Hocus Pocus Movie Night

This week we had the last night of the year when it’d be daylight past 6 p.m. That’s super depressing. I’m really sad to see our long days go, and it’s become the time of the year when it’s important to make plenty of fun plans in so we don’t notice that we only have like 5 hours of daylight! Honestly, though, once fall hits my girlfriends and I start choosing cozy indoor activities that I really enjoy. I’m such a homebody, who doesn’t love good food and drink while you’re snuggled on the couch with friends? This year we already continued our tradition of a theme movie night and kicked off the Halloween season with Hocus Pocus. It just so happens to be the film’s 25th anniversary, so it was the perfect time to watch it again!

My friends helped me go all out on the food and drink. One brought a “creepy” wine (which was actually delicious), and the two others brought chocolate chip pumpkin muffins and chex mix we snacked on during the movie. I made “Halloween pasta” which was initially a major fail! I tried to dye the pasta a gross color, as I saw on Pinterest. I’d bought all of my ingredients, including food dye, the night before and made the meal with plenty of time for my friends’ arrival. After the pasta was boiled I poured it out and was disappointed that it wasn’t very colorful. It also smelled funny…like chocolate. I started adding more dye in the collander before I realized I was holding BLACK CHOCOLATE FLAVORED ICING in my hand! I had no idea how I made that mistake both when buying it and cooking with it, but I was upset. Thank goodness I live literally next door to a supermarket so I ran over for the ingredients and ended up back at my apartment the same time my friends arrived. They had to wait 15 minutes for dinner, but at least I didn’t serve them chocolate-flavored pasta! I also made the fall salad I shared here.

Hocus Pocus Theme Movie Night

Let me preface this by saying I can’t actually remember if I saw Hocus Pocus as a kid. I was six when it came out (it released in July not the fall – how weird), and was probably too much of a scaredy-cat to go see it in theaters. I know I saw it once before in life but didn’t remember much about the movie. I’m certainly not one of the nostalgic followers it picked up over the years, after its initial flop.

My friends and I watched the movie in my apartment building’s theater room. It was a great way to view it because it almost was like I was seeing it on the big screen! The movie is so silly, but I can definitely appreciate it. The cast of witches couldn’t be better! And the adult humor that no doubt went over every kid’s head was hilarious to us now. The one weird thing I talked about over brunch this past weekend was that a virgin had to light the candle to bring the Sanderson sisters back. That was a major theme in the movie, which seemed odd, when it literally could have been any other description of a kid. But oh well, we still giggled over how awkward it was, despite being 30-somethings seeing it.

If you want to relive Hocus Pocus in addition to watching it, listen to the Everything Iconic with Danny Pellegrino Hocus Pocus Pop Dive that came out this week. He will really verbalize all of your thoughts on the movie. Like, when did you figure out “Zachary” was actually “Thachary?” (Was it just now?) Watching these old “classics” during a theme movie night with friends is so much fun, we’ve already got our Friendsgiving “Little Women” night in the books for November! Do you have a movie you can see over and over?