Hocus Pocus (film)/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


You think this is going to be a fantasy comedy about a boy summoning real witches on Halloween. Ha Ha Ha No, this is a Horror-Comedy, and as such, some parts of it are pretty terrifying.

General

  • The Sandersons are pretty terrifying villains. They suck the lives out of children to stay young, and are perfectly willing to murder or torture anyone who gets in their way.
  • Call Winifred ugly, and you'll be lucky if all she does is lock you up in a cage. She'll gun for anyone that suggests she is not attractive.
  • Sarah will assault anyone that looks remotely attractive to her, including Thackery when he was human, and Max. They're underage boys! Fortunately, she never goes further than leering at them and making remarks loaded with innuendo.
  • Winifred can literally sniff out children. She does so and mistakes Ernie and Ice for Max because they took his shoes.

Specific Examples

  • The first ten minutes are dripping with Adult Fear. A child is lured from the safety of her home by strangers who proceed to murder her and laugh about it. Her brother then tries to rescue her, and gets taken as well. Take away the magic, and it is every parent's worst nightmare.
    • In Salem, Massachusetts, Thackery Binx is sleeping in the morning, hearing a mysterious whoosh by his window, revealed to be Sarah. The farm animals panic and scatter. He wakes up, is about to go back to bed, but realizes his little sister Emily is missing. Thackery runs outside, putting on pants and asking his friend Elijah if he's seen Emily. No, but he points to colored smoke in the woods. They run and see Sarah leading Emily away in the nearby clearing. Her big brother calls after her in alarm. Elijah goes Oh Crap and whispers, "She's done for" but Thackery insists it's not too late. Thackery orders Elijah to get his father and the other elder neighbors, right now! He then goes alone to rescue his sister, in bare feet.
    • Heck, Emily laughing and skipping to her doom while under Sarah's spell is creepy. Thackery keeps calling after her, but she can't hear him. In the cottage, she sits placidly in a chair while Sarah boasts about how she lured the child for her sisters. In case you need a reminder, Sarah is The Ditz but she is evil.
    • Thackery tries to save Emily. He fails because he's one teenage boy versus three witches, and is Forced to Watch them reduce his little sister to a withered husk after the witches make her drink a life-draining potion. Yes, that's right, Emily dies onscreen, and she slumps over in death with long white hair. And this is a kid's movie!
    • The rejuvenated witches then debate what to do with Thackery, who stands up knowing he's about to be drained like Emily and decides to go out calling Winifred a "hag". Winifred then vetoes the life-draining plan because she hates being called "ugly". Sarah wants to "play with him," showing she's a rare example of a female rapist, and as a reminder, Thackery is underage. Winifred has a better idea: turn him into an immortal cat, unable to talk unless the Black Candle is lit.
    • Mr. and Mrs. Binx confront the witches as they are strung on the gallows, with Mr. Binx demanding to know what they did to his eldest son. Facing death, the witches laugh in his face and start to sing, to compel their way out of this scenario. Mr. Binx has to cover his wife's ears yell at everyone to not listen, and gives the order to hang them. They use the Book to lay a curse on the town, that they will return when a virgin lights their candle.
  • Max tries to impress Alison by lighting the Black Candle in the old cottage with his cigarette lighter. He says it's just a "little hocus pocus" and not a real story. He finds out too late that the witches are real when they electrocute him for trying to protect Dani from them. The only thing he can do is bluff to get his little sister out of the cottage, and run for the graveyard when Binx reveals he can talk and witches can't stand on hallowed ground.
  • Binx warns Alison not to open Winifred's book. He asserts it is pure evil. Max then says, okay, let's torch it, and tries to set it on fire with his lighter. Even that doesn't work. Binx gruffly says if it were that easy, it would have been done already.
