History Headscratchers / HocusPocus

* If they had enough potion for a child and we saw with Thack's sister Emily that they can survive off one child why didn't they use what was left on one of the kids walking to their house, and besides the its Disney excuse please.

** Fridge brilliance if you consider the fact that all their parents are still at the party under Winnie's spell. Most of the parents probably expected to be home hours ago so they may not have gotten anyone to watch the kids. At that age I would have probably stayed up and waited for my parents... especially if it was Halloween and I was hopped up on candy

** Kids love wearing costumes, so it's logical to assume that they went to bed still wearing their costumes.

* When Sarah sings her child-summoning spell, it's after 5 in the morning. The children the sisters were targetting are young enough that they must have finished trick-or-treating many hours before. Why are all the hypnotized kids still in costumes?

** He'd tried that already with his father three hundred years ago. If he ever tried to talk to anyone during those three hundred years (if he even could talk during that time), they probably just assumed he was a demon or devil, or they were hearing things, or it was a ventriloquist trick. After enough times trying and failing, maybe he just gave up. It's also possible the spell made it so only kids could hear him.

** He'd tried that already with his father three hundred years ago. If he ever tried to talk to anyone during those three hundred years (if he even could talk during that time), they probably just assumed he was a demon or devil, or they were hearing things, or it was a ventriloquist trick. After enough time trying and failing, maybe he just gave up. It's also possible the spell made it so only kids could hear him.

* Binx was with the main characters when they went to the guy they thought was a cop and later their parents, none of whom believed them about the witches coming back to life, so why didn't Binx tell them it was true? I'm sure that the adults would believe them if the cat started talking to them, but Binx just stays silent around them.

** [[NoOntologicalInertia We have an entire trope for spells the end when the caster dies.]]

** She's not the only one. Binks makes fun of him for it, the fake cop has fun with him with it...and really, I wouldn't be too sure Dani doesn't know what it means. She's not ''that'' young.

*** The characters ''assumed'' fire would work because of the sterotype. Binks doesn't think they're dead and he's more in the know about magic stuff than they are.

*** I thought he was unable to talk while the witches were dead. Even though he was able to talk when they thought the witches were dead without questioning whether the witches had truly died.

** He probably hadn't figured out how to talk as a cat yet. He had plenty of time to learn while waiting for the witches to revive.

** Just before getting up and singing, Winnie did appear to be watching the band rather intently. It's possible that she caught on very quickly and the others followed her lead. As for the other parts, they probably overheard or learned bits and pieces of modern culture (for example, Winnie only called Max "dude" after they kept the two idiots in cages, so this troper assumed she learned it from them).

** {{Rule of Funny}}, {{Rule of Cool}}, Rule of not grossing people out/scaring the heck out of people, {{MST3K Mantra}}, take your pick.

*** "WHOOOAA!! SPEED BUMP!!" (TheNostalgiaChick makes the funniest shocked face ever)

** As I recall, Winifred had Dani. Had the potion smashed dani would have been the one to face her wrath, so instead he forced Winifred to switch her attention from Dani to himself. Either he'd hold her off long enough for the sun to kill her or he'd die, [[XanatosGambit either way he's saved his sister.]]

*** This borders BeyondTheImpossible, though!

** As I recall, Winifred had Dani. Had the potion smashed dani would have been the one to face her wrath, so instead he forced Winifred to switch her attention from Dani to himself. Either he'd hold her off long enough for the su to kill her or he'd die, either way he's saved his sister.

** Given the location and time period, it was more likely that he'd think Binx was a familiar (a demon in the shape of an animal that serves witches) using Satanic powers to imitate his son's voice.

* At the beginning after Thackery is turned into a cat he tries to get his dad's attention, obviously hoping he'll some how realize what happened, but to get his attention he just meows and scratches at his shoe. In the rest of the movie he can talk, why didn't he say something there?

** Either it was just Max's reflexes, or he realized that if anything bad happened to the potion the witches would be ''very'' displeased and would most likely do something really awful to him and his friends. Or maybe he intended to use the vial as a bargaining chip - which, of course, is exactly what he winds up doing.

* How about the point at which Winifred drops the vial of potion - and Max runs forward to catch it? If he had just let it fall, it would have spilled or broken, and the movie would have been effectively over. I understand why the writers wrote it that way - it would be awfully anticlimactic for the witches to just spend the next ten minutes waiting around to die - but, from a character standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense.

* Billy is a frustrating character. How is he so well-preserved? It would be highly unusual for a corpse to be that intact a few months after death, let alone a few centuries. And how can he reattach his limbs so easily? If Winnie's spell gave him his healing and preservation, why didn't she just restore him to a fully living state? He'd be a lot more competent that way.

* Billy is a frustrating character. How is he so well-preserved? It would be highly unusual for a corpse to be that intact a few months after death, let alone a few centuries. And how can he reattach his limbs so easily? If magic is behind his healing a preservation, why not just restore him to full living state? He'd be a lot more competent that way.

*** I don't remember anything ever being established about their being UNKILLABLE until dawn. PlotArmor is risky enough business in and of itself, but when it fails to be ''established''?!

*** "WHOOOAA!! SPEED BUMP!!" ([[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses Nostalgia Chick]] makes the funniest shocked face ever)