Mental Floss
18 Reasons Why Hocus Pocus Is Darker Than We Remember
By Sian Alison
October 6, 2026
It’s officially spooky season, and it wouldn’t be Halloween without the 1993 classic Disney movie Hocus Pocus, starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy. It’s a cult classic that is still hugely popular today.
The film follows three witches from Salem who are brought back from the dead after 300 years, and are out for revenge. Like many children’s films from the 80s and early 90s, Hocus Pocus is much grimmer than many of us may have realized at the time. As adults, many of us have rewatched childhood classics and have found ourselves thinking, “Wow, kids’ entertainment was a lot darker than we remember.” Hocus Pocus is no exception; here are 18 reasons why.
The witches suck the life out of children
They turn Thackery Binx into a cat and curse him with remaining a cat forever
The witches are hanged
The Salem witch trials are a major plot point
The use of the word “virgin”
They resurrect a zombie
Billy loses his head and has his fingers chopped off
Sarah sings a song to lure children to their demise
The witches put a curse on the whole town at the town hall Halloween party that forces everyone to dance until they die
Binx the cat gets run over and flattened by a bus
The bus driver’s sexual remarks
The Sanderson Sisters are burned alive in the high school pottery oven by teenagers
Billy Butcherson cuts his mouth open with a knife and moths fly out
Winifred’s book is bound in human skin
Sarah tries to seduce “Satan”
Mary Sanderson sniffs out her victims
When Dani is abducted by the witches, she is seen tied up and ready to be murdered
The witches turn to stone and blow up at sunrise
The witches suck the life out of children
In the first couple of scenes, a young girl named Emily Binx gets the life sucked out of her by the witches so they can stay young and beautiful. Emily is pretty much murdered within 10 minutes of the movie, and Thackery, her brother, watches his sister die in front of him.
They turn Thackery Binx into a cat and curse him with remaining a cat forever
Thackery Binx attempts to save his sister’s life, but is cruelly cursed by the witches to live as a cat for eternity, doomed to watch all his loved ones die over time while he is eternally trapped in a cat’s body.
The witches are hanged
The witches are shown at the gallows before their hanging, and the scene includes a clip of their feet dangling beneath the gallows.
The Salem witch trials are a major plot point
The whole film is based on the Salem witch trials, which were a dark time in history. It’s also a lot to digest and understand as a 7-year-old. As a child, you probably didn’t realize what the Salem witch trials were, but as an adult, it seems a questionable choice for the premise of a children’s movie.
(Speaking of the Salem Witch Trials, Sarah Jessica Parker—who plays Sarah Sanderson in the film—found out years later, in an episode of the 2010 TV series Who Do You Think You Are, that she is a direct descendant of someone who was accused of witchcraft during the Witch Trials. She didn’t know this at the time of filming Hocus Pocus. Her 10th-great-grandmother was accused of witchcraft in Salem but was never tried.)
The use of the word “virgin”
There are a lot of references to the word “virgin” in the film, and Max is regularly made fun of for being a virgin. Only a virgin can light the Black Flame Candle and bring the Sanderson Sisters back from the dead. This must have been incredibly uncomfortable for parents being asked, “What’s a virgin?” by their children while watching this film. In Hocus Pocus 2, the sequel, they actually make a joke about this 30 years later.
They resurrect a zombie
Billy Butcherson the zombie in ‘Hocus Pocus 2’
Disney Plus
In the cemetery, Winifred resurrects a 300-year-old zombie called Billy Butcherson to help her catch Max, Allison, and Dani.
Billy loses his head and has his fingers chopped off
Billy Butcherson loses his head and wanders around headless for much of the film, and at one point his fingers are cut off by a bus going over a storm drain. He winces, which means it probably hurt.
Sarah sings a song to lure children to their demise
The beautiful, lullaby-like song “Come Little Children” Sarah sings is incredibly creepy. She is luring the children to their death, basically abducting them with a song. One of the lines of the song is literally “I’ll take thee away.”
The witches put a curse on the whole town at the town hall Halloween party that forces everyone to dance until they die
When the witches take the stage at the Halloween party, the adults seem to enjoy the entertainment, but they don’t know they are being cursed to dance until they die. They—including Max and Dani’s parents—remain in a zombie-like dancing state until the end of the film.
Binx the cat gets run over and flattened by a bus
After poor Binx gets run over by a bus, Dani is devastated. For a while it looks like Binx is gone, but after a few minutes he regains his shape and comes back to life. This confirms the fact that he cannot die, and that he really is eternally doomed to remain a cat.
The bus driver’s sexual remarks
This most likely went right over our heads as children. When Winifred announces at the bus stop, “We desire children,” the bus driver replies, “Hey, that may take me a couple of tries but I don’t think there’ll be a problem.” He also expresses how attractive he thinks the witches are, saying, “Mmm, mmm, mmm! I need one of those instant ice packs. You girls are giving me a fever!”
The Sanderson Sisters are burned alive in the high school pottery oven by teenagers
Allison, Max, and Dani come up with a plan to lock the witches in the school pottery oven. They then turn it on and watch them burn.
Billy Butcherson cuts his mouth open with a knife and moths fly out
When Winifred poisoned Billy Butcherson over 300 years ago for being involved with her sister, Sarah, she also sewed his mouth shut. Later in the movie, Billy cuts the stitches on his mouth open with a knife and dust and moths fly out.
Winifred’s book is bound in human skin
The book was given to Winifred by the devil and is bound in human skin, and there’s even an eyeball on the front of the book that moves around. The spellbook includes many horrifying ingredients like “oil of boil,” “a dead man’s toe,” and “a dash of pox.” The spellbook also contains many of Winifred’s most powerful, evil spells. It’s also revealed that the Black Flame Candle is made from the fat of a hanged man.
Sarah tries to seduce “Satan”
At one point, Sarah tries to seduce the man who she thinks is the real Devil. This man, however, is simply dressed in a Halloween costume. This scene is also kind of strange to watch as an adult because the man’s wife is right upstairs and he is openly dancing seductively with Sarah.
Mary Sanderson sniffs out her victims
Mary Sanderson can sniff out children. It seems kind of funny in the movie, but when you think about it, it’s quite disturbing. She is basically trying to sniff out children so the witches can abduct and kill them.
When Dani is abducted by the witches, she is seen tied up and ready to be murdered
During this scene, two teenagers in cages hanging from the ceiling in the Sanderson Sisters’ cottage can also be seen. The teenagers called the witches ugly, so Winifred punished them by putting them in cages that are far too small for them to move around in. Binx the cat is also tied up in a bag next to the open fire.
The witches turn to stone and blow up at sunrise
The witches in ‘Hocus Pocus’
Disney Plus
The Black Flame Candle’s magic only brought the Sanderson Sisters back for one Halloween night. When the sun comes up, they turn to stone and dramatically burst into dust, sending them back to hell.
Because of all this, maybe it’s time for adults to rewatch Hocus Pocus this spooky season. What seemed like a fun Halloween movie when we were children is actually packed with death, zombies, murder, mentions of the devil, resurrections, and a lot of subtle yet inappropriate adult humor. Despite being a movie about three murderous witches, Hocus Pocus remains a beloved classic today and we still love it.
