Sequels are a fickle beast. If the sequel strays too far from the original, fans could be disappointed that the sequel doesn't have the spirit of the original. Copy the original and it could come off as derivative. Sequels to cult classics are perhaps even harder, consider for a moment, the Rocky Horror sequel, Shock Treatment.
While this movie is garnering a following in its own right now, a movie like that was trying to recapture the spirit of RHPS but that's an uphill battle. I bring this up to highlight for years, there has been demand for a sequel to Hocus Pocus including from some of the people that were involved in the original film. And well, last year to celebrate the film's 25th anniversary, a sequel did come out... in book form.
Not exactly what fans have wanted but it counts. The book is actually divided up into two parts Then & Now. Then is a novelization of the original movie and since I've already reviewed the movie during this event, I'll be skipping straight to now to look at the sequel.
Author
A.W. Jantha
I think we're dealing with an author writing under a pen name because when I googled the author's name, the only result that popped up was this book. Which is a little frustrating as someone that wants to give authors credit for their work in book reviews. So, that's a little awkward.
Cover
I really don't like this cover. Other the silhouettes and the moon, there's nothing here that indicates Hocus Pocus to me. Take a look at the original poster for the move for a moment.
This makes the movie look like a lot of fun and it is. Whereas the silhouettes feel as though the cover artist is trying to cover up blank space just by using the faces. It's no different than the covers for Serena Valentino's Disney Villains book series.
Covers like these are only interested in selling on the book on the character and not the story. Good covers for books (even licensed books) should reflect the action of the story and give people reason to pick up the book beyond the character. The covers for Leila Howland's Tangled Novels perfectly do this by showing actions of the character that make the person looking at the book curious about what is happening in the story.
Look at this cover, it teases the city of Harmony Glen. It highlights the three main characters in an interesting action whereas the cover for this book is just boring. Is this a thing for a YA novels? To have boring covers that don't give the reader an idea of what the story is about.
Also, I don't have anywhere else to bring this up but why does the sequel not have a real title? It's rather generic to call it, the All-New Sequel. Even in the book, it's only referred to as Now. Something simple like Hocus Pocus II would have solved this issue.
Narration
Man, the narration in this book must've been confusing for anyone that read the novelization and the sequel unlike me. You see the first half of the book is written in third-person past-tense narration whereas the sequel is written in a first-person present-tense narration from the point-of-view of Max and Allison's daughter., Poppy. Except for when the witches enter and when Poppy and her friends aren't around as then it switches to third-person present-tense. Thankfully, that's usually indicated with a scene break with symbols of stars like this.
*****
Also, personal thing here but I'm not the biggest fan of present-tense writing. The week I started reading this book, we were discussing types of tenses in my creative writing class and there three main types, Past, Present, and Future. The last one is the least used style but let's just focus on Present-Tense for a moment. What is it?
In English Grammar, the Present Tense is used to talk about something that is going on now(currently) or that is true now and at any time.
It's a bit weird that I have an issue with this as I believe that a story should make a reader feel as though they're a part of the action but I dunno, something about this style of writing just feels unnatural compared to the traditional third-person past-tense or even what a first-person past-tense could provide. According to some reviews of the book on Goodreads, this is now a trend in YA writing. So, perhaps it was a demand from higher-ups to have the book be written this way. However, if that is the case, then why isn't the novelization written in this style from Max's point-of-view. Just an odd decision to have two different stories in this one book that don't share the same style of writing. That is a really jarring thing to do.
The Plot
When reading this, I thought less of Hocus Pocus and more of those early 2000's direct-to-video Disney Cheapquels.
Now, it's not as bad as one of those but it does things that we have seen in cheapquels before especially The Little Mermaid II. Seriously, I could not stop thinking of that movie while reading this book. First off, this is a book that is a sequel to Hocus Pocus but as soon as The Sandersons return, Max, Allison, & Dani are sidelined for the entire story as they're sent to Hell and Dani really gets the short stick here. Which is a shame because it seemed like they were setting her up to be the cool aunt. Instead, this story focuses on the kids of the characters from the movie. Fine I guess but people do like the three protagonists.