  • None of the witches can set foot on "hallowed ground" in the graveyard, only hover. They can, however, raise the dead to do some errands for them, and summon Billy. Billy Butcher was Winifred's lover, but she caught him flirting with Sarah, and so she poisoned and killed him, sewing his mouth shut. Death also hasn't suited him well; the kids scream when they see him and run for it. Billy also gets a moment when he looks at his grave and realizes what happened.
  • The kids try to find their parents at the town party. Max gets on stage and shouts into a microphone that the witches have come back to town. This plan... backfires. Winifred decides to go along with the festivities, announce that it's a funny joke Max has said, and starts to sing with her sisters. Binx realizes what this means and tells the kids they have to run. And not a moment too soon, as the singing spell compels all the adults to dance until they die. It only wears off at the end of the movie.
  • Alison comes up with a plan to lure the witches into a school kiln. It seems to work, and the kids go to Max's house ecstatic, with Max saying that Binx is a Dennison now and part of the family. They think they won, that it's over. Cut to the kiln opening, and Winifred reciting deadpan in French that she wants her book back. Welp.
  • The ladies try to track down Max by his scent. They end up running into Ernie and Ice, instead, by smelling Max's sneakers. Seems they'll pass by each other, until the boys remark that only the "ugly chicks" are out this late. Winifred turns on her heel and says, "Chicks?" Cut to the two locked in too-tight cages, and begging for their lives. Mary starts force-feeding them candy as well.
  • When neither Max nor Alison can sleep, in part because they're worried that despite the witches being dead, Max's parents aren't home and Binx is still a cat, Alison decides to open the book to find a spell and make Binx human again. Turns out the book when opened sends a signal light to the witches. They proceed to trash the house, grab the book back, and kidnap Dani as well as Binx. Alison fortunately reads that salt repels witches, using a tin from Max's cupboard to fend them off. It's not enough to save either Dani or the cat, though, as Max despairs.
  • Once they have the potion, Sarah flies into the night and sings a Dark Reprise of "Come Little Children," luring all the kids in Salem to their cottage. They wander into the streets. Max shouts at the kids to not listen, seeing them wandering in the streets in pajamas and Halloween costumes. He and Alison realize they have to stop the witches to not just save Dani but also everyone. Again, a reminder that Sarah is ditzy but still evil.
  • Binx nearly relives his sister's death: the witches string him up over the fire in a sack, and Dani is tied to a chair. Dani screams that Winifred may look beautiful on the outside, but she will always be ugly after selling her soul to the devil, "the ugliest thing that ever lived!". She and Binx fortunately remain immune to Sarah's singing spell, but Binx shouts at Dani not to drink the potion when Winifred coldly says, "You die first," chooses her as the first victim for calling her ugly. Dani keeps her mouth shut, long enough for Max and Alison to stage their rescue, as Binx screams, "Don't drink it!"
  • We find out Billy wasn't going after the kids to do Winifred's bidding. In the graveyard in the climax, he borrows Max's knife to cut the threads stitching his mouth shut, and proceeds to yell at her. Even so, he spends most of the movie chasing them and losing his head for his troubles. It's implied that he could only free himself once he cut those threads.
  • The kids, Binx and Billy mount one last stand in the graveyard. A few hours to sunrise remain, and they have to Hold the Line. Alison puts Dani in a protective circle of salt, Max grabs a baseball bat, and the others prepare their game faces. All too soon, Alison runs out of salt, Winifred pulls Max's bat out of his hand, and Dani leaves the circle to rescue Billy's head after the witches knock it off. This provides the perfect opening for Winifred to grab her. Binx leaps onto Winifred to save Dani, making her drop the bottle but also falling from a great height when Winifred tosses him. And he lands on Emily's grave.
  • Max and Winifred are at an impasse: he's holding the bottle of potion thanks to Binx's rescue, and Winifred is holding Dani. He smashes the potion, Winifred snaps Dani's neck. But if he hands over the potion, Winifred will make Dani drink it. Max then gives a scared, resigned look and gulps. He proceeds to down the potion, much to Dani's horror, so that Winifred will have to take his life instead.


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