“Hocus Pocus” was always a joke. No, I’m not referring to the 1993 made-for-TV Disney movie about a trio of Puritan-era witch sisters who return one Halloween night to cause havoc for some kids. I’m referring to the origin of the phrase. “Hocus Pocus” was a name first used by entertainers in the 17th century. There were playing around with the Latin spoken during Mass – Hoc eat corpus meum, “This is my body.” “Hocus Pocus” throws a jovial side-eye at the priest turning wafers and wine into body and blood using an arcane incantation. On second thought, maybe we are talking about the twenty-nine-year-old Disney movie. The Sanderson sisters do thirst for flesh after all, and they terrorize Salem, Mass.
The Sanderson sisters are back in Hocus Pocus 2, a made-for-Disney+ movie drawing deeply from the cauldron of nostalgia for all of us 90s kids. So, I guess we can toss resurrection into the mix of Christian things the Hocus Pocus movies include in their spell. Have no fear – I’m not going to twist myself silly trying to turn the Hocus Pocus movies into some kind of secret Christian metaphor. It’s just worth noting how even our conventional tales of devilry have their origin not in Pagan practices but in Christian ones. They’re like the kids in the back pew poking fun of the church service. It might not be the kind of behavior we hope to see, but you have to be paying attention to make the most fun of what you’re watching, and hey, at least the kids are in church.
Hocus Pocus 2 does that thing that Disney has been doing for the last decade or so and tries to offer its villains a measure of redemption. (Redemption – there’s another Christian ideal for you.) The Sanderson sisters are still kid gobblers in this sequel, but a brief prologue complicates their origin, and, I guess because the audience has come to love them over the past almost thirty years, the movie wants to love them a little too by celebrating their sisterhood. The movie is more of a lark than the first film, which seems aimed at an audience of fifteen-year-olds. This sequel lowers the target age to twelve, or at maybe it raises it to thirty-nine year olds who want to remember what it was like to be ten and watching something that felt slightly too grown up for them.
Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker reprise their roles, and they are as enthusiastic in their wickedness as ever. Under-appreciated cinematic treasure, Doug Jones, wonderfully, pops up again as the undead Billy Butcherson. (Look up his filmography.) As before, he all but steals the show. Into the mix this time we can add Tony Hale in a dual role as the oppressive Puritan pastor in the prologue as well as a good-natured, goofy descendent of the man in the present day. He is given too little to do, but I’m biased – Tony is a friend. (The film’s producer, Ralph Winter, is a friend too, and Doug Jones is friend of a friend. The poisoned apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree with this one.)
Hocus Pocus 2 feels a shade less naughty than the original film, but it is exactly the kind of movie parents who loved the original will feel comfortable watching with their kids now. Will it inspire a new generation of Sanderson sister acolytes? Probably not, but it’ll make the parents happy. They’re the ones the movie is for, because they’re the ones who foot the bill to subscribe to Disney+.
“Hocus Pocus” was always a joke. No, I’m not referring to the 1993 made-for-TV Disney movie about a trio of Puritan-era witch sisters who return one Halloween night to cause havoc for some kids. I’m referring to the origin of the phrase. “Hocus Pocus” was a name first used by entertainers in the 17th century. There were playing around with the Latin spoken during Mass – Hoc eat corpus meum, “This is my body.” “Hocus Pocus” throws a jovial side-eye at the priest turning wafers and wine into body and blood using an arcane incantation. On second thought, maybe we are talking about the twenty-nine-year-old Disney movie. The Sanderson sisters do thirst for flesh after all, and they terrorize Salem, Mass.
The Sanderson sisters are back in Hocus Pocus 2, a made-for-Disney+ movie drawing deeply from the cauldron of nostalgia for all of us 90s kids. So, I guess we can toss resurrection into the mix of Christian things the Hocus Pocus movies include in their spell. Have no fear – I’m not going to twist myself silly trying to turn the Hocus Pocus movies into some kind of secret Christian metaphor. It’s just worth noting how even our conventional tales of devilry have their origin not in Pagan practices but in Christian ones. They’re like the kids in the back pew poking fun of the church service. It might not be the kind of behavior we hope to see, but you have to be paying attention to make the most fun of what you’re watching, and hey, at least the kids are in church.
Hocus Pocus 2 does that thing that Disney has been doing for the last decade or so and tries to offer its villains a measure of redemption. (Redemption – there’s another Christian ideal for you.) The Sanderson sisters are still kid gobblers in this sequel, but a brief prologue complicates their origin, and, I guess because the audience has come to love them over the past almost thirty years, the movie wants to love them a little too by celebrating their sisterhood. The movie is more of a lark than the first film, which seems aimed at an audience of fifteen-year-olds. This sequel lowers the target age to twelve, or at maybe it raises it to thirty-nine year olds who want to remember what it was like to be ten and watching something that felt slightly too grown up for them.
Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker reprise their roles, and they are as enthusiastic in their wickedness as ever. Under-appreciated cinematic treasure, Doug Jones, wonderfully, pops up again as the undead Billy Butcherson. (Look up his filmography.) As before, he all but steals the show. Into the mix this time we can add Tony Hale in a dual role as the oppressive Puritan pastor in the prologue as well as a good-natured, goofy descendent of the man in the present day. He is given too little to do, but I’m biased – Tony is a friend. (The film’s producer, Ralph Winter, is a friend too, and Doug Jones is friend of a friend. The poisoned apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree with this one.)
Hocus Pocus 2 feels a shade less naughty than the original film, but it is exactly the kind of movie parents who loved the original will feel comfortable watching with their kids now. Will it inspire a new generation of Sanderson sister acolytes? Probably not, but it’ll make the parents happy. They’re the ones the movie is for, because they’re the ones who foot the bill to subscribe to Disney+.
Elijah Davidson is Co-Director of Brehm Film and Senior Film Critic. Subscribe to Come & See, his weekly newsletter that guides you through the greatest films ever made, and find more of his work at elijahdavidson.com.
