Yahoo Movies ‘Hocus Pocus’ Recap: What to Remember Before Watching ‘Hocus Pocus 2’
Magic is afoot in the long-awaited “Hocus Pocus 2,” now streaming exclusively on Disney+. Returning to reprise their original roles include Bette Midler as Winifred Sanderson, Sarah Jessica Parker as Sarah Sanderson, Kathy Najimy as Mary Sanderson and Doug Jones as William “Billy Butcherson.” Sadly, as you’ll find out from the following recap, Thackery Binx won’t be returning for the spooky sequel. Nor will Thora Birch, who played Dani in the 1993 film, Omri Katz who played Max or Vinessa Shaw who portrayed Allison.
A great cast of new characters carries on the legacy of the original frightening film, released almost 30 years ago. Within the film itself, 300 years pass, taking the sisters from 1693 Salem to 1993 Salem. Some airhead virgin summons them back by lighting the Black Flame Candle, and chaos ensues.
Here’s what you need to remember from “Hocus Pocus” in order to be absolutely ready for “Hocus Pocus 2.”
The Sanderson Sisters Strike Salem, The First Time
The first film starts on October 31, 1693 with Thackery Binx chasing down his sister Emily, who has been lured to a creepy cottage by Sarah Sanderson (Sarah Jessica Parker) so that the three witches, aka The Sanderson sisters, can drain the child’s life force and become young again. Thackery wakes up after Sara wooshes by his window and notices Emily is gone, so he sets out to look for her, and he and Elijah see her far off down the meadow about to head into the woods where the witches live. Thackery tells Elijah to get his father while he tracks Emily down to the Sanderson sisters cottage, where the witches are brewing a potion they intend to feed to Emily so that they can drain her life force and become more powerful and youthful. They need the blood of an owl, an herb that’s red, a hair from Winifred’s head, bits of their own tongues, a dead man’s toe and more to brew a fresh batch of the potion.
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Thackery sneaks into the wooden cabin, and while he tries to interfere with the witches, led by red-haired Winifred (Bette Midler), the trio succeeds in feeding Emily the deadly draught, and she turns translucent as all three sisters, completed by pot-stirrer (in more ways than one) Mary (Kathy Najimy) inhale Emily’s essence, becoming much more beautiful than when they first appear. As for Thackery, Winifred decides that his punishment cannot be to die, but to live forever with his guilt, so the sisters turn him into a black cat with green eyes, and nobody recognizes him for the next 300 years.
Too late to save anyone, a mob arrives at the Sandersons’ door, and they capture the sisters to hang them in the town square. Before the sisters die, however, they sing a song and cast a curse, making it so that it is possible for them to return to their sacred city one day. The spell allows a virgin lighting a black flame candle to resurrect the sisters on Halloween night.
300 Years Later
The film then cuts to present-day Salem, which is celebrating Halloween once more. A teacher recounts the history of the Sanderson sisters for her class, but California transplant to Salem, Max Dennison (Omri Katz) objects to the truth of the magical lore under his breath, and the teacher hears him. She challenges his objection, and he says everyone knows that Halloween was invented by the candy companies. Allison (Vinessa Shaw) butts into the conversation to correct him, saying that Halloween is based off of All Hallow’s Eve, the one night of the year when the dead can come back to life. Max takes this opportunity to give Allison his phone number, saying if Jimi Hendrix shows up tonight to give him a call. Later on at school Allison returns his slip of paper without her digits.
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Max goes home to sulk in his room, especially after interrupted on his bike ride back from school by two bullies who demand his new Nike cross-trainer tennis shoes. His sister Dani (Thora Burch) forces him to take her trick or treating despite his lack of Halloween spirit. Loosely dressed as a rap singer, Max walks Dani through the streets of Salem, but the bullies are stealing candy from little kids, and Dani mistakenly stands up to them with the guise that her big brother can protect her.
Max just ends up giving the two boys his bag of candy, yelling at Dani and causing her to run away crying and wanting to go home. They soon end up on Allison’s front porch, where she invites them inside for cider. Dani makes it pretty clear that Max is into Allison, and Allison compliments Dani on her costume. Allison reveals that her mom used to work at the museum devoted to the Sanderson sisters, and Max begs them to go even though the museum has been shut down because “creepy stuff kept happening there.” Max begs Dani to go so that he can impress “the girl of his dreams” and she agrees as long as Max promises to trick or treat next year with her dressed up as Peter Pan to her Wendy, complete with tights or no deal.
