(Image : Matt Kennedy/Disney via AP)
Many Christian parents are worried about the Halloween-themed Hollywood movie “Hocus Pocus 2”. The second part of the film released in 1993 has been released this year. It is alleged that ‘Hocus Pocus 2’, released through Disney Plus, creates panic in the audience through excessive use of witchcraft.
When “Hocus Pocus,” directed by Kenny Ortega, was released in 1993, more than a decade of panic had spread across the country about Satanists and practitioners of black magic, as the film portrayed them as harming toddlers and corrupting teenagers. But unlike the first part, the movie “Hocus Pocus 2” has an unexpected twist, reports Religion News Service. In other words, the film is presented in such a way that witchcraft is no longer evil. Since the new film’s release, some viewers have reacted against the film, with Texas housewife Jamie Gooch accusing it of teaching children the wrong ways, and sharing concerns that the film “unleashes hell on your kids and your home.” They say the whole movie is based on witches harvesting children for blood sacrifice. “Don’t watch this movie,” Jamie warns in an interview with KWTX News. “Everybody thinks it’s fake and harmless, but they can do whatever kind of magic they want, so anything can come into your home through that TV screen.”
In Jamie’s Facebook post, she says her warning about “Hocus Pocus 2” is too broad.“I think it goes further than just a movie, it’s more than Halloween, it’s a year-round thing where we have to be constantly vigilant about what we eat, what we bring in, what we send out. Gooch said. “Whatever comes on our TV screens I believe: there are things attached to it, things I have seen with my own eyes or heard through the TV screen.They start happening in real life, and then I think, ‘God, what have I done? Here’s what Jamie has to say to those who disagree with him. “If you don’t agree with me that’s fine, you have to go and follow your own heart and your own conviction, but as a Christian we are held to a higher standard.” Gooch says.
Disney’s writers introduced the idea that witchcraft was no longer evil by injecting a prototypical “Sabrina” teenage witch into the film narrative. “You’re a witch,” one teenage character, Izzy (Belisa Escobedo), exclaims to another teen, Becca (Whitney Peake), as the three teenagers form the new film’s new coven and learn to combine girl power to fight evil spirits.In the new film, sorcery is merely a tool that suits those who practice it. “Power is for sharing,” says the character Izzy in the film.
Ann Fletcher, the director of Hocus Pocus 2, presents the film in the form that the source of the witches’ magic is nature, not Satan. The forest where the teenagers’ witchcraft takes place is called sacred, and as shown in the film’s flashback to the witches’ childhoods, the spellbook they use is given to them by another woodland witch, not the devil as in the old film.
Thus, the Christian News Network suggests that “Hocus Pocus 2” has changed its tone to address the current cultural acceptance of witchcraft.
Let’s make sure and pray that our children don’t see such visual forms and that things that are not God’s will do not happen in our homes and personal lives.