Hocus Pocus 2
By: Alexis Mitchell
Halloween season is coming up soon and one of the ways we are getting into the festive mood quicker is with the highly anticipated Hocus Pocus 2 premiering on September 30th. The first Hocus Pocus movie came out in 1993 which was almost 30 years ago. The director of the first movie was Kenny Ortega but with the new movie comes a new director, Anne Fletcher. The original witches in the movie were Betty Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy luckily all the witches are coming back for the second movie along with Doug Jones who played Billy Butcherson. In this new movie there are new teenagers that bring the witches back to life. This time the Sanderson sisters want revenge on Salem.
Since the new movie is coming out we wanted to get a blast from the past and ask questions from both the student and staff perspective of the original movie. One of the questions for the staff was, ‘How old were you when the movie came out” and it was interesting to see the variety in answers. We got answers that told us they were just turning one or two and then other answers where they were in their twenties and or just turning 30. A question we asked the students in the building was, ‘If you were the teenagers in the movie would you have lit the blackflame candle? What would you do if you did?” We got some answers that the students would light the candle. Then we asked both the students and staff who their favorite Sanderson witch was. The students responded with Sarah Sanderson but the staff in the building responded with Winifred Sanderson. We also asked the students who their favorite character was and why and a lot of people said Max Denison. The answers were pretty fun. Most people said because he was the reason for the whole movie and others said because he was nice to look at.
It seems mostly everyone has high hopes, but some people are nervous about the sequel coming out. We asked the staff in the building if they enjoyed the original and everyone said that they really enjoyed it because “the setting feels like the perfect, crisp fall day for Halloween mischief. It reminds me of the days of coming home from school and getting ready to go trick or treating.” Others say that it “gets them in the Halloween/fall spirit.” Then we asked if the staff had high hopes for the second movie. We got some yes’s and no’s. One response said “I am never going to love it as much as the first, but I do have high hopes!” Some others had not so high hopes and said “I don’t want to say I have high hopes, but I don’t really know what to expect” and “No, remakes and sequels are tricky.” We also asked both students and staff if they don’t enjoy Hocus Pocus what Halloween movies they do enjoy? The answers were the Scream movies, Halloween, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hubie Halloween, and Halloween Town. Tune in to Disney+ on September 30 to check out the premiere!
Sept. 29, 2022