Beauty in the movies: Hocus Pocus

I’m sorry to say this is a sort of budget Beauty in the Movies post. I thought it would be fun to celebrate Halloween with one of the best Halloween movies ever—Hocus Pocus, but there is a “long wait” for the film on Netflix so I wasn’t able to take my own screen-shots, thankfully I kind of have it memorized and it was on the ABC Family channel so I was able to watch it again.

Hocus Pocus is the story of Max Denison (Omri Katz) the new kid in Salem, Massachusetts who loves wearing tie dyed T-shirts and doesn’t believe in witches, especially not the local tale of the three Sanderson sisters Winifred ‘Winnie’ Sanderson, (Bette Midler) Sarah Sanderson, (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mary Sanderson (Kathy Najimy) who were put to their deaths on Halloween night in 1693 for sucking the lives out of little children.

In his effort to woo the cute girl in his class with “big yabos”, Allison (Vinessa Shaw), Max drags his little sister, Dani (Thora Birch), along to check out the Sanderson house on Halloween night. Once there, he foolishly lights the ‘black flamed candle’ which legend tells will bring the witches back from the dead if lit by a virgin on Halloween night—can you guess what happens? Yeah, Max brilliantly not only brings three evil witches back from the dead, but also outs himself as a virgin to the girl he is trying to impress, smooth move Hollywood.

Max also really pisses off Thackery Binx, a 300 year old cat who is really a teenage boy (Sean Murray) who was turned into a feline by the witches after they killed his sister Emily. Wild Hi-jinx ensue, and Binx, Dani, Max, and Allison must figure out a way to stop the witches before they suck the life from all the kids in town.

Some kids are obsessed by pop-stars or fairy tales, but for some reason I was obsessed with the Salem Witch Hunts, I’m not sure why, but this movie probably played a part in it. I made my parents take me to Salem, I read the crucible more than five times, gave my Barbies the water test in my old fish bowl, and I actually learned a lot about history and the screwed up things people do to one another—so thanks Disney for representing history so badly I had to go learn it for myself!

Hocus Pocus is what I would call a delightful romp, Bette Midler is fantastic as usual, and I personally think it’s a perfect Halloween movie. There’s singing, zombies, and a freaking talking cat! Plus, look at these 90s bullies, that’s “Ice” (Larry Bagby) on the left, he would later appear on lots of TV shows including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but he has never had more awesome duds than the ones he sports in this film.

If you want to get mushy about it, this movie sets a good model for kids in terms of being nice to your siblings too. When the movie opens Max is a total jerk to his little sister and whines about being too cool to take her trick-or-treating, but after hearing how Binx lost his sister, he realizes just how precious younger siblings can be.

And also, when you’re a virgin who lights a black-flamed-candle bringing three evil witches back from the dead and they’ve put your parents under a spell in song, you really need to learn to stick together, because you’re kind of all you’ve got—now isn’t that an important lesson for siblings to learn?

I have to say I was super annoyed when they showed this on TV the other night and cut out the ending with all the parents walking out of the Halloween party dazed and crazy from being under the witches spell—bad form ABC family, bad form.

Somehow I managed to lose the polyvore collage I made for this post, which really sucks and I have no idea how it happened, so I apologize for that. One week from today I will be getting married, so Beauty in the Movies will be taking a break and returning in November with more beauty and more movies!

Happy Halloween kiddies!!!!!!!!!!!