This week, there has been much buzz in the Halloween community regarding the upcoming, arguably long overdue, Hocus Pocus sequel.
I, personally, always tend to be at least a little apprehensive about sequels, especially when this much time has gone by. Unless a movie is intended to be part of a series, I really don’t see the need for a sequel to suddenly be tacked on several years later. The odds of being able to capture the same mood and magic seem to lessen as time goes on with these things.
But, the case of Hocus Pocus is a bit of a strange one. I truly had no idea what a flop my lifelong favorite movie had been when it was first released until fairly recently. I was seven when I first saw the movie, and it made such an enormous impact on me that I suppose I just assumed it did for everyone else, too. As a kid, I think, in my mind, anything Disney released just had to be popular. And also, being just about the only true family Halloween film at the time, I just assumed it was a staple in everyone’s home; a classic like Rudolph or Frosty at Christmas. I didn’t realize until much later that the movie had done so poorly initially, and only started to gain popularity as I reached my adult years. Given its initial underperformance, it’s understandable why Hocus Pocus didn’t immediately beget a sequel.
Sequel rumors have swirled around for probably about the last ten years or so, some more prevalent than others. Every single time a rumor starts, I ask myself, “Does my favorite movie since I was seven years old, really need a sequel?” I would’ve jumped all over it if it had happened while I was still a child, but as an adult, one can’t help but think of the disservices some sequels over the course of time have done to their predecessors. And, with Hocus Pocus truly being the movie of my lifetime, of course I’ve always had my concerns.
What eases my trepidation this time, though, is that all three of the original Sanderson sisters are officially confirmed to return. Some of the sequel ideas over the course of time have failed to include them, and I simply can’t imagine a movie calling itself “Hocus Pocus”, without Sarah, Mary, and Winifred Sanderson.(And on a side note, I’m, at the very least, grateful that it’s a sequel and not a “reboot” as threatened a few years back.) Knowing how much the original actresses still love their iconic characters from 1993, gives me hope that the sequel can do justice to the original.
What some people may not be aware of, though, is that a Hocus Pocus sequel actually does already exist, in the form of a book (appropriately, albeit not so creatively, titled “Hocus Pocus & The All-New Sequel”) that was published in 2018.
I haven’t come across many people who love the sequel presented here. In fact, I know a lot more people who downright hated it. I, personally, didn’t love it or hate it, I found it fun but underwhelming.
The story picks up twenty-five years after the events of the original movie (which are detailed pretty much down to the letter in the first part of the book), and we find Max and Alison married with a daughter of their own, Poppy. Poppy is, in the grand tradition of these types of stories, bordering on annoyingly skeptic about the past Halloween experiences of her parents and her Aunt Dani, and, much like her father twenty-five years prior, just not that into Halloween. She would much rather focus on her crush on her classmate, Isabella, but luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it), Isabella is interested, and, again, just like her father twenty-five years before her, Poppy finds herself agreeing to a visit to the Sanderson house in an attempt to impress the girl of her dreams. The sisters, of course, return from the dead, this time through a spell that swaps their souls with those of Dani, Max, and Alison. The night becomes a race to save our original heroes, with some familiar faces (most notably the ghosts of Thackery and Emily Binx, and Max’s former bully Jay, now the principal of Jacob Bailey High School and father to Katie, Poppy’s rival) popping up along the way.
It’s an interesting enough story, but honestly reads a bit more like a (very enthusiastic) fanfiction than an actual, serious sequel. I wouldn’t say I necessarily dislike it, but in all truth, it’s really quite forgettable. Not once since I initially read it, have I had the desire to read it again, save for skimming for a few plot points I wanted to remember for this post. It’s kind of the definition of “just okay”.
For one thing, Poppy is really somewhat bland as a character. Her crush on Isabella and her skepticism toward Halloween and everything that relates to it, are really her only defining character traits. Isabella is the most interesting of the main trio of kids, but she spends almost the entire book as (SPOILER ALERT) a Boston terrier, because can it really be Hocus Pocus without someone getting turned into an animal?
The sisters themselves are a strange mixture of spot-on and forced. The author of this book (A.W. Jantha) clearly paid close attention to the sisters’ use of Old English in the original movie, but somehow, in many passages, it comes out sounding almost like a cosplayer trying too hard. Perhaps because the rest of the story is just a little too modern. I mean, it’s hard to imagine anyone, even if they’ve been dead for 325 years, using words like “thou”, “thee”, etc., when they’re casting spells through smartphones. At one point, there is a bizarre side plot where Mary grows tired of being pushed around by Winifred, and, as unbelievable as that scenario may have seemed, I do wonder what it would’ve been like if she’d turned on her, but alas, the storyline goes pretty much nowhere, save for a very descriptively-written musical number that doesn’t make much sense just in written words. Why a novel would include a musical number with no actual song for reference is just beyond me. It’s not like Mary Sanderson is a fictional musician who needed a fictional hit. This sort of thing seems better suited to a novel adaptation of a movie that already exists. But even with all of this, the story still focuses far more on Poppy and her friends than the witches this time, where the original seems to devote more time to both sides of the equation,
Perhaps the most bizarre thing to me, though, is the sudden addition of (SPOILER ALERT) a fourth, good Sanderson sister, Elizabeth Sanderson. I mean, I know it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility that such a person could exist, but she seems so unnecessary and such a sugary-sweet contrast to the original three that it’s a little over the top. She is, at least, more enjoyable to read than the Sandersons’ mother, who is just every scary mommy cliche rolled into one.
So yes, long story short, the book sequel (which I do wish had a real title) was okay but underwhelming. As of now, it’s unknown whether the book sequel will be adapted into the movie sequel, but if it is, I hope it’s given a little more magic.
Whatever happens with the official sequel, I hope it does justice to the original, for those of us that have loved it since the beginning. Like Max (and later Poppy, if you choose to accept the book sequel’s canon) I may be a bit skeptical, but the truth of the matter is, I have been waiting a lifetime for this.
Stay spooky, my friends, and let’s all hope Hocus Pocus 2 puts a spell on us, in whatever form it takes.
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