Hocus Pocus is a 1993 American fantasy comedy film directed by Kenny Ortega from a screenplay by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert, and a story by David Kirschner and Garris. It follows a comically villainous trio of witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy) who are inadvertently resurrected by a teenage boy (Omri Katz) in Salem, Massachusetts, on Halloween night.
The film was released in North America on July 16, 1993, by Walt Disney Pictures. Upon its original release, it received mixed reviews from critics and was initially a box-office bomb, possibly losing Disney around $16.5 million during its theatrical run. However, largely through many annual airings on Disney Channel and Freeform (formerly ABC Family, Fox Family and The Family Channel) all throughout the month of October, Hocus Pocus has been rediscovered by audiences, resulting in a yearly spike in home media sales of the film every Halloween season. The annual celebration of Halloween has helped make the film a cult classic.
The film spawned a franchise, consisting of a sequel novelization, a theme park attraction, a TV special, and even a short film. A sequel, Hocus Pocus 2, written by Jen D'Angelo and directed by Anne Fletcher, was released on September 30, 2022, on Disney+, with a third film currently in the works.
Plot
On October 31, 1693, in Salem, Massachusetts, Thackery Binx discovers that his younger sister Emily has been kidnapped by the three witches Winifred, Mary and Sarah Sanderson. Binx confronts the Sanderson sisters at their cottage, but not in time to save Emily, whose life force they have drained to keep themselves young. The witches punish Binx for interfering by turning him into an immortal black cat, so he must live forever with his guilt. Binx's friend Elijah rallies the townsfolk to arrest the Sandersons; they are condemned to death, but Winifred casts a curse during the hanging, claiming that a virgin will light the Black-Flame Candle in the cottage on a day when the full moon and All Hallows' Eve coincide, resurrecting the sisters. Binx decides to try to thwart the witches' plans.
Three centuries later, Max Dennison, who has recently moved to Salem from Los Angeles, reluctantly takes his younger sister Dani out trick-or-treating. They meet up with his new classmate Allison Watts, on whom he has a crush. Max, Dani, and Allison visit the former Sanderson cottage, which is now an abandoned museum. Max, who believes the story of the witches is "hocus pocus", inadvertently resurrects the witches by lighting the Black-Flame Candle. The witches attempt to suck out Dani's soul, but Max intervenes. Binx arrives and reveals that he can talk; following Binx's instructions, Max steals Winifred's spellbook, and the children flee to a cemetery, which the witches cannot step into as it is hallowed ground. From a distance, Winifred raises her former fiancé, Billy Butcherson, from his grave and sends him after the children, forcing them to leave the cemetery. Winifred also reveals to her sisters that, unless they can suck the life out of at least one child, the three of them will turn to dust when the sun rises.
Max, Dani, and Allison hurry to a Halloween party that most of the town's adults are attending. Max tries to warn his parents and the other adults of the danger, but the witches take the stage and use a performance of "I Put a Spell on You" to enchant the partying adults to dance until they die. Binx and the three children then lure the witches into the local high school's pottery kiln and burn them alive; the witches temporarily disintegrate, but the curse revives them after the children have gone.
Not realizing that the witches have survived, Max and Allison open the spellbook, hoping to reverse the curse on Binx. This action allows the witches to find the children, abduct Binx and Dani, and retrieve the spellbook. Sarah uses her singing to lure all of Salem's children to the Sanderson cottage; however, Max and Allison rescue Dani and Binx by briefly tricking the witches into believing that the sun has risen an hour early.
Back at the cemetery, Billy catches up to the children, cuts open his stitched mouth with Max's knife, and reveals that he hates Winifred and is on their side. The witches snatch Dani back after attacking the children from the air, and Winifred attempts to use their last vial of potion to suck out Dani's life force. Binx attacks Winifred to make her drop the potion, resulting in her throwing him to the ground near Emily's grave. Max catches and drinks the potion to save Dani. Winifred takes Max on her broomstick to suck out his life force, and the two of them fight in mid-air. The rest of the party fend off Mary and Sarah, while Max and Winifred fall off the broom into the hallowed ground of the cemetery, causing Winifred to turn to stone. The sun rises, turning Mary and Sarah into dust, with Winifred's stone body also exploding into dust shortly after. With the witches vanquished, Billy gratefully returns to his grave to sleep while, at the same time, Binx dies in his cat form. Dani discovers the body of Binx and begins to weep, but his spirit, now free and returned to human form due to the curse being broken, thanks the children. Emily's spirit then appears to escort her brother to the afterlife.
In a mid-credits scene, the enchanted adults are freed from the spell and leave the Halloween party, exhausted from dancing all night. Jay and Ice who are trapped in the Sanderson museum still wait in their cages to be freed, while the living eye on the witches' spellbook opens and looks around, suggesting the Sanderson Sisters may return.
Cast
Production Development In the 1994 TV documentary Hocus Pocus: Begin the Magic, and on the film's Blu-ray release, producer David Kirschner explains how he came up with the idea for the film one night. He and his young daughter were sitting outside and his neighbor's black cat strayed by. Kirschner invented a tale of how the Sanderson Sisters came about, stemming from the Winifred Brood.
