Main Cast: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Omri Katz, Thora Birch
Release Year: 1993
Country: US
Run Time: 95 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy romp around like coked-up versions of The Three Stooges in the frantic Disney romp Hocus Pocus. The film begins in 1693 where three witches -- Winifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker), and Mary (Kathy Najimy) -- are preparing a potion that will grant them immortality and eternal youth. But before they finish mixing their cocktail, the people of Salem capture them and execute them for practicing witchcraft. Before their deaths, they vow to return to Salem 300 years hence on Halloween to exact their revenge. Three hundred years later, a skeptical, newly transplanted Californian, Max (Omri Katz), explores the ruins of the legendary witches' house and dares the witches to manifest themselves. Disregarding the warnings of his sister Dani (Thora Birch) and girlfriend Allison (Vinessa Shaw), Max lights the Candle of Black Flame. With that, the witches reappear to wreak havoc on the town. The kids take off with the witches' spellbook and a musty tome of hexes and recipes. The sorceresses, who will die by the morning light if they don't recite the incantation for immortality, have to get the books by whatever means they can. So, Winifred, Sarah, and Mary hop on their broomsticks for a chase through Halloween night. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Review
Children (though not young children) who find the humor of the Three Stooges just a wee bit too subtle may enjoy Hocus Pocus, but it's hard to imagine anyone else standing for this annoying piece of hokum. Putting criticism aside for a moment -- which in this case is pretty hard to do -- it's hard to imagine just who the folks at Touchstone/Disney aimed this piece of claptrap at. It's too disturbing for very young children, too obnoxious for adults and too dull for anyone in between. There's plenty of blame to go around, but let's start with the quartet of screenwriters, who took what should have been a workable high concept and destroyed it with a story which is totally unfocused (and makes no sense), dialogue that evokes physical pain in the listener, and characters that are both one dimensional and unlikable. At times, the story telling is so inept that it almost seems as if the screenplay was fashioned by having one writer "create" until he got tired, then having another writer take it from there -- but without letting him read what had come before. Almost as bad as the writing is Kenny Ortega's amazingly poor direction. Ortega seems to think that the way to cover up flaws in the writing is to play a scene as loudly as possible. If volume alone doesn't get the desired result, he adds in as much flailing as possible. As a result, Bette Midler is encouraged to offer a performance so excessive as to become genuinely vulgar -- and boring, to boot. Kathy Najimy is given one note to play and plays it incessantly, and Omri Katz is actively annoying. Sarah Jessica Parker comes off best of the leading players, managing against all odds to inject a few moments of interest and humor into the film. But the only actors to actually score big are Garry and Penny Marshall, whose little cameo is the high point of the film. Some of the special effects are good, some are not. The "I Put a Spell on You" sequence, however, was ill advised. Hocus is a fright, alright, but not the kind it intended to be. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Vinessa Shaw - Allison; Sean Murray - Thackery Binx; Larry Bagby III - Ernie "Ice"; Tobias Jelinek - Jay; Stephanie Faracy - Jenny; Charles Rocket - Dave; Vanna Bonta; Teda Bracci - Calamity Jane; Kathleen Freeman - Miss Olin; Leigh Hamilton - Cop's Girlfriend; Doug Jones - Billy Butcherson; Joe Malone - Singer; Jason Marsden - Thackery Binx; Michael McGrady - Cop; Norbert Weisser - Thackery's Father; Don Yesso - Bus Driver; Peggy Holmes - Dancer; Ezra Sutton - Fireman #2; Barbara Cohen; Mary Gail Artz; Amanda Shepherd - Emily
Credit
Nancy Patton - Art Director, Peggy Holmes - Choreography, Kenny Ortega - Choreography, Bonnie Bruckheimer - Co-producer, Mary Vogt - Costume Designer, Kenny Ortega - Director, Peter E. Berger - Editor, Ralph Winter - Executive Producer, John Debney - Composer (Music Score), John M. Elliott, Jr. - Makeup, Whitney Green - Production Designer, William Sandell - Production Designer, Hiro Narita - Cinematographer, Mick Garris - Producer, Steven Haft - Producer, David Kirschner - Producer, Don Kirshner - Producer, Rosemary Brandenberg - Set Designer, Martha Johnston - Set Designer, Brad Ricker - Set Designer, Peter Montgomery - Special Effects, Terry Frazee - Special Effects, Greg Beeman - Screenwriter, Mick Garris - Screenwriter, David Kirschner - Screenwriter, Kenny Ortega - Screenwriter, Neil Cuthbert - Screenwriter, Donald Myers - Special Effects Foreman
Hocus Pocus is a children's 1993fantasy/Halloween-themed film released by Disney, and directed by Kenny Ortega. The movie started life as a script for a special original movie for the Disney Channel, to be produced by one of the smaller studios owned by The Walt Disney Company, but the script caught the eye of Walt Disney Studios who decided that the film was strong enough to carry well-known names and to attract a cinema audience. The movie was released in the United States and Canada in July 1993. It was released in October 1994 across Australia and most of Europe and some Asian countries. The idea to cast Bette Midler was partly inspired by Midler's Golden Globe-nominated performance in a milestone motion picture for the Walt Disney Company on its Touchstone Pictures line, Down and Out in Beverly Hills.
