The book has gotten a CG upgrade here, which is too bad, since the animatronic eye embedded in the cover was such a great old-school trick. In the woods, they meet the Witch Mother (“Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham), who senses their potential and bequeaths the book that enables all their mischief - and which contains a spell that can make them all-powerful at great personal cost.
On one hand, it implies that charges of witchcraft are one tool the patriarchy has for keeping independent women in check on the other, it allows the women to be bona fide witches (it’s as if they’re being falsely accused of exactly what they are).
#Hocus focus sequel movie
The Sandersons were “misunderstood” and “ahead of their time,” the movie explains, demonstrating a kind of have-it-both-ways thinking that’s perfectly consistent with the politics of the moment. The original did a pretty good job of wrapping up its story (the sisters were blasted into oblivion when the sun rose on All Saints’ Day), but also suggested that the sisters could be brought back easily enough, should a virgin light a black-flame candle on Halloween - and here, Becca (Whitney Peak) is fooled into doing exactly that by Gilbert (Sam Richardson), the owner of the magic shop now operating in the Sandersons’ old home, where much of the earlier film took place.īefore this simple spell happens, however, director Anne Fletcher (“The Proposal”) takes us back to early Salem to offer an origin story for the sisters (playing teenage Winifred in the prologue, Taylor Henderson has fun channeling the Divine Miss M’s more flamboyant mannerisms). Young’uns needn’t have seen the earlier movie to make sense of things, although it’s just a click away on Disney+ should any of them be curious enough to watch a classic that predates many of their parents.
In “ Hocus Pocus 2,” the three teens called upon to save Salem from the Sanderson sisters’ return are themselves budding witches, which means the movie isn’t about scaring kids away from magic so much as indulging their post-Potter junior wizarding fantasies. It can be no coincidence that the new feature lifts so much of its look and feel from that franchise - with eye of newt, a dead man’s head and some aspects of “The Craft” tossed in for good measure. The sequel’s existence owes less to popular demand (the original earned a respectable $39.3 million stateside and went on to become a Halloween season staple) than to the realization that the film had tapped into preteens’ fascination with witchcraft before Harry Potter came along. What strange sorcery is this that “Hocus Pocus” - a so-so comedy turned campy cult favorite starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as absolutely fabulous Salem witch sisters - should be getting a sequel nearly three decades after its 1993 release? At the time, Variety speculated that, were it not for the film’s three stars, “‘Hocus Pocus’ wouldn’t seem out of place on the Disney Channel, and perhaps belongs there.” (Its director, Kenny Ortega, would go on to helm the “High School Musical” franchise for the cabler.) In a sense, that’s what’s happened with this follow-up, aimed to breathe some life into the graveyard that is Disney+.
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