HOCUS POCUS (1993) Review
As a kid, I lapped up any and every piece of spooky media I could find. From the classic Goosebumps books of R L Stein to the weirdly creepy (and cheap) animation of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt kid’s friendly spin-off, Tales from the Cryptkeeper. In my quest for all things macabre and unusual, I was led to Disney’s 1993 Halloween spooktacular, the now iconic fantasy horror Hocus Pocus. It was my Nan who grabbed a copy of the VHS for me, presumably because it featured witches, and so I guess I have her to thank for what would become one of the biggest obsessions of my early movie-watching experience. Of course, this movie spoke to me, it’s undeniably camp in its execution, but it has a definitively mean-spirited streak — something that is undoubtedly a product of the fact that the script was initially written by horror master Mick Garris, the man behind a bunch of classic Stephen King adaptations, as well as Critters 2: The Main Course (the best of the Critters movies!). It’s easy to forget now that the film in which Bette Midler sings an epic rendition of ‘I Put a Spell on You’ and Kathy Najimy flies around on a vacuum cleaner because she can’t find a broom also features sequences in which a zombie has its head lopped off, a cat is devastatingly flattened by a bus, and a bunch of children is hypnotized into walking mindlessly toward their own demise, but… yeah… it does!
The thing about Hocus Pocus is that, despite its presumed kid-friendly trappings, by 10 minutes in an actual child has been murdered, a teen has been painfully transformed into an immortal black cat, and three women have been hung by a mob of angry villagers. That’s quite a helluva opening for what is supposedly a children’s movie. Of course, as a kid myself this particular aspect went over my head — I was just here for the talking cat, funny zombie, and Sarah Jessica Parker being confusingly sexy back when I didn’t know what sexy was — but as an adult what strikes me most about it is just how damn seriously the film seems to take its horror. That’s not to say that Hocus Pocus is all that scary a movie, just that it doesn’t shy away from its scarier elements. The villainous Sanderson sisters are treated as undeniably evil and nasty. These witches mean business, their plan is to literally kill children and suck their life from them, and they don’t ever hide away from that fact. There is an undeniable sense of danger, and although the movie never actually shows any of the violent or terrifying things the sisters have done, it’s not like we’re not made aware of them. I mean… the story about poor old Billy Butcherson having his mouth sewn shut before being poisoned is pure nightmare fuel, and the fact that Hocus Pocus manages to not only weave this nastier streak effortlessly through its ultimately upbeat, humourous ‘kids-on-an-adventure’ exterior but also is able to use it as a set-up for some of the best jokes in the movie (after ripping open the stitches over his mouth, zombie Billy — played by del Toro regular Doug Jones! — tells Midler’s Winnie, “GO TO HELL!”, only for her to respond, “Oh, I’ve been there, thank you! It’s quite lovely!”) is the kind of smart, family-friendly movie-making that simply doesn’t seem to exist anymore.
As a result, in a strange way I actually kinda enjoy Hocus Pocus more now than I did then. It works in a similar vein to something like Fred Dekker and Shane Black’s 1985 classic The Monster Squad, and the humor is derived almost entirely from the fish-out-of-water element which sees the genuinely nasty and murderous trio of witches brought back to life from the 1600s to the 1990s. You see, it’s not that they’re idiots, it’s that they don’t understand the modern world, and so their attempt to traverse it often results in funny little gags like their thinking a tarmac road is some kind of black river or that the hundreds of trick-or-treaters out enjoying Halloween night are, in fact, tiny demons running around the streets of Salem causing havoc. The film works within its own internal logic and is consistent with it, but also never forgets that ultimately while watching Midler, Najimy, and Parker attempt to navigate the world of 1993 is silly as all hell, they’re still monsters who want to kill children and eat their souls.
This careful blend of genres is helped along by our heroes, led by Eerie, Indiana’s Omri Katz (side note; remember Eerie, Indiana? That was a great show! Joe Dante should bring it back!) and a young Thora Burch (a certain scene in American Beauty always sat weirdly with me thanks to Hocus Pocus), who play the movie straight. For them, they’re stuck in a horror film, the threat is very real, and a big part of the fun is in their reactions to the Sandersons, whom they treat as an actual danger. Thinking about it now, that the film does open with the sisters killing poor little Emily Binx really helps hammer home the level of danger present. Like… the kids can actually die! Hocus Pocus will, and does, go there!
Look, I’m not trying to claim that it’s a masterpiece. I mean, we’re not talking Nicholas Roeg’s 1990 nightmare The Witches, here! It doesn’t ever fully embrace its more frightening potential, and there is another version of this movie, played entirely straight, that is actually properly frightening without sacrificing its more child-friendly trappings either. But I guess it all boils down to what you want from this kind of film, and for me, I don’t find its lack of gloopy effects or grislier sequences to be a detrimental quality. I actually quite like the fact that it doesn’t feel the need to be outwardly terrifying, and as I’ve already said, it is the subtle hints toward a darker, nastier history that really elevates the film.
Upon release, the movie was criticized for being mediocre and muddled. Famed film critic Roger Ebert called it “a confusing cauldron in which there is great activity but little progress, and a lot of hysterical shrieking”, while Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that the film “has flashes of visual stylishness but virtually no grip on its story”. Frankly, this is a load of crap, because Hocus Pocus is great! And look, maybe there’s a lot of nostalgia talking, but I watch it every year with my kids now, and they love it just as much as I do, so… I’m gonna go with my gut and say the critics are wrong on this one. Hocus Pocus not only has a grip on its story, but it has fun delivering on its promise, and the hints at a darker thread hidden underneath are expertly handled. I can remember being legitimately unsettled by Midler’s delivery of the line “What a fool! To sacrifice thyself for thy sister” when Katz’s Max has swallowed the last of the potion meant for his sister. The sudden reminder that, actually, this seemingly cartoonish, absurdly silly villain is a genuinely psychotic, selfish, vicious killer is the perfect summation of the way in which the film balances its various tones and subjects with aplomb! Sure, it’s kinda goofy and hokey, and it’s hardly breaking any new ground, but for me, Hocus Pocus is an enjoyably fun, wonderfully spooky, and hilariously campy and thrilling ride, and is one of the few properties to have maintained its watchability through from childhood to adulthood. 4/5.