Max Brings the Sanderson Sisters Back
Allison gives Max and Dani a brief tour of the old Sanderson house, now museum, which still contains things like the giant cauldron they used to boil brews, and even a broomstick. Allison shows them the spellbook that contains all of Winifred’s “most powerful and evil spells,” before Max notices the Black Flame Candle, with which he becomes fascinatd. The candle itself was made from the flesh of a hanged man, and legend has it that it will raise the spirits of the dead when lit by a virgin during the full moon on Halloween night. Max still thinks it’s “all a bunch of Hocus Pocus,” but the first time he attempts to light the candle, Thackery Binx in black cat form attacks him to try and prevent it.
Max calls Thackery a “stupid cat” and then lights the candle, bringing the shadowy silhouettes of the sisters back onto their very own doorstep. Gleeful at their return, Winnie pulls out Book, Sarah finds her lucky rat tail on the top of the threshold door frame right where she left it and Mary smells children. The sisters quickly sniff out Dani, who claims it was she that brought them back from underground. But Max steps in as soon as the trio starts to consider eating Dani, and it takes Max, Dani, Thackery and Allison to struggle against and distract the wicked witches before running away, and even then, Max gets a taste of Winifred’s magic when she zaps him.
Thackery jumps onto Max’s shoulder and reveals that he can talk when he says “Nice going, Max.” Allison smacks Mary with a broomstick, Dani wrestles Winnie away from Max and Thackery attacks her before the group of four flees the cottage. Thackery leads them to a graveyard, otherwise known as hallowed ground, where the witches cannot set foot. The talking 300-year-old black cat takes Allison, Dani and Max to the grave of William “Billy” Butcherson, former paramour of two Sanderson sisters. According to Thackery, Billy was Winifred’s lover, but when she caught him “sporting” or cheating on her with Sara, Winifred poisoned Billy and sewed his mouth shut with a dull needle so that he couldn’t tell her secrets even in death.
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The Witches Track Them Down to the Cemetery
Binx explains how he has chosen to make it his eternal life’s mission to stop the Sanderson sisters whenever they return to Salem, which is why he has guarded their cottage for the past three centuries. He also calls Max an airhead virgin since he lit the candle.
Binx also warns Allison to stay out of the spellbook because the magic is very dark and powerful.
The sisters track the children down to the Old Burial Hill graveyard, but since they themselves cannot set foot in the cemetery, Winifred resurrects zombie Billy Butcherson, using an invoking spell that describes his fate and how he died. Billy climbs out of his grave, mouth still stiched shut, and Winifred commands Billy to chase them. Binx takes them down into the old Salem crypt, which now serves as a sewage system, and connects them back to the heart of the city.
Winifred sets out to start collecting children, but before they do, Mary suggests they get in calming circle formation and Winifred eventually agrees after she snappily denies her lack of calmness. A bus driver pulls up, offering to transport the trio to their wildest dreams, and Winifred speaks for them saying they dream of children. The bus driver insinuates that he might need a few tries but he can get the job done. As Sara sits on his lap to drive the bus, Binx climbs out of a manhole cover only to get run over by the bus. The children think he has died, but his body re-inflates and he assures tham that he can’t die. A similar situation happens with Billy Butcherson trying to climb out of a manhole but getting run over so that his fingers get chopped off. Billy’s wound came from a man on a motorcycle dressed up as a cop for Halloween. Max, Dani and Allison approach the costumed cop to try and warn him about the Sanderson sisters, but all he does is question if Max is a virgin, mocking him for it before he tells them to scram.
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A Visit with Master, aka Satan
When the Sanderson sisters get off the bus, Sara bidding farewell to the mortal bus boy, they become confused because they can smell children, but all the children are in costume, their disguises fooling the old hags. They freak out, but Winifred recenters them, asking what their Mother (Hannah Waddingham’s character in the sequel) would think of them in that moment. Then they see a man (Garry Marshall) dressed up as the devil for Halloween and get all excited because they think it is their master.
They approach him, and he recognizes them as the Sanderson sisters, inviting them inside, much to their glee, as they say they are at his service. He takes them to the living room to introduce them to “the little lady,” his wife Petunia (Penny Marshall). Mary thinks that Satan has married Medusa because Petunia has funky curlers in her hair. The wife tries to go to bed, and Sara asks Master if he will dance with her. Winifred thinks their kitchen is a torture chamber. Petunia comes downstairs to get her husband, sees him dancing with Sara and kicks all three sisters out of the house. Winifred explains to Mary and Sara that that guy is not their master, All Hallow’s Eve has become a night of frolic and everyone wears disguises. The hobgoblins running amok in costume are actually children, and some of them stole all three of the sisters’ broomsticks.
