Good post.
Ironically, I only saw the film once as a kid, but I revisited it as an adult a few years ago and found it quite charming. Now I own it on Blu-Ray.
One thing you said that really resonated with me is that "it has that very specific early 90s films vibe." You are definitely correct that films from that era have a particular feel and texture to them, regardless of genre. I love it and will sometimes watch films from that era just to re-experience that FEEL from a movie.
I'll also say that we just don't seem to get many family films like Hocus Pocus anymore. When I think back to films like it and others, such as Home Alone, Free Willy, The Mighty Ducks, Homeward Bound, The Sandlot, My Girl, The Addams Family, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Hook, I just don't see too many films for young people today that I think are comparable. Sure, there are films today that are geared toward the same age group, but by and large they're not the same, and I'm not talking in terms of the filmmaking technology and techniques. I mean that the films today, with a handful of exceptions, seem to lack the sweetness and sense of innocence that those films possessed.
It's kind of like how we don't get a lot of traditional Christmas films anymore. The only two films of the 21st century that I can think of that really invoke the feeling of the family Christmas classics of yesteryear are Elf and Christmas Chronicles, and that's only two films in 20 years.
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Olivergbyrne (695)
4 years ago
Exactly ! Family films in the 90's were extremely different . Less cynical perhaps. When I see one of the films you mentioned there is a mixture of nostalgia and bittersweet-ness because I know that films like these will never be made today in this social media obsessed world.
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PrimeMinisterX (8708)
4 years ago
Yes, the films of that time were definitely less cynical and weren't trying to be "edgy." To me, they represent an America--or a vision of America--that is on life support right now, sadly.
I do recall that Abigail Breslin did a couple of films in the late 00s (around 2008?) that I distinctly remember feeling like they belonged to an earlier era. They were Nim's Island and Kitt Kittridge: An America Girl. But they are certainly exceptions to the 21st century rule.
I'd like to think that one day culture may wind its way back around to the spirit of that earlier time, but as you implied, the Internet has changed--one might say ruined--everything.
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TMC-4 (20123)
a month ago
It's funny that the word "edgy" is mentioned because according to this article, that's why Hocus Pocus stands out when compared to latter live-action Disney movies:
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/hocus-pocus-disney-needs-to-scare-kids-again/
It's just hard to imagine Disney making something like Hocus Pocus in the 2010s and 2020s:
What’s striking about it today, however, is how it stands even further apart from modern Disney films. For starters, Disney films that are actual live-action adventures with kids embarking on heroic journeys, be they during Halloween or any other time of the year, have largely gone extinct. In 2022, Disney’s non-Marvel and non-Lucasfilm live-action output is relegated almost entirely to remakes of animated classics or, ahem, Disney+ sequels to old favorites.
In this context, there seems to be a trepidation to scare and an unwillingness to fully frighten younger audiences. Once upon a time, the classics of Walt Disney Animation Studios had no qualms about unnerving children with images of an old crone woman handling a poisoned apple that brings death in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937); nor were they concerned about what kind of terror Pinocchio (1940) would inflict when a grinning red-faced adult cackles at a crying donkey with the voice of a child—mocking how the transformed boy is doomed to spend the rest of his days in slave labor at the salt mines.
Ironically, Disney remade the latter movie recently where the aforementioned salt mine sequence is entirely glossed over, and there is no hellish moment with the coachman mocking a crying monster-child. The live-action remake of Pinocchio is also a dull, toothless affair that was rightly ravaged by critics for its relentless mediocrity.
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PrimeMinisterX (8708)
a month ago
I'm not sure that the problem is a "trepidation to scare and an unwillingness to fully frighten younger audiences" or whatever, but Disney definitely is producing much different movies now then they did in the past. These days they are all about the woke agenda and seem mostly interesting in gay-ifying everything and being sure that there's a "strong, independent woman" in the lead.
Disney really made two big mistakes in the last 10 or so years:
1. Deciding that pushing a political agenda is more important that fulfilling the mission of providing traditional family entertainment
2. Over-relying on established franchises with little focus on original stories
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