HOCUS POCUS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1997 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
Welcome to Salem, and being the late 1600s, its time for witches. Taking center stage as our three conjurers are Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy, playing the three hags known as Winifred, Sarah, and Mary. HOCUS POCUS was Disney's 1993 ode to Halloween, and one of Disney's lamest comedies.
Lifelessly directed by Kenny Ortega, it starts with the three crazy witches in old Salem. They have kidnapped a little girl of about six so they can kill her, thereby draining out her youth and making themselves younger. When her brother, Thackery Binx, finds his sister dead, he tries to get out of the witches' house, but Winifred turns him into a black cat (voice by Jason Marsden) and dooms the feline to live forever.
After that "promising" beginning, the show skips 300 hundred years forward to the present when it is, of course, almost Halloween. Teenage Max (Omri Katz), his 8-year-old sister Dani (Thora Birch) and their parents have just moved to Salem from LA. Salem now has some classic juvenile delinquents like Ice (Larry Bagny III) who steal Max's shoes so he hates the place, that is until he meets Allison (Vinessa Shaw), the local rich girl.
The town is obsessed with the legend of the three witches, and on Halloween, Max, Dani, and Allison go to the witches' home and light the forbidden candle. Like most teenagers, Max ignores all warnings, including the one that explains that if a virgin lights the candle at the right time, the three witches will return.
Well, they do come back to life, but for all the laughs they get they should have stayed firmly in the grave. The script by Neil Cuthbert, Mick Garris, and David Kirschner never finds its footing. Sometimes it tries to be a BEETLEJUICE clone, and other times it thinks it is a romantic comedy. It never has any convictions about its direction and stays constantly adrift.
The best that can be said about the acting by the witches is that it is, well, bizarre. And rarely funny. For some reason, Midler gets most of the dialog and the screen time. As for the other two, maybe their background roles are an advantage so that most people will not realize they were ever associated with this picture.
What do the witches do when they make their grand appearance before the town? Making like The Supremes, they jump right in and sing and dance their hearts out on stage. Too bad, they couldn't have conjured up a little imagination and at least a few token laughs.
HOCUS POCUS runs 1:36. It is rated PG for language and for some frightening images including a resurrected corpse whose head and fingers get chopped off and a cat that gets run over by a bus. The show should be acceptable for kids around 8 and up. My son Jeffrey, age 8, thought the show was "good" but complained that he thought "the language was inappropriate." I do not recommend this bland comedy, and I give it just a single *.
**** = A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = Totally and painfully unbearable picture.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: June 29, 1997
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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