One Of My Favorite Halloween Movies

One of my favorite movies, one that I noted on TV, one Halloween season, is “Hocus Pocus”. This Disney channel classic is loved by many, young and old, and runs frequently on cable television.
The movie has a colorful cast. And lends to the season with both humor and the element of fright with good actresses as leads. It begins on October 31, 1693 in Salem, Mass. Three Salem witches, Winifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker)and Mary Sanderson(Kathy Najimy) turned a boy, Thackery Binx (Sean McMurray) into an immortal black cat as punishment for trying to prevent them from “absorbing the life forces” of his younger sister, Emily. However, due to a curse created by a candle by Winnie, they vow to return when a virgin lights the Black Flame Candle on a Halloween night when the moon is full.
Three hundred years later on October 31, 1993 Max Dennison (Omri Katz) a skeptical teenager from L.A. finds a love in Allison, a girl from his high school class. She is part of the chase with Max and his little sister Dani (Thora Birch) who fight off demons with the witches.
At one point, Winfred resurrects her old unfaithful lover Billy Butcherson. (Doug Jones). Max is hounded by his little sister Dani to take her trick or treating. They do and even meet a man named Satan and his wife who fool them into the realization of what the night Halloween’s about. Max wishes to visit the Sanderson Museum and three young people get mixed up in magic and mayhem immediately. Max lights the Black Flame Candle and inadvertently resurrects the Sanderson sisters. The children make their way to the Town Hall’s Dance where the the sisters break it all up there and cast a spell. Luring the sisters to a high school the kid’s lock the witches in a kiln and burn them up. Being immortal however for that one night, they are again resurrected. They decide to return to their home at the Museum. Meanwhile Max and Allison open the spellbook in hopes of finding some way of reviewing the curse placed on Binx the cat which sends a signal of its location to the sisters. Binx closes the book but it is too late and the witches somehow kidnap Dani and Binx and go back to their home again. There are two bullies who are used by the witches named Jay and Ice. Sarah the witch uses her own siren song to hypnotize all the children in Salem who start making their way to the witches house.
These are the basic details of “Hocus Pocus”. Max tricks the sisters and finally rescues Dani and Binx. The sun rises and Sarah, Mary, and Winnie’s statue explode and turn to dust. Binx who was mortally wounded dies, and after being rescued by Max, Allison, and Dani goes waltzing into the afterlife to join his sister, Emily. Finally, the Town Hall’s Dance lets out and we see the Spellbook again as it ends.
I enjoyed the antics of those three witches. Max and Allison as high school teenagers were loveable. Birch's performance was quite piquant and unforgettable as the movie progressed.