Recap / Film Reroll Hocus Pocus

I put a spell on you! And now you’re mine!

Episodes 125-127 of Film Reroll. Based on the 1993 fantasy comedy.

In the town of Salem, the Sanderson sisters — Winifred, Mary and Sarah — are preparing a magic ritual to once more regain their youth. Luring the town’s children to their cottage with an enchanting song, they plan to steal their life force and take it for themselves, but they are soon faced with an angry mob of townspeople, who are not willing to give up their children so easily...

Starring Lisa Kopitsky as Winifred Sanderson, Courtney Alana Ward as Mary Sanderson, Carolyn Faye Kramer as Sarah Sanderson, Paulo Quiros as Billy Butcherson^note Credited despite being a Deleted Role; Paulo Quiros only appears out-of-character in the first part., Bethany Bishop, and Jacques Fox, and Jocelyn “Joz” Vammer as the Dungeon Master.

A sequel has been announced.

Followed by Rogue Two: A New Hope.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • invoked Bethany wants to make it clear that she’s not boning the Baker, she just stole his daughter’s life force.
  • She also isn’t in love with Jacques Fox, in spite of what anyone else might believe.
• Actor Allusion: Variation: Because of Morgan le Fay failing a roll to control her bad temper, she winds up sending a cat into a river.
• Adoption Angst: A meta example. The players are all shocked when Joz tells them that — at least within the canon of this campaign — the Sanderson sisters are a found family and not actually related by blood.
• All Part of the Show: The witches pass themselves off as a theater troupe (and a veterinarian) to explain their outfits and behavior.
• All Witches Have Cats: The sisters transform three of their would-be victims into cats and adopt them as their new familiars.
• Ambiguously Evil: The Spinster, a Montreal witch who is known to be rather creepy and asocial, but not to have done anything particularly evil or good. Ultimately, she turns out to be less of a proper villain and more of just a Jerkass.
• Book Ends: Part 1 had Paulo be given an Uncredited Role, only for the players to unintentionally delete his role from the plot. Part 3 sees the characters encounter the Spinster, who turns out to have been the Uncredited Role of Kara Strait.
• Cats Hate Water: Presumably why the frustrated Morgan le Fay decides to teleport Abernathy the cat into some random river.
• Changed My Jumper: The sisters ask Beverly if they should change into something less conspicuous while hiding. She feels that it’s unnecessary since they are in Montreal, surrounded by French people.
• Cliffhanger: The second part ends with the witches (and their cats) hearing a loud, unfamiliar sound nobody else seems to notice.
• Cutting the Knot: Rather than turn Thackery Binx into a cat, Winifred shrinks him... and then Mary eats him.
• Dance Battler: Sarah tries to use this tactic to throw one of the young witch hunters into a cage, but just ends up dancing aggressively with him.
• Death by Adaptation: Seemingly happens to Thackery Binx, who gets killed off in his first scene without first receiving his immortality.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud? / Did Not Think This Through: Variation: After Winifred explains to Morgan her and her sisters' plan of putting on a musical as a means of being a mass ritual, with the implicit goal of getting her on board, Morgan all but flips her shit:
  Morgan le Fay: Okay, I want to take a j- just a quick moment... I want you, darling, to listen to what you just said... then I want you to ask yourself... did you think any part of that would make me feel better in any way? Because you really pitched that like I was gonna love it, but I think you'll find that the needle moved slightly in the other direction, in fact...
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Upon getting insulted by the Spinster, Winifred attempts to intimidate her by generating lightning from her hands... but the literal second she reveals she's Morgan le Fay, it quickly becomes clear how outclassed she is.
• Disney Death: A Companion Cube example. The rat tail was believed to have been lost in the fire, but Mary turns out to have stashed it away in her cleavage.
