Confession:  I totally love Hocus Pocus.

You might not remember Hocus Pocus.  It was a live-action Disney film released in 1993.  It was about Max (Omri Katz), a sarcastic kid from California who has just moved to Salem or some other random Northeastern town with his parents and kid sister Dani (Thora Birch, pre showing her boobies in American Beauty).  The town has this curse involving the resurrection of the Sanderson sisters, three dead-ish witches who ate children’s souls back in the 1600s and can be brought back by a virgin lighting a special candle on Halloween.   And, of course, said candle is just sitting around in a museum, waiting to be lit.  And of course Max, being a sarcastic virgin, lights said candle on Halloween and releases these 17th century witches into the 1990s.

Now the witches are by far the best part of the movie, they are:

Sarah Jessica Parker as sexy, clueless Sarah Sanderson.

Kathy Najimy as chubby, stupid Mary Sanderson.

Bette Midler as awesome, scheming, red-headed Winifred “Winnie” Sanderson.

So of course the witches want to eat more children’s souls, because if they don’t eat more children’s souls before sunrise then they are dead.  Forever.  So much of the movie involves the witches navigating the perils of 1993 (buses! black rivers that are actually just roads! flying vacuum cleaners instead of flying brooms!) and generally running a muck.  Or, as Sarah Sanderson would say, “A MUCK A MUCK A MUCK A MUCK!”

Bette Midler really makes the movie guys.  She is so buck-toothed and sneery and she leads her witch sisters in a stellar performance of “I Put a Spell On You” and I just love her I really do:

There is also a talking black cat (actually a 17th century boy transformed into a cat and doomed to live forever to deal with the fact that he let the witches eat his sister’s soul back in the 17th century and such), which is cool, and a mute zombie. Oh and a random blonde love interest who is boring.

This is a cutesy, fun movie.  I haven’t seen it in awhile and I’m hoping it lives up to the nostalgia factor.  I promise there are no seed-crying pumpkins but if you are looking for Sarah Jessica Parker in her pre-Carrie Bradshaw days or just want to see Bette Midler vamping it, this is a great opportunity.