Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)
directed by Anne Fletcher
★★★½☆
For the past 15 years or so, Hollywood has been rife with sequels to decades-old movies. From TRON: Legacy, to Blade Runner 2049, Mad Max: Fury Rd., Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and the recent Top Gun: Maverick, it seems every studio is vying for that sweet, sweet box office money from nostalgic 40-somethings, with mostly positive results. Although Disney’s long-awaited (really?) sequel to cult classic Hocus Pocus comes just shy of three decades after the first one, and with a different director, it manages to capture much of what made the original better-than-bad.
Once again, the movie cold opens on 17th century Salem, where we meet the Sanderson Sisters, young and orphaned. Headstrong eldest sister Winnifred, after making a scene in the local church and refusing to be married by the Reverend Traske, is exiled from the village, with her two sisters to be taken away to another family. The sisters instead escape together and encounter a witch who gives them their magic book, and teaches them how to perform the spell they used in the first film to drain the life force of children to keep themselves young.
After the movie’s title card, we flash forward to 2022. Following a few scenes establishing our lead protagonists, Midler, Najimy, and Parker return as the Sanderson Sisters, who are reawakened after another virgin lights another black flame candle — believed to be a novelty — on another Halloween night with another full moon (unfortunately, October 2022’s full moon is actually on the 9th, weeks away from the movie’s timeline). The Witches are fooled into thinking the young ones who resurrected them are also witches, on follow them to a local Walgreens for “youth potions”. Once they discover they’ve been had, they return to their home — now a tourist attraction — to retrieve their book and cast the forbidden Magicae Maxima spell, for which they need the blood of their enemy, whom they determine to be the reverend who banished them.
Reverend Traske is played by Arrested Development’s (and Toy Story 4’s) Tony Hale, whose descendant in 2022 is conveniently identical to — and shares the surname of — his ancestor from 369 years ago. Also needed for the spell is the head of a lover, which sees the return of a much more verbal Billy Butcherson, with Doug Jones reprising his role. He and the Sandersons are the only returning characters/actors from the first Hocus Pocus, allowing this sequel to avoid too many nostalgic references.
I say “too many” because we still get the gag of Mary Sanderson being unable to find a broom to ride and having to resort to a comical alternative, and there is also an unnecessary musical number wherein the Sisters, mistaken for costumed revelers, cover a 40-ish-year-old song to hypnotize the adults of Salem. But for the most part, nearly everything here is original, and the reprisals pay off.
Midler, Najimy, and Parker seem to have no problem picking up their roles right where they left off, and the finale is a nice way to end the movie while leaving the door open for a sequel/spin-off. While Hocus Pocus 2 is the epitome of a too-late sequel that nobody needed, it’s inoffensive and enjoyable enough that it’s worth viewing alongside its predecessor.
