that closing bit of sweetness, but hey, there’s at least some sort of family-friendly theme to build this chocolate-covered trifle around, which is something.

That tack does not, however, prevent *Hocus Pocus* from being a strangely horny film for something theoretically directed at children. There’s a strange amount of focus on Max in particular being a virgin. The witches offer and deflect come-ons with everyone from bus drivers to random old men dressed like the devil. And in the film’s most tonally bizarre scene, Dani an eight-year-old tells Alison about how Max has explained to her that she can’t wear certain dresses due to her lack of bosom, but also how he’s apparently told his sister how much he loves Alison’s chest! (And that’s after she catches him canoodling with a pillow he’s pretending is Allison.)

Why is there so much focus on this stuff in a kids’ movie? God only knows. Under other circumstances, I’d chalk it up to capturing the true awkwardness of youth and adolescent attraction. But in such a cartoon-y movie, it lacks the genuineness of something like *Freaks and Geeks* to make that work. Instead, that whole throughline just feels bizarre and out of place.

But even if you excise that material (and you would lose nothing if you did), the kids just don’t have a very interesting story. They accidentally summon the witches and spend the rest of the movie running from them or fighting them or their minion, Billy. Their escapes and strikes back aren’t especially clever and little of what they do is set up by anything that happens more than five minutes before it becomes relevant. There’s some vague cleverness with rules about salt and hallowed ground and the morning son, but most of what our heroes do is run and yell at one another to run and occasionally grouse about not liking Salem or believing in its legends.

What *Hocus Pocus* does have going for it, even in the interludes focused on the kids, is texture. There’s a delightfully spooky atmosphere to the picture, both in the haunted house background music score and the “picturesque New England town on a bustling Halloween Night” vibe that suffuses every frame. The sets, the various kids’ Halloween costumes, and even grumbling zombie Billy Butcherson have a toybox-come-to-life feel that makes them amusingly spooky without ever truly verging on the scary. Even Binks the cat holds up as a remarkable effect decades later, especially for 1993.

That sense of autumnal whimsy extends to the witches themselves. Middler, Najimy, and Parker are all done up in ludicrous costumes and make-up, befitting the colorful vibe and play-for-the-cheap-seats energy they bring to their performances. The trio make for a good ersatz three stooges, bonking one another, getting into various mishaps, and yet seeming like a team (albeit one that’s less than well-oiled). They make some fun choices together, particularly their little three-person walk and sense of controlled chaos when they’re all fumbling for ingredients for their bubbling brew.

They’re so much brighter and more entertaining on the screen, that you slowly but surely realize it should be their movie. Sure, finding an excuse for Bette Middler to do a song is a little contrived, but there’s a lot more hay to made out of a triple-threat of witches from the 1600s bumping into the ways of the 1990s than there is in the usual crop of moppets doing the usual monster escape routine. If *Hocus Pocus* could somehow jettison its annoying teen lead and let the broom-riders (and mop and vacuum-riders) take over, it could be a fun romp 100% of the time rather than 50% of the time.

Instead, we get a heap of light and goofy comic sketches from Winifred, Mary, and Sara interacting with the modern world, punctuated by a dull mad libs plot for the kiddos. The film is never funnier or more endearing than when the witches are on screen, whether they’re scheming, searching, or just getting in one another’s way. Mary’s children-sniffing bumbles, Sara’s blithe kookiness, and Winifred’s deliberately shtick-y queen bee routine each give *Hocus Pocus* a sense of outsized fun and flavor when they’re on the screen. It’s just a shame the rest of the movie’s Halloween treats are so bland by comparison.

Good.

'Hocus Pocus' is a fairly amusing film about witches from the Salem trials era, not that it hasn't any real connection to those events. It's very much a fun fantasy film, which looks pretty neat by the way.

Bette Midler (Winifred), Kathy Najimy (Mary) and Sarah Jessica Parker (Sarah) play three witch sisters. They are main reason why the film is as enjoyable as it is, all are entertaining but Midler is definitely the pick of the bunch. The trio of younger actors in Omri Katz (Max), Thora Birch (Dani) and Vinessa Shaw (Allison) are OK, nothing special but passable.

I didn't fully connect or like the plot itself, but it's one that suits everything else on screen well so it kinda works to be honest. All in all, for me, this is a solid, mid-range production from Disney.

