2022 A month of Halloween movies -- October 8th

Hocus Pocus (1993) [Disney+]

I know, I said there wasn't going to be a movie today, yet here we are with a movie!  What happened?  What happened was a break between a nice lunch with a dear old friend and what I presume will be a nice dinner with family.

This one is my sister's fault.  It wasn't on the list at all.  She jokingly asked if I would be watching Hocus Pocus 2, and I had to admit I'd never seen Hocus Pocus.  Which surprised her for some reason, but I was in college drinking beers in 1993, not going out to see Bette Midler Disney movies, what can I say?

The kidding around took on added life when I saw a Twitter parody of what turned out to be a tragically real Twitter post about a woman who was terrified that her children saw a few minutes of Hocus Pocus on TV and thereby had invited Satan into their home.  Apparently, this movie is demonic and will cause diabolism to enter your home, so I have now righteously screwed myself over, I imagine, with all the devilry I've invited in.

These were the kinds of things I was going to joke around about, you know, riff on how this was an entryway into Satanism or whatever.  Do kind of a gag post about it all.  But what a weird film, and I don't mean in a good way; I get now why the reviews were terrible and it flopped at the box office.  Basically Disney let a bunch of TV people including the guy who made the TV miniseries of The Stand back in the '90s make a film for... for... I don't understand who this movie was made for, honestly.  Maybe I'm disconnected because I was too old for it and because now I'm old and don't have kids, but this is a movie where all the gags and humor seem way too mature to be appropriate for little kids and the actual plot and characterizations seem way too juvenile to be appropriate for teens and adults.  It's pretty much a little kids movie with sex jokes, and the real reason for that mother who got all upset about the teevee beaming witches and the Devil into her home should probably be upset is in case her five year old asks her what a virgin is, because that's important to the plot and becomes a recurring gag.

Hocus Pocus apparently became a cult film on home video.  I have to assume this has a lot to do with the campy performances and costumes of Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy, who chew scenery and engage in bawdy humor when they're not engaging in a certain amount of physical Three Stoogesey humor, most of which involves Najimy mugging the camera or being pushed around by Midler.  These are fine performances in that they perfectly suit the film, but are also a huge problem in that they perfectly suit the film; that is to say, with a movie that can't decide if it wants to be a '70s kiddie Disney movie or a '80s kids Spielbergian movie or a PG-raunchy '90s kids comedy, Midler, Parker, and Najimy are as tonally all over the map as the script, direction, and cinematography.

Regarding the latter--the direction and filming--Hocus Pocus never seems to be able to commit to whether its doing Tim Burtoney whimsey with interesting angles and lots of garish lighting a la Beetlejuice or if its just going for middle-of-the-road movie-of-the-week verité with dry, get the shot done and reset for the next scene shooting.

I feel like maybe I'm being a little rough on a kids movie.  But again, on the other hand, it's hard to commit to this movie being a kids movie.  Maybe that's because I was too old for it and still am, and maybe if I'd had kids I'd be all, like, "Hey, Hocus Pocus is great, my daughter was Winnie for Halloween when she was six!"  Instead, I'm just slightly baffled about why this was made.