Hocus Pocus initially opened in theaters to abysmal reviews, yet performed reasonably well at the box office. The film became popular on VHS and repeated airings on The Disney Channel and ABC Family (as 13 Nights of Halloween) and is considered a cult film[citation needed].
The movie opens in 1693 in Salem, Massachusetts where three witch sisters — Winifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker), and Mary Sanderson (Kathy Najimy) — lure a young girl named Emily (Jodie Rivera) to their house in the woods, where they prepare to suck out the girl's lifeforce. Her brother Thackery Binx (Sean Murray) sees her heading out and tells his brother Elijah (Steve Voboril) to wake his father and summon the town elders. He attempts to rescue her, but he is caught by the witches and forced to watch as they drain Emily's lifeforce, killing her in the process. As the witches are about to do the same to Binx, he angrily calls Winifred a hag declaring that there is not enough children in the world to make her beautiful. This prompts a livid Winifred and her sisters to instead turn him into an immortal black cat capable of speech, punishing him for the insult by forcing him "not to die, but to live forever with his guilt". Not long after this occurs, the witches are caught by the town elders including Binx's grieving father (Norbert Weisser). With the Sanderson Sisters prisoners in the town square, Thackery's father demands to know what they did to his son. Winifred denies all knowledge of him. Before the Sanderson sisters are hanged by the Salem townsfolk, they use the confiscated spellbook to cast a curse which would raise the three of them from the dead if and when a virgin lights the Black-Flamed Candle in the witches' home. Unable to return to his family, Binx dedicated his immortal life to guarding the Sanderson home so this curse could not come to light.
Three hundred years later, in 1993, a teenage boy from Los Angeles named Max (Omri Katz) moves to Salem with his parents (Stephanie Faracy and Charles Rocket) and younger sister Dani (Thora Birch). Max falls for a girl named Allison (Vinessa Shaw) who has good knowledge of the history of the Sanderson sisters. When going home through the cemetary, he runs into some tough kids named Jay (Tobias Jelinek) and Ernie "Ice" (Larry Bagby) who end up stealing his shoes.
On Halloween, Max, Dani and Allison visit the old house of the witches which has since become a museum where Thackary Binx's cat form still lurks. Max lights the Black-Flamed Candle which summons powerful magic to raise the three witches from the dead. The three witches attempt to absorb Dani's lifeforce. Max fools them into taking cover from the "burning rain of death" by turning on the house's sprinkler system with a cigarette lighter and then steals Winifred's spellbook per advice from Thackary Binx (voiced by Jason Marsden).
The children and Binx retreat to a graveyard where Binx explains his past. The witches appear on broomsticks and summon forth Billy Butcherson (Doug Jones), an undead lover of Winifred who had an affair with her sister Sarah and was poisoned, his mouth also sewn shut. Billy chases the children through some old sewers and up into Salem's streets. The witches explore the new world, acknowledging they only have until sunrise to absorb the lifeforces out of children or they will die again. They ride on a bus until they wander into a street packed with children celebrating Halloween. They briefly visit a man dressed as the Devil (Garry Marshall) but are chased out by his wife who they mistake for Medusa (Penny Marshall). Both parties end up in a dance hall where Winifred takes the stage and performs her own rendition of I Put A Spell On You and then enchants all of the adults present, including Max's parents, to dance until they die, literally.
The witches are trapped in a kiln at a high school by the children and seemingly burn to death, but they escape. Upon being insulted by Jay and Ice, they end up taking them prisoners and return to their home to accept their fate.
Max and Allison open the spellbook to find a way to turn Binx back into a human, but this allows the book to send a signal that the witches then track to Max's house. Once there, they kidnap Dani and Binx and steal the book, returning once again to their old house. Sarah uses her singing voice to enchant the town's children to come to their house as well.
Max and Allison save Dani and Binx and escape again. With victory almost in the grasp, the witches seem close to triumph, but Winifred vengefully chases after the children. At the graveyard, the children encounter Billy who manages to talk by cutting open his mouth and allies with the children. The witches appear and fight with the children and Billy. Dani is captured again but Max drinks a formula used to suck lifeforces out of children, offering himself in his sister's place. Winifred agrees and tries to suck out his soul, but as she stands on the hallowed ground of the cemetery, she turns to stone. As this is happening the sun rises, turning Sarah, Mary, and the stone Winifred to dust. This also undoes the curse that made Binx immortal and he dies as well. Billy then returns to his grave. Binx (once again in his human form) is free to move on to the afterlife with his sister Emily as Max, Dani, and Allison look on.
As the credits start rolling, Max's parents and the other party attendees are leaving the school while "Ice" and Jay are still trapped in the Sanderson Sisters' house where the spellbook is still at.
