Guts and Grog Tooned Up

Monday, November 12, 2012

Maynard's Hocus Pocus Diary


I instantly became a fan of Maynard's after just reading a few reviews. Brutally honest and to the point.






HOCUS POCUS

Alternate German Title:
Hocus Pocus - Drei zauberhafte Hexen

USA, 1993
Director: Kenny Ortega

7/10







I haven't seen this movie before, and honestly, I would have never watched it if I wasn't invited to Eric's blogfest. Why? Simply because it didn't interest me. Apart from several exceptions ("The Goonies", "The Witches", "Monster Squad"...) I've never been into kids movies, especially not into the Disney stuff.
When Eric invited me, I was like "Oh no! Not kids movies!" But at second thought, it couldn't be worse than all the crap I watch for "Project Terrible", and so I decided to check "Hocus Pocus" out - and omg, I ended up pleasantly surprised!



Kenny Ortega, the hack behind teenie schlock like the "High School Musical" trilogy, directed a playful, lighthearted and amusing kids comedy, based on a script by Mick Garris ("Masters Of Horror") and Neil Cuthbert ("Return Of Swamp Thing"). At times a bit cheesy, some of the CGI looks pretty dated and I could have done without the singing - aside from that, it's fun!
"Hocus Pocus" is pure entertainment from beginning to end without ever getting boring. It's packed with hilarious dialogue and superfunny one-liners, cool ideas and great-looking make-up effects. John Debney ("I Know What You Did Last Summer") delivered a fantastic score that strongly reminded me of Danny Elfman's works, Hiro Narita's ("No Man's Land") cinematography is beautiful, the settings look great and the editing is superb.


The cast is obviously the best thing about it: an uber-fabulous Bette Midler ("I shall kill you again, you maggoty malfeasance!"), a surprisingly super-hot and super-sexy Sarah Jessica Parker ("Farewell, mortal bus-boy!"), a fantastic young Thora Birch, years before her super-stunning role in "The Hole" ("Max likes your yabbos... in fact, he loves them!"), Omri Katz ("You've messed with the great and powerful Max!"), Charles Rocket ("It's not dad. It's Dad-cula.") and Doug Jones ("Wench! Trollop! You bucktoothed, mop-riding firefly from hell!!").

Hands down, "Hocus Pocus" is a delightful little fun-flick and I'm almost ashamed that I've never been interested in watching it. Thumbs... um, Brooms up! :)
- Maynard






Maynard is a  huge Fan of Morrissey, Bret Easton Ellis, Maynard James Keenan and Horror Movies. Make sure to check out his page Horror Movie Diary here.

1 comment:

Maynard Morrissey said...

Thanks again for the invitation. 't was fun :-)