In 1993 Disney brought three witches to the big screen played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy in Hocus Pocus. The film didn’t do all that well at the box office during its original run, but since became a fan cult classic. For years fans have been begging for a sequel and it is finally happening with the aptly titled Hocus Pocus 2 co-starring Sam Richardson, Doug Jones, Hannah Waddingham, Whitney Peak, Belissa Escobedo, Lilia Buckingham, Froyan Gutierrez, and Tony Hale from The Proposal director Anne Fletcher.

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Hocus Pocus 2 follows 29 years since someone lit the Black Flame Candle and resurrected the 17th-century sisters, and they are looking for revenge. Now it is up to three high-school students to stop the ravenous witches from wreaking a new kind of havoc on Salem before dawn on All Hallow’s Eve.

 

I will be the first to admit that I am not a fan of the original film. I did revisit it in hopes to see it with fresh adult eyes, but still didn’t do much for me. With that I wasn’t overly excited to dive into the long highly anticipated sequel, but did so nonetheless with an open mind and to my surprise thought it wasn’t all that bad.

 

I am not a fan of Midler or Parker so maybe that is my struggle to enjoy the original, but I love Najimy and even she annoyed me then. To my surprise I wasn’t nearly as irritated with them this time around and in fact found them a lot more amusing in their fish out of water scenarios. It does crack me up every time Najimy does her laugh which is just a her thing that she also used in the Sister Act films.

 

The story was simple but fun connecting it to the original film as well as their past to connect more things together and help it make sense in a fun way. Despite its connections it is very much its own movie with a fun tone that didn’t seem as dumb as the first time around and I think it helped it.