Now that summer is over and fall is starting most people are going to want to start doing fall activities. We associate fall with pumpkin patches, hay rides, haunted houses, and Halloween movie marathons. When most people think of Halloween movies they usually associate them with horrors or thrillers. However, there are also many Halloween movies that aren’t scary at all, like Halloweentown or The Nightmare Before Christmas. One of my personal favorites to watch around Halloween is Hocus Pocus. This movie came out on July 16, 1993, and is classified as a comedy horror movie perfect for any age.

Hocus Pocus takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in around 1693. It starts with a little girl named Emily who wandered into the woods and got kidnapped by three witches. The witches’ plan is to suck the life out of Emily to be able to remain young. Her brother realizes she was missing and tries to save her before she is killed. He failed to save her and Emily was murdered. The witch sisters then punish him by turning him into a black cat. The townspeople found out about the witches and sentenced them to be hanged, but before they were they cast a spell that would resurrect them. Then the movie flashes forward to a new family. There is a new boy at school, Max, who is very skeptical of Halloween. He takes her sister, and a girl at school out to the cottage that the witches used to live in. Max lights candles to prove his beliefs that the witches are fake, but he unintentionally resurrects the Sanders witches.

The Sanderson witch sisters attempt to steal Max’s little sister Dani so that they can be young again. They run away and find the boy that was turned into a black cat named Binx and they team up against the witches. Max stole the witches’ spell book as they are running out of the house, but he doesn’t know the witches can see the location. The witches find them, take Dani and the spellbook, and lure other children to the cottage. Max comes in and steals the witch’s potion that will allow them to take the children’s souls. They run after Max to try to get the potion back. Max ends up destroying the potion and the sun comes back up which causes the witch’s body to disintegrate into dust. Their death breaks the curse on the boy that was turned into a cat, freeing his soul, and reuniting him with his sister Emily as they both head off into the afterlife together. 

Overall I would say Hocus Pocus is a great Halloween movie that anyone can watch, and enjoy. It’s a perfect movie for a Halloween movie marathon. The characters go through many adventures and struggle to stop the witches from taking more children. The writers of this movie have just announced that they will be having a sequel that will come out this September. I can’t wait to get to watch it and see how it compares to the original.