Hocus Pocus (1993)

Come Halloween time, my housemates and I were for some reason really in the mood for Hocus Pocus, which held fond memories for us of younger, carefree days. In the much-mythologized, colonial Salem, Massachusetts, the Sanderson sisters (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy) are sentenced to death for witchery after killing a little girl and presumably her older brother, Binx (Sean Murray). Flash forward to the mid-90's, and the town is Halloween-crazed and full of weird slang, bad haircuts, and flannel shirts. Teenager Max (Omri Katz- you know, from Eerie, Indiana) and his family have just moved there from California and he's having trouble adjusting to his new home, trying to play it cool despite his dorky little sister Dani (Thora Birch) always hanging around.

Joined by Dani and his crush Allison (Vinessa Shaw), Max playfully lights a special candle that brings back the Sanderson sisters, who have one night to woo children to their deaths so they can suck their lifeblood and gain eternal youth. The teens do their best to stop the slightly incompetent witches, who are thrown off by all this new-fangled technology. They find out Binx was actually turned into a talking cat, and is now able to help them defeat the Sandersons once and for all, thus gaining revenge for the death of his little sister.

This movie is a pretty good family-friendly comedy-horror, with a solid premise and nice cast. Midler, Parker, and Najimy are very silly and obviously having some fun with it, though the overacting becomes a bit grating after a while- I feel like they didn't know how else to handle a children's movie. There are some good jokes, some slightly creepy moments (to a kid, anyway), and decent effects. Also, I was excited to see an appearance by Doug Jones (you know, Abe Sapien, the Silver Surfer, the faun and eye monster in Pan's Labyrinth, etc) as a re-animated corpse.

For all its delightful 90's teen slang, frequent use of the word "virgin" (I don't think I knew what that meant when I first saw this movie), and over the top drama, Hocus Pocus seemed lacking, somehow. It's just not as fun or exciting as I remember. It's mostly the three teenage characters being incredibly stupid, and Binx walking around as the voice of reason no one listens to. It's funny to see people be so dumb, but also quite aggravating. Oh well. I guess this still serves its purpose as a cool Halloween film for kids, but it doesn't hold the same charm for someone in her 20's, even if I did once enjoy it, lo those many years ago. (That's a joke, you guys- I'm not all that old.)

3/5