• Dramatic Irony: Joz had originally intended to have Paulo take part in (the first episode of) the campaign, only for the decisions of the Sandersons to result in Paulo's intended character to become a Deleted Role.^note Even better is that, as it eventually comes to light when Paulo finally enters the call at the end, Joz made a point of asking Paulo to wait until they went to get his character before joining the call, something Paulo himself pointed out did not bode well for himself. Or, as Paulo acknowledges during the plug section at the end, he had to wait for the bus.
  Paulo: Yeah, uuuuummmm... I will plug "Waiting for the Bus", (everyone else starts laughing) which I have been doing for the last two, three hours.
  Joz: I'm not the only one!
• Drunk on the Dark Side: Stealing the life force of several children at once has the effect of basically making the sisters high, which prevents them from noticing the four peasants who have snuck into their house in an attempt at taking them down.
• Elderly Immortal: The Sanderson sisters in their ”true” forms. While they can temporarily regain their youth, they will grow old increasingly faster the longer they live. By the beginning of the campaign, their apparent youth only lasts for about a year.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • It’s mentioned that there are some witches who practise dark magic even the Sanderson sisters wouldn’t touch.
  • Morgan le Fay is a misantropic old witch willing to curse people out of sheer annoyance, but she still feels like something has to be done about the coming war, as she fears it might otherwise cause a small apocalypse.
• Everyone Looks Sexier if French: Jacques Fox has a very thick French accent (which, oddly, isn’t shared with any of the other French settlers of Montreal) and is apparently quite a Hunk, judging by Sarah’s reaction to him.
• Evil Laugh: The Sanderson sisters are very fond of this, to the point of invoking it together to celebrate their escape.
• Extremely Short Timespan: While Parts 1 and 2 were released two weeks apart from each other, as per the norm, they were recorded one day apart.
• Fake–Real Turn: The sisters initially only pretend to be musical performers as a cover, however then they consider doing a show for real, reasoning that a stage performance could easily be used as a magic ritual.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: Winifred manages to knock out three peasants by dropping a chandelier on their heads.
• Fetish Retardant: In-Universe, Sarah’s attempt at seducing the Witch Hunters fails when she ends up farting, though the stench is bad enough to stun them for one round.
• Forced Transformation: Winifred decides to transform the kidnapped children into cats in an attempt at hiding them. However, because her sisters screwed up the spell, they only manage to transform three out of the seven children.
• Food as Bribe: Bethany summons some earthworms for the bird Andrew Beasley and his children, after which he enthusiastically tells her more about the Spinster.
• Great White Hunter: Jacques Fox, which makes his Odd Friendship with Friend to All Living Things Bethany Bishop somewhat tumultuous.
• Grumpy Old Woman: The Spinster finds the Sanderson sisters to be obnoxious upon meeting them, not helped by the revelation that the loud noise they heard was an alarm set off by their spellcasting, which threatened to cause a Broken Masquerade.
• Gut Feeling: After one too many instances of Bethany trying to engage in pleasantries, Morgan le Fay bluntly tells her to shut up, making her feelings about her known even though they just met:
  Bethany: Hi, Miss le Fay.
  Morgan le Fay: (to Winifred) I- excuse me, (to Bethany) I... Miss Bishop... please shut up. I like you the least of all of these people. I don't know why... and I don't need to. My feelings are valid, even if they are irrational. They will be honored.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Winifred does this to Thackery Binx, before throwing him to Mary, who eats him.
• Jedi Mind Trick: Mary manages to hypnotize the three remaining conscious witch hunters into thinking that they are innocent women who need protection, just in time for when the rest of the angry mob shows up.
• The Klutz: Sarah is by far the most bumbling and incompetent of the sisters and considered somewhat of a liability by the others.
• Literal-Minded: After Winifred summons some crocodile tears and claims that the last town crier in their “play” died, she gets told that she might be taking the job description a bit too literally.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Both Morgan le Fay and Joz make the players aware of the fact that The French and Indian War is just around the corner.
• Love Triangle: Mary becomes smitten with Jacques, who has already fallen in Love at First Sight with Sarah.
