Welcome back to my Halloween Month Movie Marathon! As promised, today I'll be looking at the recently-released Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)! This film literally released 3 days ago, so if you haven't seen it, go check it out on Disney+.
SYNOPSIS:
A coven of young girls light a black flame candle during the full moon on Halloween, accidentally resurrecting the Sanderson Sisters! The three ancient witches, intent on surviving their one night alive, decide to pursue a spell that will make them the most powerful immortal witches in the world!
REVIEW:
Note: There will be some spoilers for the ending ahead. I will mark them so you can skip over them if you like.
In my last review, I mentioned how fun the Sanderson Sisters were to watch and how I kept forgetting they're not who we should be rooting for. This film humanized them a bit more, opening with a flashback to their childhood. It showed how they were persecuted by the townsfolk of Salem and set off on their journey to becoming witches. We learn that Winifred (Bette Midler) values her sisters, Mary (Kathy Najimy) and Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker), more than anything in the world, despite treating them like a nuisance. They were a fantastic trio in this film and once again, I felt myself caring for their plight and kind of hoping they'd get some sort of a redemption arc.
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| Young Sanderson Sisters about to become witches |
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| A young coven of witches |
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| The Witch Mother, showing off her power |
We get another song and dance number from the Sanderson Sisters, putting a spell over a crowd. Unfortunately, we don't get an original song like the previous film, but we get a pretty fun variant of Blondie's One Way Or Another. The sisters find out that Mayor Traske (Tony Hale) is the descendant of Reverend Traske (also Tony Hale) who cast them out of Salem, so they bewitch a crowd to seek him out. The modern-day mayor is oddly obsessed with getting a caramel apple on Halloween night; that's probably his biggest character arc in this film.
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| Bewitching a crowd with a fun song; a Sanderson special |
Fun trivia: While searching for the mayor, Winifred peers in the window of a couple who are watching the original Hocus Pocus. Specifically, the scene with the Devil (Garry Marshall) and his wife (Penny Marshall), a real-life brother & sister who have passed on since the first film. The scene was considered a tribute to the sibling actors.
We get the return of the zombie Billy Butcherson (Doug Jones), who has apparently been resting awake in his grave for 29 years. He claims no one properly laid him to rest after the Sanderson Sisters were vanquished, so he's just been chilling underground all this time. We get a lot more scenes with him this time around, and his mouth is not sewn shut for most of it. The one time he gets re-sewn, his stitches now spell KILL. Doug Jones claimed that he got to re-wear the original Billy Butcherson wig from the first movie in this role.
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| A more talkative Billy Butcherson |
I should note that Mary Sanderson's crooked jaw is on the other side this time. At first, I thought it was a mirror-image print of the film poster, but I realized that her mouth gap was on the wrong side for most of the film too. In a blink-or-you'll-miss-it scene, right after the sisters are resurrected, Winifred slaps Mary across the face, shifting her crooked jaw from one side to the other. Kathy Najimy (who plays Mary) claims this was due to the fact that she can't really perform the crooked jaw on her right side anymore, so they came up with a canon way for her to switch sides.
Spoilers ahead: skip the next 4 paragraphs to avoid
I actually love the end of this film. Winifred gets all the ingredients for her powerful spell and the three sisters perform the ritual, empowering all three of them. Becca, one of the young girls, turned 16 on Halloween and discovers she has the gift of magic, so she attempts to fight back against the witches. But she's no match for their new power.
However, Winifred learns the hard way to read warnings on spells: the all-powerful spell claims that which she cares for most in the world as its price. She has to watch as her sisters evaporate in front of her eyes. She turns to Becca in desperation, begging for a way to reunite with her sisters. She offers to give up all her power if it would bring back her sisters. She gets her wish, and through an incantation by the young coven of friends, is sent to her sisters in oblivion. It's not much of a redemption arc, but it's pretty close. Maybe if there's another sequel, we'll see a slightly reformed trio of witch sisters.
The Witch Mother can shapeshift into a crow with red and yellow fringe on her wings. We see her, not only in the beginning of the film, but a couple times in modern-day Salem, in her crow form. When she takes human form, we see her eyes briefly glow purple. As Winifred completes the all-powerful witch spell, her eyes also glow purple. It's thus assumed that the Witch Mother performed the same spell herself and likely lost her coven to the spell.
Unlike the Sanderson Sisters, though, she is much more subtle of a witch and has managed to live at least 300 years undisturbed. She claims Salem will belong to the witches one day. Maybe she'll be a new villain in a sequel? I would love to see the the Sanderson Sisters become white witches and fight against the Witch Mother in the next film. It would give them the redemption arc I've always hoped for and wrap up their story nicely.
End of spoilers
Finally, there's an after-credits scene that leaves this film open for a potential sequel. Don't forget to wait through the credits!
RECOMMENDATION:
Bette Midler is credited with getting this film off the ground, by harassing the studio every year about making a sequel. She saw how popular the original film had become, so she insisted on reprising her role again. All three Sanderson Sister actresses have agreed to come back if yet another sequel is made. I really hope they make another one because I absolutely love these films! Bette Midler is turning 77 years old this year, yet she, Kathy Najimy (65 years old), and Sarah Jessica Parker (57 years old) continued to bring so much energy to this film. I need more Sanderson Sisters! If you're a fan of the original film, you need to check out this sequel. It was a lot of fun.
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