Hocus Pocus character names won’t help you in every day life, but if you are having a debate with a friend, coworker, classmate, or whatever, this guide to the characters may help. Yes, you too can know all the names, what they do in the movie, and random bits of trivia I’ve come to learn.
This exhaustive list includes just about every character that appears throughout the movie making it one of the most extensive lists of Hocus Pocus character names list you will find outside of IMdB.
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Hocus Pocus Character Names – In Rough Appearance Order
Hocus Pocus has become a Halloween cult classic that has now spawned two sequels (, President of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Production, confirmed this back in June). Sure, you may know Thackery Binx or Winifred without having to look it up, but do you know many of the other Hocus Pocus character names.
In rough appearance order, here are all the Hocus Pocus characters you will see in the original movie.
Thackery Binx or Binx
Thackery Binx (Sean Murray) is one of the main protagonists of Hocus Pocus who plays an important role in stopping the Sanderson Sisters. After he fails to save the love of his life, er, sister, Winifred curses him so he will live forever with his internal turmoil about whether loving his sister is truly a sin against god.
Oh, and his failure. He will need to live with his failure at saving his love (sister) forever.
During the main events of Hocus Pocus, Binx fails again when he doesn’t stop Max from lighting the Black Flame candle. I guess you can say he’s pretty much a failure all the way around.
Poor Thackery Binx.
Elijah
No list of Hocus Pocus character names is complete without mentioning good old Elijah (Steve Voboril). He gave our family an often paraphrased line “Neigh, but look! They conjure!”
He’s pretty useless after that and just fades away to be forgotten because his only other memorable line is “She’s done for.”
Granted, he’s not wrong. Thackery really screwed the pooch on rescuing his love interest, er, I mean sister.
Emily Binx
Emily Binx (Amanda Shepherd) first appears running off into the woods with Sarah Sanderson, clearly missing the point about not speaking to strangers.
She has a pretty short, but arguably important role as Binx’s motivation throughout the movie. It’s hard to get over your first love, er, sister, which Thackery shows us as he pines for her the rest of the movie.
Fun fact: If you watch closely, you can see her move her legs a bit in the background after the Sanderson Sisters steal her life force.
Sarah Sanderson
Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) Sanderson’s special ability is luring children to their ultimate demise through singing a song, Come Little Children.
She is the young, supposedly attractive sister who is depicted as ditzy and horny, wanting to play with just about every single male in the movie, including Binx, Billy Butcherson, Max, the bus driver, and some random extra at the Halloween party.
Winifred Sanderson
Winifred Sanderson (Bette Midler) leads the Sanderson sisters and is clearly the most powerful of them. She has the ability to shoot lightening from her fingers, utter enchantments, brew potions, and sing power ballads.
She also can quickly catch up on modern customs, such as needing a driver’s permit when chasing Max in their truck.
Ultimately, it is her pride and need for vengeance that undoes the sisters and causes their ultimate demise.
Mary Sanderson
Mary Sanderson (Kathy Ann Najimy) is the third sister. Her power involves being able to sniff out children.
It’s surprisingly accurate and long range. She can use it like a blood hound, like when she found Ice wearing Max’s shoes, but she can also use it to identify approximate age and gender of a child.
Fun fact: After the dance scene, Mary has trouble smelling Max because she smells “scrod.” Scrod is a term used to describe young cod or haddock, but it did not originate until around 1841, over a century after the sisters would have been dead.
Mr. Binx
Known only as Mr. Binx (Norbert Weisser), Thackery’s father interrogates the witches and ultimately hangs them when they refuse to tell him what they have done with his son. In a way, Winifred did tell him, saying that the “cat’s got her tongue!”
Like Elijah, he delivers a stellar, often quote line around here “Away, away beast!” as he kicks cat form Thackery away from him.
Fun fact: People often get confused over why Thackery didn’t just talk to his dad in the beginning like he did Max, Allison, and Dani. The likely explanation and the one the actor told Entertainment Weekly is that he just became a freaking cat, you try talking within minutes of having to learn all sorts of things about your new body. It probably took him several years of practice to actually learn to make his feline vocal chords make English words.
Miss Olin
Miss Olin (Kathleen Freeman) is the witch obsessed teacher that introduces Max and the audience to the Sanderson sisters. I’m not 100% sure what class she was actually teaching maybe history or English. But she was clearly tenured and only a few years past retirement age, so the admins pretty much let her do whatever the hell she wanted.
Max Dennison
Max Dennison (Omri Katz), also known as Hollywood because he moved recently from L.A., openly scoffs at Miss Olin and somehow believes Halloween is a conspiracy theory made up by the candy companies. Interesting take and proof that conspiracy theorists have been around for a long time, a long long time.
A crucial point about Max is his virginity status. Hocus Pocus wants to make sure you realize that Max is a virgin, that he’s never been with a girl, and is basically the 90s version of a loser. Its literally crucial to the plot and the only reason there is a movie in the first place.
Fans of Hocus Pocus should show some respect for the virgin, it’s not his fault he had no game.
Allison Watts
Allison Watts (Vinessa Shaw) first appears when she refutes Max’s claims about Halloween, countering his fabricated scandal with actual history and facts about the day.
While Thackery longed for Emily, Max was trying to end his virginity with Allison. Their budding romance was an unimportant, but very present, subplot.