• Meaningful Release Date: Made to celebrate the release of Hocus Pocus 2, which would premiere a few weeks later.
• Mistaken for Cheating: The Baker’s wife is furious when she sees her husband baking bread with Winifred (who, in fairness, may in fact have been planning to take things further.) She comes at her with a rolling pin, but a subtle freezing spell makes her run back out to get her coat, convinced that there must be a draft.
• Mundane Utility: When considering what spells to cast on the audience during their opera, Bethany suggests hypnotizing them into enjoying the show and spreading the good word.
• Off the Rails: Not only is Thackery taken care of in a more roundabout manner, but the witches manage to escape the villagers and avoid getting lynched.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The Spinster, which turns out to be very much by design on her part.
• "Open!" Says Me: Upon getting the door slammed in her face from the Spinster, Winifred tries to kick the door down, but a failed roll from Lisa means she mearly kicks at it. In response, the Spinster blows the door open the other way to resume confronting them.
• Outdated by Canon: The theory that the Sanderson sisters aren’t biologically related was disproven by Hocus Pocus 2, which premiered before the campaign was released, but after the latter was recorded.^note  The original concept for the characters was that they were half sisters, though neither of the above works take this as canon. On the other hand, the idea that they had been inducted by an older coven leader turned out to be entirely accurate.
• Pet the Dog: It’s mentioned that — when not carrying out dark rituals — the Sanderson sisters do sometimes use their powers to aid locals in need.
• Period Piece: Unlike the movie, there is never any Time Skip to the present day, making the whole campaign this.
• Previously on…: Defied: At the top of Part 2, rather than doing a recap of the previous episode, Joz decides to instead have everyone mention their favorite moment from said episode, and they'll fill in the blanks from there.
  Paulo: Wait, that's not how recaps work! That's just random facts!
  • Eventually it comes to a head when it's Lisa's turn to state her favorite moment... and she instead opts to do a quickie recap of the episode.
• Reading Tea Leaves: Sarah does this to see if Bethany is trustworthy, which she concludes that she indeed is.
• Retcon: The Rerollers realize that the timeline they’ve created doesn’t make any sense (Sarah has lived with her sisters for much of her life, yet she doesn’t know Bethany who moved away only a few years ago.) They decide to retcon that Sarah and Bethany just like pretending that they don’t know each other as some kind of weird in-joke. (Except Sarah sometimes actually forgets Bethany, because of her terrible memory.)
• The Reveal:
  • The true identity of the Spinster, which she reveals to the Sanderson sisters in an angry rant.
    The Spinster: Morgan le Fay is not intimidated by a twitch of the eye or a spark of the fingers!
    • On a meta level, her being played by Kara Strait is also a surprise, as she is not credited or otherwise introduced before her actual in-story appearance.
• Running Gag: After Mary eats Thackery, Carolyn makes a point to call attention to the fact that yet again, a Joz-DMed campaign that involves both herself and Courtney has devolved into Toilet Humor.
• Schizo Tech: Because they had access to more children to feed off of this go around, the sisters decided to speed up the process of feeding them their potion so they can feed off of them by inventing the shotski by using a candelabra; Paulo and Carolyn later admit to not knowing what it is.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Once the villagers break down the door, the Sanderson sisters all flee the house on broomsticks with a cat and an untransformed child each.
  • This was also Bethany’s reasoning for getting the hell out of Salem a few years earlier.
  • When Morgan (as a result of Kara Crit Failing her roll to control her bad temper) decides to send Abernathy away, Abernathy (being played by Paulo) decides to try and flee, only to get zapped; Joz decides he got sent into a nearby river.
• Sequel Hook: The campaign ends before the cermony is actually performed. Word of God is that a sequel will be released in time for Halloween 2023.
• Short-Lived, Big Impact: The players allude to this in regards to the Salem witch trials, which "only" lasted Seven months but had a big impact on American history, and is still — centuries later — the main thing Salem is known for.
