‘Hocus Pocus’ Director Kenny Ortega Addresses Rumor Allison Is a Witch
Hocus Pocus director Kenny Ortega believes there may have been one more witch running amok in Salem besides just the Sanderson sisters.
“I did feel the whole time that there was a little witch [in the character of Allison],” Ortega, 73, recalled to Entertainment Weekly in an interview published on Tuesday, October 17. “I even thought there was potential for a spinoff that was about that, and I had conversations about that many years later at the Disney Channel.”
Allison, portrayed by Vinessa Shaw, was the love interest of protagonist Max (Omri Katz) in the 1993 Halloween classic. The pair — along with Max’s little sister Dani (Thora Birch) — team up against the resurrected Sanderson witches Winifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Mary (Kathy Najimy) to defeat them before the clock strikes midnight and all the children of Salem are lost forever.
Following the film’s release, Shaw’s character sparked fan theories that she may have magical abilities. In one pivotal scene, she sprinkles salt around her to ward off the evil trio, prompting Winifred to call her a “clever little witch.” Ortega also felt that while he never discussed the theory with Shaw directly, the actress’ performance naturally hinted at her being of the supernatural.
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“I thought she was bewitching as a teenage girl,” he explained. “It was not typical for Max to fall head-over-heels for her. She had a mystical beauty, and she was bewitching.”
Ortega’s spinoff idea never came to fruition, but the themes are touched on in Hocus Pocus 2, which premiered in October 2022. After bringing back the child-hungry witches 20 years later, newcomers Becca (Whitney Peak), Izzy (Belissa Escobedo) and Cassie (Lilia Buckingham) realize they also have witchy powers — and ultimately use a spell to help defeat the sisters for good.
Shaw didn’t return for the highly-anticipated sequel, but Escobedo, 25, previously revealed that she was initially written into the story. “She was going to be our schoolteacher,” she told EW in 2022. “I remember talking to [director] Anne [Fletcher] about it being a thing where she was our teacher, and we went to her for help.”
It’s possible Shaw — along with OG castmembers Katz, 47, and Birch, 41 — will make their return for Hocus Pocus 3, which Disney announced earlier this year. There are plenty of ways to bring Allison and Max back to Salem, according to the actress.
“I think Allison’s from Salem and [Max] always wants to be in California,” she told Entertainment Tonight in October 2021. “I think they did some sort of compromise and maybe she’s in Salem when the witches come back, you know, visiting her mom or something.”
As for those witchy rumors? Shaw agrees Allison is more than just a mere mortal — and believes that her wardrobe in the film further proves the theory.
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“It was intentionally implied, for sure,” she told The Wrap in 2022. “Because if you notice the necklace I’m wearing … It has kind of like a pentagram-looking design with the stones. If you look really closely … it’s a gold kind of locket, with white pearls connected to the locket, and it has a kind of design on it that could, if you kind of connected it all together, would have looked like a pentagram. But again, it was never explicit.”
Shaw also pointed out the sweater she wore for most of the movie, which had a twine of leather threaded through it, noting that it could have been a type of “protective force.” It was a detail the costume designer made sure to point out.
“She said, ‘Look at how this twine is through here.’ But she mentioned it after she mentioned what the necklace was,” Shaw recalled. “And then she said, ‘And then look at the twining that’s kind of going in through this sort of leather. That’s old world.’ And it was fleshing out the idea.”