The Town Hall Halloween Party
Max, Dani, Allison and Binx head to the Town Hall Halloween Party where their parents are dancing the night away, and Max tries to warn Dadcula about the witches while Dani attempts to explain everything to her mother, who has dressed up as Madonna. None of the adults believe Max, especially when Winifred runs with the act after he gets up on stage, steals the mic and tries to tell everyone that the real Sanderson sisters are back and that the children are in danger. Winifred, Sara and Mary take the stage and perform “I Put a Spell on You” encanting the crowd with their performance, and bewitching them to dance until they die. Billy eventually gets to the party too and chases the children. Allison has an idea and takes them all to Jacob Bailey High School, where they trap the witches in the ceramics kiln and try to burn them. The kids and Binx think they’ve defeated the witches, running home in victory. Binx tells Thackery to never let Dani go because he regrets losing sight of his sister Emily all those years ago. In return, Max offers Binx a spot in the Dennison household as their new pet. They all retire to the Dennison house and fall asleep.
The parents get stuck dancing at Town Hall, and the witches come back from their baking in a haze of green smoke spewing out of the chimney. They stumble upon Ernie “Ice” (Larry Bagby III) and Jay (Tobias Jelinek) aka the bullies, who call them ugly chicks and get themselves trapped in hanging cages for the witches’ next batch of life potion. The only problem is that the sisters can’t remember the recipe for the draught without Book, and Winifred tries to summon the spellbound tome, but to no avail because Book is currently third-wheeling Max and Allison as they cuddle and wake up at 5 a.m. at the Dennison house. Allison tries to leave because of curfew, but Max asks her if she thinks there’s any way they can help Binx find his freedom, so she opens Book to look for spells, and the book shoots out a beckoning bright beacon of vertical light up into the sky, alerting the Sanderson sisters as to where the book and the children are. They find two brooms in the closet of their cottage, and Mary uses a vacuum cleaner, to fly to the source of the beam of light.
Before Binx shut the book when Allison opened it, she read that salt protects people against the witches’ powers, so she and Max head to the kitchen to grab some. They are about to kiss when they hear rustling upstairs and rush up too late to try and save Dani. Winifred’s book stuns Max and the sisters kidnap Dani and Binx. As they fly back to the cottage, Sarah sings her haunting hymn that draws the rest of the children to the cottage in a sleep-walk like stupor.
Dawn Approaches
Allison figures out that the witches are trying to feed off the children because the Black Flame Candle can only keep them going until sunrise, so she and Max drive through the entranced children to the cottage and put rose-colored film over the headlights to fool the Sandersons into thinking that dawn has already arrived. Max calls this Daylight Savings Time, fooling the witches yet again, and they slowly shrivel and shrink to the floor, thinking that they are dying. Max also gets his Nike sneakers back from Ice, who remains trapped in his cage. When they realize they aren’t dead yet, Winifred’s need for vengeance on Dani, who called her ugly and accused her of selling her soul, proves hubristic in the fight for power. Instead of giving the potion to literally any of the children walking to the cottage, Winifred says it must be Dani, so the sisters try to track the children down, but this time they are ready. Billy gets back into the picture, cuts his stitches off and calls Winifred a “buck-toothed, mop-riding firefly from hell.”
The kids, with Billy now on their side, put Dani in Billy’s old grave and surround her with a salt barrier. The witches try to snatch her, but they can’t touch the hallowed ground, so they try to move the fight outside of the graveyard boundaries. Dani crawls out of the hole to help Billy reattach his lost head, and this is when Winnie sees her opening, but Binx smacks the vial of glowing liquid out of her hands and Max catches it, threatening to smash it unless Winifred lets Dani go. Winifred counters saying Dani will die if Max smashes the vial, so Max drinks the potion in the ultimate form of sacrifice, and Winifred attempts to drain his life force, but the sun rises just in time, sending Sara and Mary away in sparkly bursts. Winifred gets petrified, turning into a statue and then vanishes in a green glittery burst.
Binx perishes as well, but his soul is finally freed, and Dani gets to see him in his human form. Emily (Amanda Shepherd) also comes out of the woods in the same translucent form she became when she drank the potion. Binx happily gets to walk her home through the gates of the afterlife.
“Thackery Binx, what took thee so long?” Emily asks her brother.
“Sorry Emily,” he replies. “I had to wait three hundred years for a virgin to light a candle.”
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