List of Hocus Pocus characters
The following is a list of characters who appear throughout the Hocus Pocus franchise.
Main characters
The Sanderson Sisters
The Sanderson Sisters are a trio of witch sisters who were the most powerful coven that ever lived, thanks to Winifred Sanderson's book of spells. In the first film, they were accidentally revived by Max Dennison in modern-day Salem, Massachusetts. They attempt to become immortal using a potion to consume the life force of children. In the sequel, they seek to cast a spell that would make them all-powerful to take revenge on Salem. In Hocus Pocus 2, drag queens Ginger Minj, Kornbread Jeté, and Kahmora Hall impersonate Winifred, Mary, and Sarah, respectively, during a costume contest.Winifred Sanderson
Winifred "Winnie" Sanderson is the eldest and most intelligent witch who lived during the time of the Salem Witch Trials, along with her two sisters: Mary and Sarah Sanderson.In the first film, which begins in 1693, Winifred, now graying and stooped with age, decides to brew the life potion, which will steal the life force of a child to restore their own youth and vitality. As Winifred and Mary work on the potion, they send Sarah out to lure a child with her siren-like voice. She soon returns with a young girl named Emily Binx, whom they bewitch in no time to sit docilely in a chair as they finish up the potion. However, just after Emily obediently drinks the potion, the girl's elder brother Thackery Binx interrupts them and attempts to rescue her. Mary and Sarah gleefully chase him around the room, but he manages to knock them down by shoving their enormous cauldron at them, spilling the rest of the potion in the process. A furious Winifred easily subdues him with her powers before Mary points out that the potion is working: Emily's life force is visible.
The sisters eagerly crowd around Emily and suck her life force away until their youth is restored and Emily dies of old age on Halloween night. Rejoicing at the success of their potion, the witches then turn their attention to Thackery. Winifred initially plans to simply kill him, but she changes her mind when he calls her a hag and decides that he deserves a harsher punishment. Together with her sisters, she curses him to live forever in the form of a black cat, doomed to live for all eternity with the guilt of his failure to save Emily. Just after they perform the spell, an angry mob arrives at their cottage, led by Emily and Thackery's parents. Winifred and Mary attempt to barricade the door and convince the crowd that they are merely spinsters spending a quiet evening at home, but an air-headed Sarah impulsively adds that they've been killing children before her sisters can stop her. Soon enough, the sisters are captured and hanged. But before they die, Winifred casts one final spell declaring that on Halloween night when the moon is full, a virgin will summon them back from the dead, allowing them to once again claim the lives of all the children in Salem.
A full 300 years later, in 1993, the sisters are revived when someone lights the Black flame candle, whose mysterious powers can summon them back from the dead- but only for a single night. Nevertheless, the sisters are overjoyed at returning to their cottage, even more so when Mary announces that she smells children. Her powerful nose leads them straight to a young girl name Dani Dennison's hiding place, forcing her out into the open. They pick her up and almost succeed in throwing her into their cauldron when Dani's older brother, Max Dennison, - the one who lit the candle - jumps out of hiding, demanding that they release his sister. Amused, Winifred easily subdues him with her powers. Winifred practices her witchcraft on him delighted that she has not lost her touch at all. However, Dani and Max's friend, Allison manages to wallop Mary with a frying pan as Dani hits Winifred and Sarah with her trick-or-treat bag. Before Winnie can retaliate, a black cat attacks her out of nowhere, giving Dani enough time to wake up her dazed brother. Max triggers the sprinklers, which he convinces the witches is a "burning rain of death".
The cat orders Max to grab the spellbook, batting at him impatiently when Max stares at the talking cat in shock. Nevertheless, he breaks into the glass case containing the book and makes his escape along with the cat. The sisters find them at the cemetery and Winifred summons her ex-boyfriend, Billy Butcherson, to get her book back. The sisters encounter a bus driver and ride on the bus until Mary smells the children. But they were confused when the children were wearing costumes.
They encounter a man dressed as Satan and mistaking him for their true master and his wife to be Medusa, but were so chased out of the house by the man's wife but finds their brooms gone after they were taken by some children dressed like the sisters. When Winifred unmasks a kid in a costume, she realizes the truth of Halloween children wear costumes and run amok which Sarah finds funny and Winfred punches her in the stomach to get her to stop. The sisters went to a Halloween party where Max's parents and Max, Dani, and Allison tried to warn them, but they did not believe them, so Max went to the stage and used a microphone to tell everyone about the Sanderson Sister and revealed them, but Winifred ridicules him before singing "I Put a Spell on You" therefore enchanting all the adults causing them to dance until they die. After this, they went to Max and Allison's high school where Max spoke through the microphone at the office telling them that the spellbook was there. The sisters heard a voice talking about a book which the sisters think is about the spellbook, but it was actually a tape recording and were unwittingly led to a kiln where the children locked the door and burned them alive after Allison got an idea from a restaurant. However, they did not die due to the curse protecting them from death until sunrise.