Also, much like the movie, this film opens in a history class at the high school. Fine sure but Max is the history teacher.
There was nothing that really indicated that Max would become a history teacher in the movie. Now yes, that was one night in his life but it feels really outta left field but not as much as Jay, this guy
Being the high school principal. Again...
Okay, so those are some minor things but they're odd. What's the actual plot of this book? That's easy, here's the answer.
It's Hocus Pocus all over again. Max and Allison are now married and have become a bit paranoid about witches, ghosts, and superstitions, they have even forbidden their daughter from going to the Sanderson House. And Allison sets up a party on Halloween to keep all the teenagers indoors so that the Sandersons don't get free but well, there's a girl that Poppy (Max and Allison's daughter) has a crush on and much like her father before her, she wants to impress her crush and her crush has an ouija board and wants to contact spirits inside The Sanderson House. They do and that's where things go awry.
For the characters, for the book well... Let's see, they sideline the characters that people care about. Poppy's crush is a descendant of The Sandersons. Okay, that's an odd decision but sure, whatever. Oh, and there's a fourth Sanderson Sister that is a good witch.
I'm sorry but no. Oh, and she was there the day that Emily died and tried to bring her back to life.
Fans know that this character didn't exist before this book and retconning it so, that's she had always been there made no sense. Just why? I'll give the book this, the stakes do feel bigger but this is something that we will discuss The Sanderson Sisters felt off. Also, I know I'm the Disney nerd but the Disney references in this book did not feel natural at all. At one point, Poppy talks about her friend Travis drawing Iron Man on his tablet (yes, this counts as a Disney reference) and at one point they pass a gaggle of six-year-olds dressed as Disney Princesses.
(I read this on my phone, so that was easy to capture) Maybe, it's because of the style of writing that the "author" chose to use for this book and even though kids do dress as Disney characters on Halloween, nothing about felt authentic. Again, this is a hard issue to pinpoint and it's a personal one but it almost felt like I was being hit over the head with a reminder that this is a Disney book. Granted, it's not as bad as when the book tried to get meta.
Dani says that she wants to watch their favorite Halloween movie and they've watched it every year since they were kids. Oh, and it's a cult classic. Gee, what movie is a cult classic that people like to watch around this time of year that they've watched since they were kids?
Well yes, but no. Clearly, it's a reference to Hocus Pocus. And I'm just glad that it came at the end of the book and while it's not an overt meta-reference, it is still one that has me going, "I get it!"
Okay, I know that I've ragged on the book a lot in this section and I do have a lot of issues with it but there are things I like. Just give me a moment. I liked the characters and the theme that it seemed to be going for as family as it followed in the idea of sibling relationships and showing that Poppy loves her family and it contrasts with how fractured The Sanderson family is. And oh, there is one more thing that I'll touch upon in the character section.
Characters
Note: Thackery and Emily do appear but they don't offer much to the plot. And Billy doesn't show up until the very last page of the book.
Main Character
Poppy
Poppy is a fun young kid that feels like her own character and not a retread of either of her parents. (Wish the plot were the same) She's a bit nervous and shy especially around her crush. Which is just adorable and as we got to this chapter, I was waiting for Poppy and her crush to kiss.
I recall last year when this book was announced and that Poppy would have a Lesbian love interest, there was a lot of excitement and rightfully so as it is cool to see LGTBQ characters in fiction of all ages. However, there was one response that stuck in my crawl. You see I posted this news to a Discord server, where I am an admin and a guy there was known for making bigoted comments asked, "Why does this matter?"
It took everything in me to not respond as the last two years were also years of self-discovery for me. I don't bring this up much except to my close friends, I'm bisexual and that means a lot to me. And while I know what Poppy reps isn't the same as what I am, it still matters to me to show that kids can read stories about characters that aren't in heteronormative relationships.
