Hocus Pocus remains a Halloween season staple as it celebrates its 30th anniversary this spooky season. One of the season’s most beloved not-so-scary witch movies isn’t without a rather dark premise though. It revolves around the hilarious Sanderson sisters as they scramble to suck the soul of at least one child in order to save themselves from becoming dust bunnies. One wild deleted scene that would have underlined that setup further has just been revealed by Hocus Pocus’ director, and I think it would have been a hoot.
As Kenny Ortega revealed to Entertainment Weekly while reflecting on the classic movie 30 years later, Kathy Najimi’s Mary Sanderson almost had yet another memorable moment in the film. In his words:
There was a scene with Kathy in a grocery store, where there was a woman shopping with a cart, and she had her child in the cart. While the woman was shopping, she turned away from her cart for a moment, and Mary steals the cart because there’s a child in it. The woman turns around and her child is gone, and the woman goes chasing after Kathy, who’s trying to beat it with the child.
I don’t know about you, but this sounds hilarious. If one is going to shop for a child to save one’s skin, why not grab one at a grocery store? I mean, the kid was already in a shopping cart, after all! Though it’s tough to judge a deleted scene on the description alone, I’m all in on this twisted moment from Hocus Pocus, and I actually wish it was kept in the movie.
The scene was, in fact, Kenny Ortega’s favorite scene that didn’t end up in Hocus Pocus, so it must have been real funny, right? It sounds like it would have had me cackling if I had seen this moment, and considering the whole movie is already about witches hellbent on stealing and killing children to appease their own survival, I don’t see anything wrong with it being in the movie. The moment sounds like it still keeps the lighthearted energy of the whole Halloween movie anyways.
Last year, all the Sanderson sisters reunited for Hocus Pocus 2, and it became a massive hit on Disney+. At the time, it actually earned the title of “#1 film premiere on Disney+ domestically” after just three days of streaming on the House of Mouse’s platform. The sequel also received overwhelmingly positive reviews, including CinemaBlend’s own Hocus Pocus 2 review giving the movie 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Following the success of Hocus Pocus’ return last year, Disney announced over the summer that another Hocus Pocus movie is already in the works. As you do your annual Hocus Pocus rewatch now alongside the sequel, which are both available to stream with a Disney+ subscription, will you think about all the scenes that we didn’t get to see now?