Hocus Pocus started life as a script by Mick Garris, that was bought by Walt Disney Pictures in 1984. The film's working title was Disney's Halloween House; it was much darker and scarier, and its protagonists were all 12-year-olds. Garris and Kirschner pitched it to Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment; Spielberg saw Disney as a competitor to Amblin in the family film market at the time and refused to co-produce a film with his "rival."
Writing Various rewrites were made to the script to make the film more comedic and made two of its young protagonists into teenagers; however, production was stalled several times until 1992, when Bette Midler expressed interest in the script and the project immediately went forward. Midler, who plays the central antagonist of the film (originally written for Cloris Leachman), is quoted as saying that Hocus Pocus "was the most fun I'd had in my career up to that point".
Casting Ortega met with Leonardo DiCaprio about playing the role of Max after being "impressed" by his audition but he was too busy to take on the role as he was working on What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Rosie O'Donnell was offered the role of Mary Sanderson but she declined as she did not want to play a mean witch.
Filming The film is set in Salem, Massachusetts, but most of it was shot on sound stages in Burbank, California. However, its daytime scenes were filmed in Salem and Marblehead, Massachusetts, during two weeks of filming with the principal cast.
Pioneer Village, a recreation of early-colonial Salem, was used for the opening scenes set in 1693. Other locations included Old Burial Hill in Marblehead, where Max is accosted by Ice and Jay, the Old Town Hall in Salem, where the town Halloween party takes place, and Phillips Elementary School, where the witches are trapped in a kiln. The exterior of Max and Dani's house is a private residence on Ocean Avenue in Salem.
Music
The musical score for Hocus Pocus was composed and conducted by John Debney. James Horner was originally slated to score the film, but became unavailable at the last minute, so Debney had to score the entire film in two weeks. Even though he did not score the film, Horner came back to write the theme for Sarah (sung by Sarah Jessica Parker, more commonly known as "Come Little Children") which is featured in Intrada's Complete Edition of the score.
Debney released a promotional score through the internet containing 19 tracks from the film. Bootlegs were subsequently released across the internet, primarily because the promotional release missed the entire opening sequence music.
Songs "Sarah's Theme" – music by James Horner; lyrics by Brock Walsh; performed by Sarah Jessica Parker "I Put a Spell on You" – written by Jay Hawkins and produced and arranged by Marc Shaiman; performed by Bette Midler "Witchcraft" – written by Cy Coleman, Carolyn Leigh; performed by Joe Malone "I Put a Spell on You" – written by Jay Hawkins; performed by Joe Malone "Sabre Dance" – written by Aram Khachaturian, arranged by George Wilson Chants and Incantations – conceived and written by Brock Walsh
Release The film was theatrically released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States and Canada on July 16, 1993. The film received mixed reviews from film critics at the time of its release. was not a critical or commercial success upon its release, possibly losing Disney around $16.5 million during its theatrical run. However, largely through many annual airings on Disney Channel and Freeform (formerly ABC Family) all throughout the month of October, Hocus Pocus has been rediscovered by audiences, resulting in a yearly spike in home video sales of the film every Halloween season. The annual celebration of Halloween has helped make this film a cult classic.
Home media Walt Disney Home Video released the film on VHS and LaserDisc in the United States and Canada on January 5, 1994. and later to DVD on June 4, 2002. Following the film's release on DVD, it has continued to show strong annual sales, raking in more than $1 million in DVD sales each October. In the mid-to-late 1990s, the film was rebroadcast annually all throughout October on ABC and Disney Channel before switching over to ABC Family's 13 Nights of Halloween lineup in the 2010s. The film has continuously brought record viewing numbers to the lineup, including a 2009 broadcast watched by 2.5 million viewers. In 2011, an October 29 airing became the lineup's most watched program, with 2.8 million viewers. On September 4, 2012, the film was released on Blu-ray. Disney re-released the film on Blu-ray and Digital HD on September 2, 2018, as part of the film's 25th anniversary. The new release contains special features, including deleted scenes and a behind-the-scenes retrospective. On 15 September 2020, the film was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray in 4K resolution with HDR. The movie has grossed $40,627,466 in domestic weekly DVD sales and $16,588,298 in weekly Blu-ray sales in the United States.
Hocus Pocus was made available to stream on Disney+ at launch. Whip Media, which tracks viewership data for the more than 25 million worldwide users of its TV Time app, calculated that Hocus Pocus was the seventh most-streamed movie in the U.S. during the week of October 31, 2021. It ranked second from September 30 to October 2, 2022, seventh during the week of October 9, 2022, and ninth during the week of October 23, 2022.
Reception
Box office Hocus Pocus was released July 16, 1993, and came in fourth place on its opening weekend behind Jurassic Park, In the Line of Fire and The Firm, grossing $8.1 million. It dropped from the top ten ranking after two weeks of release. The film was released the same day as Free Willy. According to Kirschner, Disney chose to release Hocus Pocus in July to take advantage of children being off school for the summer.