‘Hocus Pocus’: Cat Boy Thackery Binx is the Hottest Halloween Puritan Ever

Forget Halloween; it’s Hocus Pocus season. This is the spooky time of year where we all huddle in at night and watch the bejesus out of a whimsical family film centered on a virgin who lights a candle that brings back three witches from the dead. It’s weird, it’s wild, it’s got a mom dressed up as Madonna. Hocus Pocus is extraordinary and could not be made today.

Overall, Hocus Pocus has a lot to recommend it. As the Sanderson sisters, Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Kathy Najimi give a comedically camp take on the witch archetype, dizzily pursuing the souls of children like they’re starving for scraps. Doug Jones gets an early scene-stealing monster role as the reanimated corpse of Billy Bones. But really, the character who makes Hocus Pocus shine is none other than Thackery Binx. His failure to save his sister from the Sanderson sisters in colonial Salem dooms him to an immortal life as a black cat. It’s only after he helps modern kids Max (Omri Katz), Allison (Vinessa Shaw), and Dani (Thora Birch) defeat the Sandersons that he can die and go to heaven as a human. As Thackery Binx, young Sean Murray was scathingly funny, steadfastly noble, and — it has to be said — the dreamiest Puritan boy to ever grace cinema.

Yeah, we need to talk about how Thackery Binx, the black cat boy in Hocus Pocus, is a thirst trap.

I was about eight years old when I first saw Hocus Pocus. I can’t recall if I was allowed to see it in the theaters or if I had to wait for it to come out on VHS, but I remember two things: renting the hell out of it with my family’s Blockbuster subscription and having a larger-than-life crush on tow-headed, Puritan ghost boy Thackery Binx. Thackery only gets about five minutes of screen time in all of Hocus Pocus, but it’s enough to make a lonely bookish elementary school girl develop a love that would last a lifetime.

The first thing you need to know about Thackery Binx is he is a good Puritan boy who loves his little sister Emily. When the Sanderson sisters lure her to their forest cottage with their siren song, Thackery courageously pursues his sister. The second thing you need to know is he looks great in an oversized colonial night shirt. Like seriously, he looks like he should be in a boyband, if boybands came Colonial Williamsburg-themed. Could you image? A whole boyband wearing tricorn hats and riding boots, singing about “No Taxation on their Heart without Representation in the Dark?” I can, and I do. All thanks to Thackery Binx.

The next hot thing you need to know about Thackery is his is a life of unique tragedy. After watching his sister’s soul sucked from her body, he attempts to fight the Sanderson sisters. They don’t kill him in retaliation, however. Instead, they turn him into an immortal cat, doomed to walk the earth until their power can be destroyed. His own family denies him shelter, making him an unwelcome watcher always lurking on the edges of the community. He does this for about four hundred years, until some dumb-dumb virgin from California lights a candle on a dare, thus bringing the Sandersons and their magic back.

Personality-wise, cat Thackery is sardonic, wily, smart, and courageous. He is sweet and loyal to young Dani, and determined to guide our young heroes to victory. So for all the trauma set upon poor Thackery Binx, he maintains his moral core. This is why, when he does eventually die, he’s not sad, but overjoyed to finally be a hot Colonial boy ghost headed up to heaven.

Really, the thing that cinched my childhood crush is Thackery’s final moments. Look at him, covered in golden god dust, spinning around like dying is the coolest thing that could happen. He is back in his hot nightshirt. His hair is as floppy as ever. Death looks good on Thackery Binx.

All this is to say, when I think about Hocus Pocus, I do think about the comedy, the drama, the scares, and the musical numbers. But mostly, I think of a formative crush I had on a dead Puritan boy who spent most of the movie as a talking black cat.

Hocus Pocus is airing almost non-stop on Freeform all month long. While Hocus Pocus is not streaming on Netflix, you can watch it VOD using platforms like Prime Video, iTunes, or even tuning into Freeform with your Hulu with Live TV plan.

Where to stream Hocus Pocus