Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

October 7, 2022 8:42 PM

Three young women accidentally bring back the Sanderson Sisters to modern day Salem and must figure out how to stop the child-hungry witches from wreaking havoc on the world.

29 years after the original, the Sanderson Sisters are back. (Link to Hocus Pocus Fanfare thread)

What’s most interesting about Hocus Pocus 2 (besides its utility as a lesson in how you can’t bottle and resell nostalgia) is its star trio: Midler, Parker and Najimy reprise their roles with the same energetic kookiness that made Hocus Pocus beloved. You can tell they’re having fun. (Hollywood Reporter review)

The first movie was about the relationships between brothers and sisters (with a little teen romance); this one is about friendship (review from rogerebert.com)

Hocus Pocus 2: Every Hocus Pocus Reference (EW article)

It's not a continuity error, nerds: Kathy Najimy explains why Mary's smile is now crooked on the other side. (Also EW, is it owned by Disney?)

Streaming on Disney+, where it has set a record for a movie streaming premiere on the platform.

But beware, this movie will unleash hell on your children. (The Mary Sue write up of some mom's viral social media post.)

posted by the primroses were over (6 comments total)

It was a lot of fun! My kid hasn’t seen the first and still thoroughly enjoyed it. She says she’s not spooked easily but she is and this was very easy for mild scares. I got slightly misty eyed at the last scene with Bette Middler, even though she is a cannibal witch. The child versions of them were an excellent backstory - clearly unpleasant but not deserving what happened to them.

And I appreciate that cowardly Gilbert managed to find some redemption, but was still clearly awful.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:48 PM on October 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Midler, Najimy and Parker were having fun chewing the scenery. I liked the friendships, both between Gilbert and Billy, and between the three girls. But neither of those elements got space to develop, since this is pretty much a "bring back the Sanderson Sisters" production.

Not a fan of giving every villain(s) a sympathetic backstory - let the child eating witches be child eating witches - but the young Sanderson sister actors were cute even if unnecessary.

Surprising amount of Veep representation in the cast, with Tony Hale and Sam Richardson.

I watch the original every October, and was not optimistic about this one, but its better than I expected (better than I feared).
posted by the primroses were over at 8:52 PM on October 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I adored young Winifred. What a little spitfire. And genuinely teared up in the final seen with the witches when Winnie realized what she'd lost.

It was a lot better than I expected. Some of the callbacks were fun, although I kept waiting for an "our master!" scene which never came.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 5:48 PM on October 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

I liked it, which absolutely surprised me. It feels like they yanked back really hard on some of the weird sexualization from the first one. That was fine on the teen front, but I assume SJP is just too dignified to be an airhead onscreen anymore? (But that's a shame, because I grew up with bimbo SJP roles and they were so much fun.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 6:23 PM on October 9, 2022

That was fun! Really, the only thing I didn't like was the retcon on Billy Butcherson. I was totally fine with him being a cheater who resented being caught (and murdered and zombified), but probably should have seen it coming.

Since they left room for a spinoff, I do want to state for the record that it's not Hocus Pocus if it doesn't have a big Bette Midler number in the middle.
posted by mersen at 5:14 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

I thought this wasn't bad at all. I mean, let's face it, the original really wasn't that good on the whole despite having a number of highlights, and this one is actually better in several respects. The special effects were better, the teenage actors were better than the kids from the original, the storyline was decent. And I must compliment Midler, Najimy, and Parker on being able to step back into roles they last played twenty-nine years ago and playing them exactly the same way and with the same level of energy and spirit.
posted by orange swan at 5:15 PM on November 11, 2022