Hocus Pocus
The Sanderson sisters — Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy — resurrected in Salem on Halloween night, chasing children and belting "I Put a Spell on You." A box-office flop in 1993 that became the ultimate Halloween rewatch tradition.
Hocus Pocus was released by Walt Disney Pictures on July 16, 1993 — in summer, not at Halloween — and directed by Kenny Ortega, who would later make High School Musical. Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy played the Sanderson sisters, three 17th-century witches accidentally resurrected in modern Salem, Massachusetts by a teenager on Halloween night.
The film was a critical and commercial disappointment on release, opening in fourth place and quickly falling out of the top ten; Disney is estimated to have lost money on the theatrical run. Its odd summer release and lukewarm reviews gave little hint of what was coming.
Its second life came from television. Annual October airings on Disney Channel and ABC Family (now Freeform) turned it into a beloved Halloween staple over the following decades — by 2011 it was the network block's most-watched title — and its cult status eventually produced a 2022 Disney+ sequel with all three original witches returning. That belated fame is why the movie's true heyday arguably arrived long after 1993.
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