Supporting Characters
Isabella
Isabella is adorable as she is just this perfect girl that is popular but loves hanging out with Poppy and her best friend. I do wish that we got to spend more time with Isabella as a human because this book in trying to recapture the beats of the movie had Isabella turned into an animal by Winifred.
This time, a dog. Sure, why not? But I dunno, it feels like this kid is getting hit with a lot of the worst. She's a Sanderson descendant, one of her many great aunts turned into a dog and she finds out that she's a witch as well. Sure.
Travis
Well, Travis was a character that sure does exist. He is a good support system to Poppy but much like Allison in the original movie, he doesn't much that makes him stand out.
Katie Taylor
Katie is interesting as at first, she starts out like her dad bullying her heroine but they actually take the time to get to know one another and we actually get the perspective of what happened to Jay on Halloween 1993 and how that left him scarred and that's why he hates Max because Max left him there to hang. Jay explains this to Poppy and afterward, this brings Poppy and Katie closer together. And it subverts the mean girl character, one of my biggest pet peeves in stories as in a story like this, you don't need a mean girl as there is a bigger threat.
Elizabeth Sanderson
That's the big question that I have regarding this character. Her sudden appearance makes me think of how Morgana in The Little Mermaid II is introduced as "Ursula's crazy sister!" That was really abrupt and random and the sudden appearance of this character also felt that way. She is set up in the first chapter of the book during the history class by Isabella but even then, her presence felt so random and out of nowhere.
Villains
Winifred, Mary, & Sarah
The Sanderson Sisters do not translate well to the page. They weren't as fun in book form as they are in the movie. Without the performances from Midler, Najimy, & Jessica Parker, you lose what made these characters so great. Now, I should also mention that there is a new method to defeat them as there is a new plot device called the Blood Moonstone that has to be destroyed to send the sisters back to Hell. Also, the plan was a lot bigger as they brought enough witches back to life to make a coven and to take over the world. Sure? Now, I mentioned that there is an idea of family here and The Sanderson Sisters feel fractured and that takes out a lot of the fun from these characters. I know I said that Winnie wasn't above putting her sisters in harm's way but she tolerated her sisters. Yes, there is this line.
Why was I cursed with such idiot sister?!
But in book form, it's just mean and not fun. Bette Midler sold the nastiness and annoyance of Winnie and without that to back it up, it loses the fun edge.
Also, without Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah comes across as an annoying idiot. Also, there's a whole subplot that's dropped about Mary wanting to show that she's better than Winnie. It even gets a song number. Yes, really!
My Final Thoughts
I really wanted this to be better. A sequel to Hocus Pocus isn't a bad idea but man, it falls flat in so many areas. A fourth Sanderson sister is the first place, where I just threw up my hands. But then I really lost it, when Max, Dani, and Allison were sidelined. And that's not even getting into the chapter dedicated to Mother Sanderson. Which felt tacked on, even though part of their plan was to bring Mother and Master back. Yeah, it felt like this author wanted The Sanderson Sisters to go bigger than their simple goal in the original film. Oh and this book never ends, I swear there were three different chapters where I felt like the book could end. It went one chapter and an epilogue after the kids had vanquished The Sanderson Sisters and skips ahead from 2018 to 2019, and that's when Billy finally shows up. It felt like this book was sequel-baiting. Well, if you write a sequel to the All-New Sequel, could you at least give it a title, this time?
I'm just bummed because I really like the movie and the idea of a sequel isn't a bad idea and I know I said sequels are a fickle beast but this one was such a jumbled mess.
Yeah, that's a good idea. Man, I haven't been this negative in a review in a long time but here's the thing, this book is riding off the nostalgia that people have for Hocus Pocus and that's cool. Not knocking that but it doesn't seem to understand what people liked about the movie. It feels like it thinks it does and comes across as artificial in the process. One can say many things about Hocus Pocus but it always felt genuine with every scene that passed. I like the new characters, even if the inclusion of one is baffling but I don't think this story deserves the characters it has.
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