Mary used her smell to find Max, but they were led to two high school bullies, Jay and Ernie as Ernie was wearing Max's shoes that he stole them during their first encountering with Max and making fun of him. After Jay called the sisters ugly chicks, the sisters captured them and took them to their cottage locking them in small hanging cages. Knowing they did not have much time left, Winifred tried to make the potion from memory, but she could not remember the ingredients and called out to her book and cried in despair. Allison and Max, despite the warnings that nothing good can come from the book, open it to find a cure for Thackery's immortality and the book sends out a signal after being opened. Winifred saw the signal and used a corn broom, while Sarah used a mop and Mary used a Hoover vacuum cleaner to fly to its location.
They secretly invade the house and grab the book, but after accidentally breaking some glass and knowing that Max and Alison would come to get Dani and Thackery, they hide in the closet as Sarah hides under the blankets. Max and Alison arrived and the sisters revealed themselves. The sisters violently explode from the house, but not before Winifred reveals the nature of the spell that brought them back to Allison. Winifred and Mary made their way back to the cottage while Sarah sang her siren song to all the children of Salem so they would go to the house. When Dani calls her "the ugliest thing that ever lived", Winifred decides to kill her first. After brewing the potion again they try to get Dani to drink it, but are stopped by Max who tricks them into thinking the sun has risen by using the headlights of his parents' car and Max drains all the potion.
However they realize they have been tricked and Winifred is upset that her potion is all gone, but there is still enough potion left for one child. Despite Sarah and Mary saying that they have Jay and Ernie and that more children are here, Winifred wants to use the life potion on Dani as revenge for calling her ugly. The sisters chase after them and Winifred orders Billy to kill Max, but he uses Max's knife to sever the stitches on his lips, he apparently breaks the control Winifred has over him and joins the kids against them. Dani is put in Billy's grave while Allison circles some salt around to prevent the witches from reaching her.
The sisters arrived and fought the kids and Billy. When Winifred knocked down Billy's head, Dani came out to give Billy his head back giving Winifred the opportunity to grab her. Winifred takes out the vial of potion and tries to force Dani into opening her mouth to drink it to "teach" her a lesson about "calling people ugly", but Thackery saves Dani by knocking the last vial of the life-stealing potion out of Winifred's hand and Max catches it. Winifred grabs Thackery and throws him to a rock. Max threatens to smash the vial of potion, but Winifred threatens to kill Dani if he does. With no other choice, Max drinks the potion and Winifred lets Dani go and grabs Max trying to suck his life force, but Max tried to hold her off while Dani, Allison, and Billy hold back Sarah and Mary to prevent them from helping Winifred by grabbing the plug hanged from Mary's vacuum cleaner. They let go causing the two sisters to fly high up to the air out of control and letting Max and Winifred fall to the ground. Winifred recovers and tries to steal Max's life force, but because she is standing on hallowed ground, she turns to stone as the sun comes up. Sarah and Mary both explode, with Winifred's statue doing so afterward. At the end of the film, however, the book is seen and it blinks, therefore hinting the sisters are not entirely gone.
In the second film, set 29 years later in 2022, Winifred and her sisters are resurrected once again when two girls Becca and Izzy light a new Black flame candle. Gilbert, the owner of the Olde Salem Magic Shoppe that the Sanderson Sisters' cottage was turned into, reveals that he had witnessed the sisters in 1993 when he was a young boy. After finding Winifred's spellbook, Gilbert learned how to make a new Black flame candle and tricked Becca and Izzy into resurrecting the Sanderson Sisters. Winifred decides that this time, they will perform the Magicae Maxima, the Power Spell that the Witch Mother had warned them that they must never ever perform. However, the book resists Winifred's attempts to read the spell, causing her to force the spellbook to show her it. Winifred sends Gilbert to dig up Billy Butcherson, needing his head for the spell, and gives him a time limit or his life will be forfeit and traps the girls in the basement. Before leaving, Winifred hides her book on a bookshelf full of replicas of the spellbook and departs with her sisters in search of Mayor Jefry Traske, their old archenemy Reverend Traske's descendants, for his blood.
