It’s officially October, which means it’s Halloween season and we are ready to get spooky. Whether you’re planning to celebrate by eating excessive amounts of fun-size candy or hunting for the perfect costume for you pup, you’ll want to make sure you book at least ten hours this month to watch (and rewatch) the greatest Halloween movie of all time — Hocus Pocus (runner up goes to Halloweentown, obviously).
The classic 1993 witchy wonder starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica-Parker, and Kathy Najimy is the perfect way to ease (or dive headfirst) into October. Hocus Pocus has everything you need for Halloween season — black cats (Binx!), ex-boyfriend zombies, black flame candles, sexy witches on broomsticks (and vacuum cleaners), and, of course, the token virgin. Luckily for us spooky superfans, Freeform is doing us a solid and playing Hocus Pocus upwards of 30 times in the month of October — including a back-to-back marathon on Halloween day.
If you don’t have cable, and therefore no direct access to Freeform, you can get a Live TV free trial on Hulu, YouTubeTV, Sling, AT&T TV, or Vue, which will give you access to up to seven days of Hocus Pocus. If live TV isn’t your thing, you can always rent or buy (let’s be honest you might as well buy it at this point) the movie on various platforms, such as YouTube, Amazon, iTunes, GooglePlay, and Vudu.
Unfortunately, Hocus Pocus isn’t on any streaming platforms at the moment, so if you’re a Netflix/Hulu purist, this may have to be the one time you have to branch out. We’re hoping the Kenny Ortega classic (yes Hocus Pocus and High School Musical were directed by the same person) will become a mainstay on Disney’s new streaming platform, Disney+, but that release isn’t until November 12, so it’s a bit of a moot point until Halloween 2020.
Whether you buy, rent, stream, or catch it live, you won’t want to miss your chance to get in the spooky spirit with the Sanderson sisters this month. And when you’re all Hocus Pocus‘d out, you’ll definitely want to deep dive into the actual history of the Salem Witch Trials because it’s faaaaascinating (and terrifying and definitely sexist). Happy Halloween, sisters!
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