Hocus Pocus 2 (dir. Anne Fletcher, 2022) — Review

In an autumn marked by provocative releases, perhaps Hocus Pocus 2 is the coward’s choice of film. Disney’s decision to return to Salem 30 years after the original has still managed to work the middle-American Christian market into a lather, with the double provocation of witchcraft and — shriek! — diverse casting. Puritans aside, the Mouse’s spooky streamer offers a wholesome serving of saucy camp for both nostalgic millennials and younger audiences, largely due to the timeless flamboyance of its stars.

1992’s Hocus Pocus has proved more ripe for reinvention than other films in the Disney stable: much like their fellow ‘90s icon RuPaul, the campy, prosthetic-laden Sanderson sisters remain agelessly compelling. Bette Middler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy return as the trio of 17th-century witches — led by Middler’s Winifred — summoned by a Halloween ritual in which a virgin lights their black candle. If anything, the naughtiness of the first movie has receded a little: the prior protagonist was an awkward teenage boy who unleashed the sisters by refusing to admit to his, er, qualifications. This sweetly self-conscious male angst has been updated with a wobbly female focus, as the update tackles the thorny issue of misogyny in the whole witch stereotype. ‘Girl power’ and canonically evil sorceresses who love to eat children prove an initially uneasy marriage, as we meet the maligned young Sandersons in flashback, followed by modern protagonists Becca (Whitney Peak) and Izzy (Belissa Escobedo). Doing their best with painfully generic tween material, these young actors seem to buckle under the yoke of nostalgic fan service — until the professionals come in.

Becca and Izzy find themselves tricked into lighting the candle by Gilbert ‘the Great’, a ‘90s-kid Sanderson enthusiast propping up a witchy cottage industry, who believes the Dahl-esque villains of Salem legend are simply misunderstood. Fortunately, Winifred, Sarah and Mary return to put such revisionism to bed, with their song-and-dance routines and utter commitment undimmed — even if the sisters are a little more saccharine. Middler, still the star of the show aged 76, dons her signature Sanderson buck-teeth with aplomb, leading updated twists on classic patter with the vigour of a pantomime dame. Although the central plot skews closer to a Disney Channel original than the bodacious horror-comedy of old, thanks to the straight-to-stream release, older viewers can skip through the girl-group angst, thicko boyfriends and pop quizzes with ease.

This is a film about digging up the past for harmless goofs, and director Anne Fletcher zeroes in on her targets with military precision. The niggling question of ‘girl power’ is swiftly dispatched by the anti-heroines, after a weird opening nod to forcible child marriage in 1653 which sets up their backstory: three-and-a-half centuries later, Winnie’s rampage as an “invincible, all-powerful, vengeful maniac” is objectively bad news. Plucky protagonist Becca throws out knowing winks to “some patriarchal fear of female ageing” for grown-up viewers, before ironing them out by luring the witches to a Walmart. Dead-set on staying “young and ridiculously beautiful”, the sisters make a beeline for the anti-ageing products, only to start chowing down on them in search of children’s souls: “Retinol — what a charming name for a child!”

Hilariously garbled period dialogue allows the sisters to flip between jukebox musical covers straight from Drag Race — starting with ‘The Witches Are Back’ — and their theoretical efforts to commune with the dark lord. Propping them up on the campy adult front, for viewers of a certain age, Tony Hale makes a welcome appearance as Mayor Traske, a descendant of 1653’s Reverend Traske, seen exiling the sisters in flashback. Hale, better known as Arrested Development’s Buster Bluth, has a field day yo-yo’ing between historically accurate creepiness and his trademark bumbling schlub — best of all when he’s flinging around grammatically inaccurate ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ under Quaker Oats headgear. Another familiar face, Winifred’s old lover Billy Butcherson, drives the message home as he pops up from the grave like a rotting David Brent: “I’m a good zombie! I’m not even chasing you back!”

In a fall streaming season dominated by Dahmer and Monroe, Hocus Pocus 2 offers a jolly alternative where for once, America’s past is a source of harmless fun rather than uncomfortable horror. As the sisters reveal themselves to the townspeople for the first time, accidentally stumbling into a Sanderson lookalike contest, they’re greeted with approving calls of “oh, they’re doing a bit!” from their drag-queen doppelgängers. A much needed one at that.