History Film / HocusPocus

* GoshDangItToHeck: Mostly averted. Despite being a Disney film, some mild profanities are used. But one exception is when Winnifred shouts, "Cheese and crust!" in place of "Jesus Christ!".

* JumpScare: The scene where Max and Allison rush to Dani's bed to wake her up, only to find ''Sarah'' hiding under the sheets. The accompanying ScareChord is what makes this moment effective.

** Winnie's spellbook belongs to (or once belonged) to Satan, and it is valued to the sisters because the information within it can change to be whatever they want whenever they want, making it the ultimate endless evil weapon of ever changing spells.
** Allison’s ancestor is a good witch named Elizabeth Podbury, which could explain her knowledge of witchcraft. [[spoiler:The novelization expands on this: her full name was Elizabeth ''Sanderson'' Podbury, and she was the family's WhiteSheep.]]

* ExactlyExtyYearsAgo: The three witches come back to life exactly 300 years later after their execution. It's by the way at the cost of being historically incorrect: the Salem trials happened in 1692, and by the next year, it been forbidden to accuse someone of witchcraft again in order to avoid the same chaos.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: The three witches; Sarah is blonde, Mary has dark hair, and Winnie is a redhead.

* TakeMeInstead: Enforced by Max when Winnie is holding Dani hostage and threatening her life in exchange for the potion, which she'll use to kill Dani anyway if Max gives it to her. As stated above, the only way he can think of to save his sister is to TakeAThirdOption and drink the potion himself, and he then lampshades:

** Mary and Sarah always bowing to Winifred also counts as this - if they stood up to her every once in a while they might have been able to talk her down from going after Dani.

** Binx is cursed to be an immortal cat, unable to talk for centuries, all because he called Winifred ugly.

* MenOfSherwood: At the beginning of the film, Mr. Binx, his wife, Thackery's best friend and a bunch of LivingProp Puritan townsfolk march on the home of three immensely powerful and murderous witches...and capture and execute them without any apparent difficulty.

* MultipleDemographicAppeal: A major reason that the film ended up being a CultClassic instead of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids "just another kids' movie"]]. It's ''just'' dark enough to satisfy viewers who came in expecting a horror movie, with enough humor to satisfy viewers who might have preferred a comedy, enough child and teenage characters to appeal to younger viewers, a love story for fans of romance, a ton of musical numbers from Bette Midler and co. for music-lovers, and a surprisingly earnest story of sibling love for viewers who might prefer a drama.