At the town festival, the Sanderson Sisters bewitch the attendees by singing "One Way or Another" and send them out to help them find Mayor Traske. They are eventually led to his house by Cassie Traske's boyfriend Mike where Becca, having escaped, confronts them with a water bottle full of what she claims is the only Aralia berry juice in Salem, threatening to pour it out if they do not let her out alive. As Becca distracts the witches, Izzy and Cassie trap them in a salt circle, intending to leave them there until sunrise. However, the Mayor comes home, inadvertently revealing to the witches that Cassie is also a part of the Traske bloodline. The Roombas that Mary had been using to fly arrive and clean up the salt circle, freeing the Sanderson Sisters who kidnap Cassie and take her to the Forbidden Wood. There, Gilbert has gathered all of the other ingredients, including the severed head of Billy who has been stuck as a zombie ever since Winifred awakened him in 1993. Winifred magically restores Billy's stitches in order to shut him up, gathers Cassie's blood and summons the book to her in order to perform the spell. After blasting Gilbert away, the witches begin performing the spell, but they are interrupted by Becca who has just discovered that she is also a witch.
However, Becca proves to be no match for the Sanderson Sisters whose powers have been increased by the interrupted spell. Izzy frees Cassie and they flee, chased by Mary and Sarah. Noticing the spellbook's reluctance regarding the spell, Becca manages to convince it to abandon Winifred. The witches attack Becca, Izzy and Cassie, but they manage to shield themselves by sharing their power and Winifred decides to finish the spell without her book's help. The witches manage to complete the Magicae Maxima and celebrate their new power, discovering that the Black Flame Candle has gone out, but they are still alive. Becca, Izzy and Cassie arrive and tell Winifred that she should have read the warning in the book about the spell: it takes what the caster values most as the price for the power. As this is her sisters for Winifred, Mary and Sarah turn to dust. Utterly devastated and heartbroken by her sisters' deaths, Winifred desperately tries to reverse the spell and begs her book for help.
Sympathetic to its old mistress, the book opens to a spell for the girls and Winifred tells Becca that she is a new witch and that only a witch and her coven can manifest what is written. Winifred begs the girls for help, willing to give up all of her power just to have her sisters back as her powers are nothing without them. Becca agrees to help Winifred and she, Izzy and Cassie perform the Spell for Reuniting. Mary and Sarah do not return, and Becca explains that the spell works by sending Winifred to her sisters, not the other way around. As Winifred begins to disintegrate into dust and delighted, she thanks the girls, telling them that they are lucky to have each other. Mary and Sarah's dust swirls around Winifred as she turns to dust and implodes, reuniting with her sisters in the afterlife. Watching the deaths of the Sanderson Sisters, the book cries. However, Gilbert's cat, Cobweb, watches over a box containing another Black Flame Candle, suggesting that the Sanderson sisters may not be gone for good.
Winifred makes an appearance in the video game Disney Emoji Blitz. She is a playable character who has the ability to resurrect the most recently used powerups from the grave. She and her sisters, Mary and Sarah, are currently the only playable Hocus Pocus characters.
Winifred, alongside her sisters: Sarah and Mary, appears in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, originally for special events during the 2021 Halloween season. In the game, Winifred's abilities are referenced from her original film - including magic-green sparks from her hands, throwing the potion vial, and placing an enchantment upon enemies through song. When Winifred is defeated in the game, she will spark green and blast away.
Winifred and her sisters returned in a special Castle Show at the Magic Kingdom called the Hocus Pocus Villain Spectacular. During the show she and her sisters try to brew the perfect Halloween Potion, receiving assistance from various Disney Villains. She is not respectful towards the first two characters but she treats Maleficent with respect. After completing the Potion, she celebrates by singing "I Put a Spell on You".
Winifred and her sisters appeared in a special Hocus Pocus reunion on October 30, 2020, titled In Search of the Sanderson Sisters: A Hocus Pocus Hulaween Takeover. The event was to raise money for the New York Restoration Project and had the return of all three main cast members who portrayed the witches in the 1993 film. In the special, Mariah Carey answers the door for Winifred and says "Well if it isn't Winnie Sanderson, looking for a candy bar. I got news for you girl – Halloween's nearly over, so scat!" Immediately afterward, "All I Want For Christmas is You" plays in the background.