Hocus Pocus (1993)
Rated PG for some scary sequences, and for language
Score: 4 out of 5
Compared to most of the horror-comedies I've seen, Hocus Pocus is decidedly defanged. The witches are only really presented as truly evil and a threat to the main characters in the prologue and the third act, their antics before then depicted as bumbling and played for laughs at their expense. Freddy Krueger they ain't, unless we're talking the later sequels where he was a comedian first and a killer second. The interactions between the protagonists are also '90s family movie boilerplate: a new-in-town teenager has trouble fitting in, he has a pretty blonde love interest at school and a bratty little sister at home, he has a pair of comically obnoxious bullies who exist just to get their comeuppance towards the end, and his parents just don't understand, man. In other words, it's a Disney movie through and through. In fact, I'd venture a guess and say that it's the prototype for any number of Disney Channel Original Movies, particularly their spooky Halloween-season movies in which they put their stable of actors/singers/dancers up against vampires, ghosts, zombies, and other assorted monsters. It's even directed by Kenny Ortega, the same guy who directed all three High School Musical films, arguably the most famous and influential of the DCOMs, as well as the Descendants films.
I'm not saying that to knock the film. Far from it. There's a reason why this film has endured as a touchstone of '90s nostalgia that the Disney Channel and Freeform both love to show every October, and why its style seems to have influenced so many DCOMs: it's just a really good movie. It isn't really a horror flick, but it is a very funny and entertaining family comedy that's propelled by a great cast, instantly memorable characters, creative style and effects, and jokes that prove that you don't necessarily need to be edgy and raunchy to make audiences, even grown adults (such as parents showing this to their kids), laugh. As far as spooky kids' movies go, this is one of the best there is.
The plot concerns three witches in colonial Salem, Massachusetts (of course), the Sanderson sisters Winifred, Mary, and Sarah, who plotted to drain the life from all the children of Salem in order to attain immortality. A local man named Thackery Binx manages to stop them and get them hanged by the town, albeit too late to save his younger sister Emily and the other children they kidnapped, and not without getting cursed to live forever as an immortal cat. Fast-forward to the present day, and Max, a teenage boy who's just moved to Salem from Los Angeles, accidentally resurrects them while he, his little sister Dani, and his high school crush Allison explore the now-abandoned Sanderson house, which was briefly turned into a museum/tourist trap before it was closed down on account of hauntings. Since their resurrection only lasts until dawn, the Sanderson sisters must recreate their evil spell if they are to not turn into dust at dawn, and unfortunately for the children of Salem, the necessary components of the spell have not changed in the last three hundred years. Now Max, Allison, and Thackery, still alive as a cat after all this time and the only one who knows what the Sandersons are up to, must stop them and save the children of Salem -- including Dani.
The mundane human teenagers Max and Allison are both fun to watch, but they exist mainly as a way for young viewers to insert themselves into the action as the slightly older, more attractive people they dream of growing up into in a few years. Max is more or less your standard teen movie hero, a new kid struggling to fit in at his new school, and Allison exists mainly as his girlfriend. Both Omri Katz and Vinessa Shaw do good in their respective roles, but the film understands right away that they're not the real main characters. No, those would be Winifred, Mary, and Sarah Sanderson, played to perfection by Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker. Midler's Winnie is a campy diva par excellence, a character who steals the show in every scene she's in and who I'm not surprised has become a gay icon since (hardly the only Midler character to do so), getting a big musical number in the middle of the movie because what the hell, why not? She gets the most development out of the three, specifically with how she's shown to be the most petty of them, as her desire for revenge on Max winds up being her undoing in a way that even her sisters called her out on and warned her about. Speaking of, Najimy's Mary and Parker's Sarah both had a lot of work to do to not get completely overshadowed, but they each did so in different ways, Najimy by playing Mary as the long-suffering sidekick to Winnie and Parker playing Sarah as an absolute ditz and the sexpot of the group (at least, as much as they could show her as in a family film). Parker's performance in particular has me convinced that, back in her Sex and the City days, she would've made an excellent Harley Quinn, capturing much the same tone of cute sexiness and flippant villainy. The Sandersons can be scary and threatening when they want to be, and indeed, the original script for this film by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert was supposedly a lot darker, closer to Gremlins than the Disney Channel in its tone. But the film isn't interested in that; rather, it wants to have fun and wants you to have fun with it, and in that respect, the Sandersons make for a trio of hosts with the most. They are as often the butt of the joke as they are the ones dishing it out, whether they're freaked out by 20th century technology (which Max exploits against them twice) or are bested by a suburban couple's little yapper, but no matter what, they always make for a captivating presence on screen even when they're torturing a pair of dirtbag bullies.
The lighthearted feel is carried through by an aesthetic that reminded me of Tim Burton but still felt distinct in its own way. Again, I've made this comparison before, but it's especially appropriate here: this feels like a Disney Channel Original Movie that had a real budget put behind it, between the lavish costuming for the witches, the effects on their spells (especially Winnie's lightning bolts), the sets that range from suburban whimsy to creepy cemeteries and woods, the zombie (played by veteran creature actor Doug Jones) that the Sandersons raise to fight our heroes, and the score by John Debney. It's "realistic" in the sense that it captures how a twelve-year-old might picture what it's like to be "all grown up", a slightly heightened environment even before the witches come in and one that goes completely bonkers once they arrive. Kenny Ortega puts his choreography skills to use as well with Midler's big song "I Put a Spell on You", in what is not only a great sequence for explaining why the parents don't do anything to stop the witches but is also simply a standout song-and-dance number that likely got a lot of kids into show tunes. No matter how you slice it, this movie just looks and feels good; while you can easily tell how its style would be imitated by numerous lesser, lower-budgeted films without nearly as much ambition, you can also tell why they chose this movie to rip off in the first place.
