Hocus Pocus 2 Review

September 30th is the day that people have been waiting for since July 16th, 1993. With Halloween just around the corner, this is the perfect time for the iconic Hocus Pocus 2 to be released.  The real question is did it live up to be better than the original? I watched both the original and the sequel to compare and see which one is the best of the two. 

Starting with the beginning of the movie, while the original starts with Emily Binx getting killed by the Sanderson sisters and Thackery Binks getting turned into a cat by the sisters. The sequel starts in Salem in the year 1653 with Winfred’s 16th birthday. The townspeople kicked the sisters out of Salem, and they then ran away into the forbidden woods of Salem and met an older witch where the witch hands down the manual of witchcraft and alchemy (the spell book with the eye) to Winfred for her birthday. Between the two beginnings, I think Hocus Pocus 2 made more sense with the main story because it has more to do with the Sanderson sisters and makes the original story make more sense of why they hate Salem and why they ended up the way they are, while the original has the story with the Binxs siblings that has nothing to do with the main plot of the movie. 

The middle of the movie for both the original and the sequel starts with the movie brought back to the present day. In the middle of the original is Max Dennison trying to attract Allison to him and then him finding her house trick or treating with his sister and then going to the Sanderson sister museum and Max lighting the black flame candle. In the middle of the sequel are Becca and Izzy being given a candle for her birthday by the guy who runs the Sanderson sister’s museum. They then went into the woods and lit the candle and it turned out to be a black flame candle. I think the original made more sense because the black candle situation I felt was confusing in the sequel and the original was just better and made more sense. 

Now for the end of the movies, the original ends with Max and Allison falling in love and the Sanderson sisters disappearing with the sunrise. In the sequel it ends with Becca finding out she’s a witch and Winfred losing her sisters due to a spell, Becca then did a spell on Winfred to unite her with her sisters. I feel the original was better because I think the whole witch thing with Becca at the end was unnecessary and made the movie more complicated and took away from the original witches, the Sanderson sisters. 

Overall I believe that the original Hocus Pocus is better than the sequel because I feel it made more sense and the plot of the movie was better. To answer the question if the sequel is better than the original, the answer is no but it did come close.