#TBT: The Quotable Hocus Pocus

Y’all, the time has come to get out the popcorn, pour yourself a glass of apple cider, light a black flame candle, and get ready to hang out with virgins, talking cats, adulterous zombies, and the Sanderson Sisters. That’s right: it’s Hocus Pocus season.

How excited are we for Hocus Pocus? More excited than Sarah Sanderson at a Buffalo Wild Wings on game day. (Get it? Boys everywhere!)

If you’re anything like us here at Pop Culturalist, you look forward to this every single year, and you can probably say the lines right along with the movie. So on this Throwback Thursday, we’re looking back at some of our favorite quotes from one of our favorite Halloween films.

Winifred: Oh, look: another glorious morning. Makes me sick.

Winnie, I feel you on Mondays. I really, really do.

Max: So let’s light the sucker and meet the old broads.

Max, you are cute, but an idiot. If a black cat jumps on you out of nowhere to prevent you from lighting a candle that may or may not bring 300-year-old witches back from the dead, you probably should just walk away and go back to Allison’s house to drink cider and bob for apples. (In my opinion, a perfectly delightful way to celebrate Halloween.)

Dani: A virgin lit the candle.

One of the strange and hilarious aspects of this Disney film is that teenage sexuality is front and center. The whole film hinges on the fact that Max is a teenaged virgin. I repeat: this is a Disney film. In what other Disney film do you hear the word “virgin” so frequently?

Sarah: Amok! Amok, amok, amok, amok, amok!

One word has never been so quotable. (Also: Sarah Jessica Parker‘s best moment on film since sneaking out of the house to appear on Dance TV.)

Winifred: Why was I cursed with such idiot sisters?!

Sarah: Just lucky, I guess!

If you take away their pathological desire to suck the life out of little children, the Sanderson Sisters are just like any sibling group: they love, hate, support, and insult each other repeatedly. And yet, they’ve stuck together after all this time.

Winifred: I put a spell on you, and now you’re mine.

This one, by right, doesn’t come from Hocus Pocus: it’s actually a song written by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in 1956. But it’s hard to hear that song without immediately thinking of Bette Midler doing what she does best and bringing the house down in Hocus Pocus. Midler is a national treasure, and this fact is perfectly obvious throughout the entire film.

Thackery Binx: I’m sorry, Emily. I had to wait 300 years for a virgin to light a candle.

This line ends the film, reminding us how silly and very un-Disney it is. Would Disney include any references to virgins in films today? No way. That’s why the weird and wonderful Hocus Pocus is so delightful: it constantly surprises us and foils our expectations.

Photo Credit: Disney