I'm not saying that to knock the film. Far from it. There's a reason why this film has endured as a touchstone of '90s nostalgia that the Disney Channel and Freeform both love to show every October, and why its style seems to have influenced so many DCOMs: it's just a really good movie. It isn't really a horror flick, but it is a very funny and entertaining family comedy that's propelled by a great cast, instantly memorable characters, creative style and effects, and jokes that prove that you don't necessarily need to be edgy and raunchy to make audiences, even grown adults (such as parents showing this to their kids), laugh. As far as spooky kids' movies go, this is one of the best there is.
The plot concerns three witches in colonial Salem, Massachusetts (of course), the Sanderson sisters Winifred, Mary, and Sarah, who plotted to drain the life from all the children of Salem in order to attain immortality. A local man named Thackery Binx manages to stop them and get them hanged by the town, albeit too late to save his younger sister Emily and the other children they kidnapped, and not without getting cursed to live forever as an immortal cat. Fast-forward to the present day, and Max, a teenage boy who's just moved to Salem from Los Angeles, accidentally resurrects them while he, his little sister Dani, and his high school crush Allison explore the now-abandoned Sanderson house, which was briefly turned into a museum/tourist trap before it was closed down on account of hauntings. Since their resurrection only lasts until dawn, the Sanderson sisters must recreate their evil spell if they are to not turn into dust at dawn, and unfortunately for the children of Salem, the necessary components of the spell have not changed in the last three hundred years. Now Max, Allison, and Thackery, still alive as a cat after all this time and the only one who knows what the Sandersons are up to, must stop them and save the children of Salem -- including Dani.
The mundane human teenagers Max and Allison are both fun to watch, but they exist mainly as a way for young viewers to insert themselves into the action as the slightly older, more attractive people they dream of growing up into in a few years. Max is more or less your standard teen movie hero, a new kid struggling to fit in at his new school, and Allison exists mainly as his girlfriend. Both Omri Katz and Vinessa Shaw do good in their respective roles, but the film understands right away that they're not the real main characters. No, those would be Winifred, Mary, and Sarah Sanderson, played to perfection by Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker. Midler's Winnie is a campy diva par excellence, a character who steals the show in every scene she's in and who I'm not surprised has become a gay icon since (hardly the only Midler character to do so), getting a big musical number in the middle of the movie because what the hell, why not? She gets the most development out of the three, specifically with how she's shown to be the most petty of them, as her desire for revenge on Max winds up being her undoing in a way that even her sisters called her out on and warned her about. Speaking of, Najimy's Mary and Parker's Sarah both had a lot of work to do to not get completely overshadowed, but they each did so in different ways, Najimy by playing Mary as the long-suffering sidekick to Winnie and Parker playing Sarah as an absolute ditz and the sexpot of the group (at least, as much as they could show her as in a family film). Parker's performance in particular has me convinced that, back in her Sex and the City days, she would've made an excellent Harley Quinn, capturing much the same tone of cute sexiness and flippant villainy. The Sandersons can be scary and threatening when they want to be, and indeed, the original script for this film by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert was supposedly a lot darker, closer to Gremlins than the Disney Channel in its tone. But the film isn't interested in that; rather, it wants to have fun and wants you to have fun with it, and in that respect, the Sandersons make for a trio of hosts with the most. They are as often the butt of the joke as they are the ones dishing it out, whether they're freaked out by 20th century technology (which Max exploits against them twice) or are bested by a suburban couple's little yapper, but no matter what, they always make for a captivating presence on screen even when they're torturing a pair of dirtbag bullies.
The lighthearted feel is carried through by an aesthetic that reminded me of Tim Burton but still felt distinct in its own way. Again, I've made this comparison before, but it's especially appropriate here: this feels like a Disney Channel Original Movie that had a real budget put behind it, between the lavish costuming for the witches, the effects on their spells (especially Winnie's lightning bolts), the sets that range from suburban whimsy to creepy cemeteries and woods, the zombie (played by veteran creature actor Doug Jones) that the Sandersons raise to fight our heroes, and the score by John Debney. It's "realistic" in the sense that it captures how a twelve-year-old might picture what it's like to be "all grown up", a slightly heightened environment even before the witches come in and one that goes completely bonkers once they arrive. Kenny Ortega puts his choreography skills to use as well with Midler's big song "I Put a Spell on You", in what is not only a great sequence for explaining why the parents don't do anything to stop the witches but is also simply a standout song-and-dance number that likely got a lot of kids into show tunes. No matter how you slice it, this movie just looks and feels good; while you can easily tell how its style would be imitated by numerous lesser, lower-budgeted films without nearly as much ambition, you can also tell why they chose this movie to rip off in the first place.
The Bottom Line
This is an unapologetic kids' movie that nevertheless offers something for their parents, too, whether it's those who don't want to show the little ones a violent horror movie or those who just want to have some good, clean fun during the other holiday season. If you haven't seen it already, turn on Freeform sometime this month (seriously, they're showing it 20 nights out of 31 this October) and change that.
No comments:
Post a Comment