Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) — Movie Review
I write reviews based on four categories: Coherence, Intensity of Effect, Complexity, and Originality, each based on a score of 1 to 5. The total score is averaged out of these parts.
Hocus Pocus 2 in 2022 is the sequel to the original Hocus Pocus that released in 1993 and once again stars Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy as the Sanderson Sisters. The sequel seeks to return the sisters 29 years later to Salem, as three high school students must once again work together to stop the witches from causing mayhem.
Coherence
The film begins with a prologue, introducing the Sanderson Sisters as children, who run amock in Salem as they discover their witchy powers. Soon they are thrust into the woods where they meet an older witch who gives them the one-eyed book of spells that was such an important artifact in the original film. Through it their witching ways begin. We are then brought back to present day, where we meet Becca, Izzy, and Cassie at school, and we discover some tension between Cassie and the other two as we can see Cassie interact with her dumb jock boyfriend.
Right from the beginning, Hocus Pocus 2 is an incoherent mess. Beginning with a prologue that stretches for too long, featuring a bedazzled witch who never returns, and quickly joining us with three teenagers who seem at odds for very elementary reasons, the movie has no foundation for what follows. The famous black candle is lit in the same forest as in the flashback, with the same horrifically cheesy full moon backdrop. Our reverend from the flashback (played by Tony Hale) also plays the modern mayor, a plot point that is used for conflict as one who follows in a bloodline. Cassie, being the Mayor’s daughter, becomes a target, but this conflict does not bolster the entirety of the film like the original one. The Sanderson sisters take the stage to cast a musical spell much like the first one, but the rationale for why beyond simply rehashing is difficult to determine. The Sanderson Sisters spend an inordinate amount of time in Walgreens, in a movie with a 28 million dollar budget. Characters leave and return to familiar sets and settings that they confuse the viewer. Several side plots like the Mayor’s quest for a candied apple, or Gilbert’s buddy comedy with Billy, has little to no merit for the overall plot. The girls manage to steal a bus out of nowhere, most likely proving several scenes were cut. The hubris of the Sanderson Sisters ends up resolving the plot on their own, without any sort of buy-in or cognitive thought from our main characters, thus belittling them in their own film. I feel confident giving this a 1 out of 5.
Intensity of Effect
Throughout the movie, as it was a comedy, I only laughed a single time. When Kathy states incorrectly that “Sorrow is such sweet parting,” I laughed. That was it. The rest of the film is horrifically bad, so bad that a viewer is likely to exhibit, not sadness or empathy, but confusion in the final act. On our way to the end, let’s analyze why the film lacks any sort of effect. The Sanderson sisters as children may invite a cuteness factor for their attempts to emulate their older counterparts, but I found their overacting atrocious. Gilbert, the manager of a souvenir shop where the original Sanderson house is, tediously reminds us of all the events that occurred in the first film. To rehash these moments like an episodic television show does nothing for our new movie, our new characters, or our new plot. Who would watch a sequel before an original film anyway? When we discover why our three main characters are at odds with each other, that they were not directly invited to a house party, we cannot help but recall the much better tension between our three main characters in the first film. Max and Allison had sexual tension, but Dani stood in the way. Max had to somehow assuage his sexual desire and also be the familial role model for Dani. Dani is the pivotal figure, as the Sanderson Sisters want her, much like they did for Binx’s younger sister. It is the parallel that Max intervenes and becomes the hero, by sacrificing his sexual desire (for the time being) and using it as a drive to stop the witches.
In the sequel, the three girls have little to argue about, and they seem to be sidelined in their own story. Are the Sanderson sisters really the heroes of this story? The end seems to attempt to make them seem more empathetic, because of Winifred’s lament that her sisters are gone. For the viewer, this strange turnaround is baffling, when we consider that the witches are in fact evil witches who have murdered children in the past. There are no new grounds for conflict resolution, so this sort of tonal reversal seems inevitable. But of course none of it works.
