Christian – The Sanderson Sisters (Hocus Pocus)
Witches have been a mainstay in American lore ever since we started burning each other over a few innocent curses. Luckily, the outlook on this group has changed over the course of the years, either remaining deadly adversaries or sexy spellcasters that look great in black. But which witch is the witch which we wish to watch?
In this case, it’s not one witch, but three. The Sanderson Sisters from Hocus Pocus take the cake in a landslide for their obsessive lust of remaining young. In a risqué move for Disney to take, the witches keep their youth by stealing the souls of young children. Before they’re hung for their evil deeds, their spell book somehow casts a spell that makes it possible for them to come back to life if a virgin lights their black candle on Halloween.
Of course this oddly specific turn of events occurs, and the witches spend the rest of the film chasing the virgin and her friends in hopes of getting their spellbook back. It’s a bit strange, and the whole virgin motif is strange for Disney, but what really matters is how awesome these witches are.
The three sisters Winifred (Bette Midler), Mary (Kathy Najimy) and Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) are all murderous witches, leaving behind lame cauldrons and curses for straight up murder, specifically of innocent children. When they discover that they’ve only been resurrected for Halloween, they vow to kill even more children than they’re chasing. It’s perfectly sick and twisted, and rightfully traumatized me when I was young.
Seriously, these witches are terrifying because they’re put in the context of a freaking Disney movie, shown on Halloween every year for children to watch. Children who are at risk of being murdered by witches that they have no beef with. Children who are being chased by zombies that the witches raised from the dead, because they can totally do that. Children who could be turned into cats if they ever speak of what they’ve seen the witches do.
Oh, did I forget to mention they make a kid watch his sister’s life get taken in front of his eyes? And if that weren’t enough, they turn him into a black cat who will live forever with the memories of what he has seen, along with the torment of never forgetting that he couldn’t save his sister.
So forget the sexy witches, green witches or crushed under a house witches, because the Sanderson Sisters are the most purely evil of the bunch. Nobody loves a dead child like these three, and my six-year-old self will never forget that.