• Shout-Out: While chomping on a carrot, Jacques Fox cracks "What is up, doctor?"
• Something We Forgot: As the Sanderson sisters proceed to leave on broomstick to where Bethany is, Joz calls attention to the fact that as a result of this, Winifred never got the opportunity to bring Billy back from the dead, meaning Paulo doesn't get to be a part of the (first episode of the) campaign.
  Joz: (while laughing; to Lisa) You also effectively cut Paulo out of this, 'cause Billy's in the ground back at Salem!
• Smart Ball: Lampshaded whenever Carolyn Faye Kramer comes up with something uncharacteristically smart for Sarah, who is meant to be quite The Ditz. The players reason that these nuggets of cleverness were actually the work of Sarah’s sleeping subconsciousness.
• Speaks Fluent Animal:
  • Bethany, which is why she refuses any claims that she’s a loner. Her house is full of animals, and they are her coven.
  • Subverted with Jacques Fox, who can make animal noises, but it sounds like a Translation Train Wreck to the animals. He doesn’t actually understand their language, but he knows that if a squirrel seems unusually determined to get his attention, it was probably sent by Bethany.
• Spell Book: Winifred uses hers to try and “text” fellow convent member Bethany, hoping that she’ll be able to give her sisters a place to stay.
• Swapped Roles: Rather appropriately (given Joz's the DM in this case), Paulo winds up "missing the bus".
• Swarm of Rats: The closest thing Morgan le Fay has to any familiars seem the be the rats in her walls.
• Talking Animal: Abigail — renamed Tharah Abigail by Sarah — becomes one after her transformation. As does Abernathy, previously known as Jeff.
• Torches and Pitchforks: The villagers form a mob to go after the witches, with some of them literally carrying torches or pitchforks.
• Translator Microbes: The sisters cast a language spell to be able to more easily communicate with the French-speaking locals of Montreal.
• Unnecessarily Creepy Robot: The players discuss the animatronics at the Salem museum commemorating the historical tragedy, which are apparently a Real Life example.
• Unusual Euphemism: The players discuss the film calling boobs “Yabbos”, which they figure must have been a case of Bowdlerisation. (The term had previously been used in Animal House.)
• Vagueness Is Coming: Morgan le Fay vaguely tells the other witches that war is brewing. Subverted on a meta level in that DM Joz Vammer makes it pretty clear that she’s talking about The French and Indian War.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story:
  • As the original film, the premise is obviously based on the Salem witch trials (except with real witches.)
  • DM Joz Vammer posits that many myths about youth-stealing witches harkens back to the infamous Countess Elizabeth Báthory, who was said to bath in the blood of her victims for this purpose. ^note  This is itself likely a case of Historical Villain Upgrade. While Báthory was an abusive noblewoman who was imprisoned after countless accusations of brutal torture and murder, Blood Magic only seems to have become part of her legend about a century after her death.
• Villain Protagonist: Our protagonists are perfectly fine with kidnapping children to steal their youth, and then use lethal force on the people coming to rescue them.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Bethany Bishop is known only as a veterinarian in Monstreal, with the locals being none the worse about her darker past as a witch.
• The Voiceless: Morgan le Fay briefly makes Jacques Fox mute to make him shut up for a bit.
• Wham Line:
  • The Spinster's first appearance midway through Part 3... more specifically, the fact that Kara Strait is the one talking.
  • It then gets compounded later on when Winifred, upon being insulted, starts generating lightning between her fingers... whereupon the Spinster abandons all pretense and throws her cards onto the table:
    The Spinster: Morgan le Fay is not intimidated by a twitch of the eye or a spark of the fingers!
• Working with the Ex: What Billy Butcherson’s role would have amounted to had he not remained The Ghost.
• You Killed My Sister: Bethany cursed the names of the men who killed her sister, saying that they shall receive a painful death. It’s unclear if this is just a promise of vengeance or an attempt at literally cursing them.