Many of the jokes of movie are simply pale facsimiles of the first movie. We’re replacing the vacuum with a pair of roombas, and Mary cries “Cowabunga,” a term she would not know. Sarah still cries out “amock amock” and the witches still turn in circles. The witches’ lack of modern sensibilities sends them to Walgreens to eat face cream with humor fit for toddlers. Compared to the original, much of the erotic charm of the film that circles around Allison and Max is flat out absent. In the original, Satan is a sex-starved middle-aged man. There is a bus driver practically begging for sex. Max’s mother dresses provocatively like Madonna. Like other halloween themes, especially Dracula, the original movie knew that sexuality was important. While Max was made fun of for being a virgin, the virginity line is neutered with awkward silences and phrases like “eww gross.”
Unlike the original film, there are no set-pieces with build-up, tension, action, and then displacement. There are no moments like the school in the original, where the sisters are burned in a kiln that is hilarious in a very dark way. Instead, Hocus Pocus 2 milks every single scene and stretches it with horrific verbal jokes and static blocking, where characters stand around and akwardly adlib until they hear “cut.” When the movie attempts something new, it is pathetic and confusing, and when the movie attempts something old, it is pandering and ineffective. This is a 2 out of 5 for intensity of effect.
Complexity
There is no complexity to this film. Much of the work of the film, the repeated visits to sets, the way that Becca and the girls do not earn their witch powers, the way that the characters quickly resolve their conflict in a single conversation, the way that many of the jokes repeated from the original play out in the sequel without the same context, to it actively ruptures the film’s pacing, makes me wonder if the makers of the film ever saw this movie as a finished product, or as instead a mosaic of required checkboxes. The look of the film is so muddled. Colors pop but in an incredibly dark visual presentation. I’ve never seen a Walgreens that low-lit. The camera is very willing to close in on our young high schoolers, but seems so sterile and detached from our witches, perhaps because, obviously, they are old. In any case, nothing the camera does rewards the viewer’s attention. In fact, much of this film can be equally experienced while looking at your phone, which I think might have explicitly gone into its design. Very few of the jokes, save for a couple like the face mask in Walgreens, need to be seen. The importance of feminine friendship is a moral that is beaten over the head for both the girls and the Sisters, though this is not a conflict that is adequately explored. After 29 years, no script existed, apparently, that could weave the old jokes in with a new and fresh context in a way that would be hilarious and savvy. Compare this to something like Top Gun: Maverick, where the sequel actively improved on some of the goals of the original and likely made the movie of a quality that people THOUGHT they had for the first Top Gun movie. That could have happened here. This is Disney. But any sign of that attempted complexity was thrown out the window for a quick, made for VHS plot. It’s a 1 out of 5.
Originality
If negative numbers existed for this rubric, originality is where I would place it. It is not only that the sequel actively tries to be unoriginal, when it is forced to, it is a complete failure. The obvious point is the ending, which seeks to rewire our brains into imagining the Sanderson sisters are worth any sort of pity or sympathy. But others, like we have stated, stand out as well. Walgreens is a sterile set-piece that leaves us either disgusted or feeling completely numb. Magical items like salt and leaves are used as get out of jail cards in places like attics and garages. It is such an ugly film, made cheaply and yet with an exorbitant budget, and we are forced to conclude that this was simply well-paid work for the cast and crew to laugh at stupid viewers (like me) who decided to watch it on Disney Plus. This was a film that did nothing new and actively robbed an original work of its luster, so a 1 out of 5 here is apt.
The point of all this is that, while the film supposedly has the premium look that comes from being a Disney product, we should not be fooled. Just looking at the film and gauging its intention, we see something so phoned in that the combination makes this film the worst for it. Had this been some indie darling, I might have given it more credence. But Hocus Pocus 2 is a microcosm of much of the frustration people have towards moviemaking in the modern era. Don’t be fooled by the overacted performance by the Sanderson Sisters. This is a soulless product, made by people who are simply happy to be working. A combined 1 out of 5 suits the film perfectly.
