Filmic Friday 20

Format: BluRay

It's that time of year, kids!

The air is cool, the leaves are changing, and the squirrels are roughly the size of Volkswagens. It must be time to break out the nostalgia-bomb arsenal and get to work remembering safer, sweeter times!

First up, we've got the best Halloween film without the holiday in the title: Hocus Pocus. Fight me.

Does anyone else miss painted box art for movies?
Because I really, really miss this style.

If you're too young to have watched it before or too old to have watched it as a kid, or even if you just missed out, here's the basic plot:

A young man named Max (Omri Katz) and his sister Dani (Thora Birch) move from California with their parents (Charlie Rocket! and Sephanie Faracy) to Salem, Massachusetts just in time for Halloween. I don't know why, probably something to do with one of their parents' jobs. It's always because of business/money in the 1990s. Max is bullied by the older kids in town (Larry Bagby as Ernie "Ice" and Tobias Jelinek as the suspiciously named Jay) and has a crush on one of his classmates, Allison (Vinessa Shaw), and he absolutely doesn't want to take Dani out Trick-or-Treating.

Unfortunately, his airhead parents make him drag Dani around to do just that, but their fortunes change when they wander into Allison's family's party and meet up with her. Dani, being a bratty little sister in that 1990s way, exposes Max's crush and humiliates him by letting Allison know that he really likes her "Yabos" (breasts... you know, for kids!). Unperturbed (and how chill is this girl?!), Allison decides to really spook the heck out of the new kids by dragging them to her mom's creepy witch museum dedicated to the murderous Sanderson sisters (that would by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy).

There's a legend about how if a virgin lights a specific candle (which is conveniently displayed, uncovered and unguarded, by a bunch of lighters because of course it is) on a Halloween night with a full moon (which it is), then the witches will rise from the dead. And by the way, the movie opens with these same witches murdering a child and being hanged. You know. For kids.

A 1990s movie with curious kids, a cursed object, and the potential for mortal peril?
Gee... wonder what's gonna happen.

So of course, Max lights the candle, freeing the Sanderson sisters, who decide they're going to suck the life out of literally every child in Salem, starting with Dani.

You know, for kids!!!

That being said, they end up with an ally.

Remember how I said that in the beginning of the movie, the Sandersons straight up murder a kid? Well they also turn her brother into a cat, who is still guarding their house and trying to keep just this from happening.

And yes, that does look a bit like Salem the cat.
But he's played by McGee from NCIS.
Baby Tim McGee = 300 year old catboy.
Wut.

Since they're back despite him literally trying to rip Max's jugular out, he decides to help these idiot 20th century kids put the witches back where they belong.

And yeah, the movie gets pretty traumatizing. There's a temporary cat death that involves a city bus, parents not believing kids no matter what evidence is presented to them, kidnappings, attempted murder, aaaaannnnndddd....

Doug Jones as a foulmouthed zombie (once he slices his own mouth-stitches open with a pocketknife)

Yeah, this movie probably traumatized a lot of people back in the day. Including me.

In the end, of course, the kids foil the Sanderson sisters' plot (complete with great musical number), Thackery Binx the cat is reunited with his sister Emily (to many tears), and Max & Allison get together. The only one who gets literally nothing but her life is Dani. Which is actually okay, because it's literally her fault her brother almost dies at the end (if the zombie who has become friends with you puts you in a hole surrounded by salt and all your friends are saying stay there, then you do it, you don't go wandering off to help the zombie get his head back. He can get it himself!).

In conclusion, you should watch this movie for the Halloween season! I strongly suggest pairing this movie with some white cheddar popcorn and peanut M&Ms, as long as you aren't prone to migraines. It also goes well with warm cider, pumpkin muffins, or anything else Fallish and/or nostalgic to you!

That's all for me, today, folks :)

Go Enjoy Something!!!
FC