Witches Run Amok The Oral History of Disney's Hocus Pocus

The oral history of Disney’s Hocus Pocus, one of the most beloved Halloween movies of all time

In July 1993, Disney’s Hocus Pocus, starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimy, did not immediately find success, with box office numbers falling far below what was envisioned. Yet somehow the Halloween movie released in the middle of the summer to little fanfare has become an enduring and widely loved classic. Nearly three decades after the film’s initial release, it’s a yearly holiday viewing tradition in households around the world, becoming a not-so-scary rite of passage for kids and their parents, many of whom grew up watching the film about the resurrected witchy trio with their own parents. 

Hocus Pocus is a movie that has few if any equals; it manages to span a generational divide, uniting boomers and zoomers in their nostalgic love for the boundary-pushing supernatural comedy that in some ways seemed a little too risqué for the millennial kids it was originally intended for. So how did a movie that didn’t catch an initial spark end up casting such a spell on mainstream culture? Witches Run Amok answers that question and more, using interviews from the cast and creative team behind the heartwarming Halloween staple. The book is a love letter to Hocus Pocus’s millions of devoted fans and a fascinating read for anyone who wants to understand how the Disney movie became a pop culture phenomenon.

Shannon Carlin is a pop culture journalist whose work has appeared in TIME, Vulture, Pitchfork, and Bustle, where she published an oral history of Hocus Pocus’ “I Put a Spell On You” scene in 2018. Born and raised in Ronkonkoma, New York, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband. She is a graduate of St. Joseph’s University, New York and The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, and is proud to have been quoted in the trailer for Lifetime’s 2017 Britney Spears biopic. Witches Run Amok: The Oral History of Disney's Hocus Pocus is her first book.