I imagine most of the love for Hocus Pocus comes from people who re-watch it with nostalgia goggles. Even as a child of the 90's I had never seen Hocus Pocus and knew little of it, so I had no prior attachments to this film. If you have seen any of the Disney Channels terrible made for TV movies, Hocus Pocus is like a particularly bad one with some questionable language and sexual innuendo. The acting is really bad from the entire cast, which is a little surprising considering the witches (who I had always assumed you the heroes of the story, but are clearly not) are two D-List actresses (Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy) and a C-lister (Sarah Jessica Parker) who aren't exactly known for their acting abilities, but are actual professional actresses. The CG effects are bad, even considering this is a 1993 movie and the practical effects aren't even an honest effort. All of this could be forgiven if it was part of a fun, campy family movie, but Hocus Pocus can't even pull that off. The plot is lame and full of inconsistencies and just unreasonably unrealistic moments. The witches have been "dead" for 300 years, but will be brought back if a virgin lights the black flame candle. In 1990 a high school boy says multiple times publicly that he is a virgin. Let me just say that again, they think a high school boy would go around announcing himself to be a virgin repeatedly to his peers. This is a public high school in Massachusetts in the 90's, not a Mormon town or a private Catholic school. When the witches return, they have been gone for 300 years and don't even know what the paved road is, thinking it to be a river or what a bus is; they have no knowledge of any of the advances since the 1600's. Having established this, one of the witches flies up to the side of a car on their broom and asks him for his license and registration. So, they don't understand asphalt, but they know motorist jokes? The movie is littered with inconsistencies and a wild lack of understanding of how teenagers and children think and act. Even the three witches can't maintain a consistent character. Bette Midler is supposed to be the smart older sister, but she acts the most irrationally and whines like a child. Sarah Jessica Parker is a horny dumb blonde and Kathy Najimy is a mentally challenged woman who barks an talks out of the side of her mouth, but they are always the ones to reason and plan. Najimy is the worst, with her constantly swinging from offensively stupid the brains of the operation. This was an actual movie released in theaters. Had it been a cheap Disney Channel original, it would still be terrible, but excusable. As a real theatrical film, Hocus Pocus is embarrassing. Unless you grew up with this film, I can't imagine you getting much out of this. It's fairly unoffensive children's drivel, with some questionable language if that's all you need, but it's not a good film. It wasn't fun or interesting and it was probably best left in '93.

The colors, right? Was the the draw in for you too, because this movie popped. Outside of Dick Tracy I don't think I've seen color used to well in a film, both for entertainment and for pure wow.

It popped... and, yeah, there was a story here too.

This was the 90s, it was that time where they could make a children's movie that was still a little dark, a children's movie that was still entertaining for adults to watch. In other words, they made a FAMILY movie, and that hasn't been done lately has it?

You can watch it as an adult and love it because it has a real plot, it has jokes that are above the low brow children's fair, and jokes that cater to them as well. It takes an effort to be appealing to ALL age groups.

And, as I said, it has a plot that you can follow, which again is new for the modern family film which are more or less a series of scenes loosely linked together.

It's entertaining, it was entertaining when I was 13 and my little sister was 7, it was entertaining for my parents that took us, and it's still entertaining. Only now that I'm 40, I'm old enough to look at it and appreciate the color... because man does it pop.

Bad watch, probably won't watch again, and can't recommend.

Sometimes it is fun to get in the way back machine to visit "classic" movies, but they don't always hold up. And in some cases, like this, it is a wonder they EVER worked at all. Especially that it is a 1993 Disney movie and focuses on sex, plus a lot of witch lore being based on women being sexual in a time where it was so inappropriate they would be burnt at the stake. I digress.

While the Sanderson sisters are a compelling premise, if sloppy, and an interesting metaphor for the desires of power, hunger, and sex, it goes to an almost cartoonish levels of ridiculous for next to no reasoning.

All the non witch cast do a fine job, and I especially liked Thora Birch's performance, I can see why she took off so well. As for the witch cast, I have no doubt they did was in the script very well, but the script is overly ridiculous, and even just trying to relax there are jokes that make no sense and just aren't all that funny.

Ultimately it comes down to being a Halloween themed sub-par Babysitter's Club, or your choice of child adventure groups.