Fun fact: Many speculate on Allison’s virginity status due to how she reacts when asked if she wants to light the Black Flame Candle. Max asks her, she gives a bit of a coy smile and looks away with a “no thank you.” This could have been her just not wanting to partake in the Tom foolery, but the reaction may indicate she was not a virgin.
Boy in Class
Boy in class (Jeff Neubauer) plays an important role as a Hocus Pocus character, even if he doesn’t have a name. His time to shine came when he told Max “fat chance,” referring to his chances of scoring with Allison.
Not all heroes wear capes, Boy in Class, and you certainly prove it with your disparaging remarks towards that nasty virgin.
Jay
Jay (Tobias Jelinek) is one of the duo of bullies who harass Max throughout Hocus Pocus.
Jay is clearly not the brightest bulb, he can’t remember his friend wants to be called Ice now despite it being shaved into the back of his head.
Not much is known about Jay. Oddly, in a movie fixated on virginity, it is unclear if he is a virgin.
Ernie (ICE)
Ernie (Larry Bagby), better known as ICE, is Jay’s bestie and the lead antagonist who harasses Max. In typical 90s style, he believes that using “ice” as a name somehow makes him cool and his mismatched clothes clearly make him a thug.
ICE steals Max’s Nike cross trainers, which plays an important role later in the movie when Mary finds the shoes, not Max. This may have ended up saving everyone’s favorite virgin.
Dave Dennison
Dave Dennison (Charles Rocket), also known as dad or Dad-cula, only plays a small role in Hocus Pocus. His accomplishments include:
- telling Max to watch his mouth
- offering sage thoughts on Max’s behavior
- dad joke about being dad-cula
- adjusting Max’s outfit to help him be a rapper
- getting annoyed at Max for talking nonsense about the Sanderson sisters
- dancing until the spell broke
Rumor has it, he is still trying to figure out what the white thing attached to the red box thing is. Pretty sure Jenny knows exactly what to do with the vibrating and spinning object.
Jenny Dennison
Jenny Dennison (Stephanie Faracy) is Max and Dani’s mother. Since Hocus Pocus is about 1/4 step above a Disney Channel original movie, she gets depicted as a relative simpleton who is more concerned about Dani not recognizing her as Madonna than the fact that her daughter is clearly perturbed and may be in some danger.
Do better Jenny.
Dani Dennison
No Hocus Pocus character names list is complete without mentioning Dani Dennison (Thora Birch). She is Max’s sister and one of the three main (human) protagonists. A little bit whiney and obnoxious, Dani plays the role of the wet blanket, not wanting to visit the Sanderson sisters’ house on Halloween of all things and dramatically throwing herself on hay bales when not getting her way.
She also gets some serious props for being a virgin who can openly mock another virgin for doing something stupid, like lighting the black flame candle, in a movie that openly mocks virgins.
Fun fact: In an alternate universe, an adult Hocus Pocus Dani survives the zombie apocalypse and joins a zombie skin wearing group known as the Whisperers.
Fireman 1 and Fireman 2
Fireman 1 (D.A. Pauley) and Fireman 2 (Ezra Sutton) play such an important role that I combined them in this Hocus Pocus characters list. They talk about how they hate Halloween.
That’s all.
Fun fact: I have no idea who is who.
Billy Butcherson
William “Billy” Butcherson (Dough Jones) is Winifred’s long dead lover. She reportedly poisoned him and sewed his mouth shut because he was sporting with her sister Sarah. He ends up helping Max, Dani, and Allison defeat the Sanderson sisters by… uh… well, I guess he helped pull on the cord attached to Mary’s vacuum effectively doing something important, I guess.
Fun fact: He is the only non-sister character to return in Hocus Pocus 2.
Bus Driver
Arguably the best Hocus Pocus character, the unnamed bus driver (Don Yesso) provides some classic lines, like:
- “to convey gorgeous creatures such as yourselves to your most… [cracks his knuckles and gestures with hand] … forbidden desires.”
- “it may take me a couple of tries but I don’t think that will be a problem.”
- “Bubble bubble I’m in trouble.”
- “Mmm, mmm, mmm! I need one of those instant ice packs. You girls are giving me a fever!”
Little Angel
Little Angel (Jordan Redmond) is a little trick or treater who delivers the stellar line “Bless you” to the witches. She then disappears, leading some to believe she was an actual trick or treater who would go on to get candy from different houses.
Satan and his wife
Satan (Garry Marshall), also known as Master, invites the Sanderson sisters into his home because they are his favorite witches.
Satan’s wife (Penny Marshall) does not appreciate the sisters coming into her home and kicks them out.
Though minor, they helped the Sanderson sisters come to the realization that Halloween became a night of frolic.
Ralph
The dog’s name from Hocus Pocus is Ralph. He is the only character to directly confront and scare the Sanderson Sisters.
Ralph is a good boy.
Cop and Cop’s girlfriend
The cop (Michael McGrady) and cop’s girlfriend (Leigh Hamilton) play a crucial role. The fake cop flat out mocks Max for being a virgin.
That checks out. His younger sister does too.
Singer
The singer (Joseph Malone) with no name allows the Sanderson sisters to sing the best song to come from the 90s. Certainly one of the most memorable moments in Hocus Pocus anyway.
Lobster Man
No true list of Hocus Pocus character names is complete without mentioning lobster man (Frank Del Boccio). Lobster man picks out Antonio for the jacuzzi.
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