“ | We're young! | „ |
~ Mary Sanderson while celebrating with her sisters in their rejuvenated youth. |
“ | Uh-oh! Ew... Bye-bye. | „ |
~ Mary Sanderson, as the sunrise turns her to red dust. |
Mary Sanderson is one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside her sister Sarah) of the 1993 Disney live-action dark fantasy horror comedy film Hocus Pocus and its 2022 Disney+ sequel Hocus Pocus 2.
She is the middle child of the Sanderson Sisters, and along with them, is an evil witch who seems to have a "sister complex", constantly trying (and failing) to please her older sister Winifred. As such, she has a slight rivalry Jay and Ernie, but sweet and loyal towards the youngest sister Sarah. She is often the mediator of the trio, and often tries to calm her sisters down. She is also fascinated by television. She hates it when Winnie messes with Sarah.
She is portrayed by Kathy Najimy, who also played the Evil Queen in Descendants and Mother and Petuina in Tangled: The Series. As a child, she was portrayed by Nina Kitchen.
Biography[]
Background[]
Mary was born in 1639 in Salem, Massachusetts where she lived with her two sisters, Winifred and Sarah as orphans after their father, an apothecary, died.
In 1653, on Winifred's sixteenth birthday, after she defied the authority of the church by refusing to marry John Pritchett, Reverend Traske banished her from Salem. Traske orders the villagers to separate the sisters, but was failed when a spider that Mary and Sarah gifted to their oldest sister, scared them. Mary then escaped with her sisters to the nearby forbidden woods. There, they made the acquaintance of a forest enchantress called Mother Witch, who sensed that Winifred, too, was a witch. The enchantress gifted Winifred a spellbook for her sixteenth birthday, but explicitly warned the Sanderson sisters against casting a spell known as the Magicae Maxima. Mother Witch also revealed to them that by killing children witches could stay young and "ridiculously" beautiful. Later that night, Mary and her sisters successfully sought revenge against Reverend Traske by casting a spell to set fire to his home.
Afterwards, Mary and her sisters moved into a cottage on the outskirts of Salem in the late 1600's.
Hocus Pocus[]
In 1693, Mary is first seen assisting Winifred in the creation of a potion that will allow them to steal the youth from children. Meanwhile, Mary's sister Sarah lures young Emily Binx from Salem to be the victim, unaware that Emily's brother named Thackery Binx is following them to their house. Mary, Winifred, and Sarah are able to successfully steal Emily's youth, effectively killing her and causing them to become younger. After discovering Thackery, Mary assists in turning him into an immortal black cat so that he may live with the guilt of being unable to save his sister. Just then, Salem's villagers arrive and become aware of the witches' actions after an outburst from Sarah. Mary is hung alongside her sisters, though Winifred casts a curse that will one day allow them to return via a virgin lighting the Black Flame Candle.
300 years later, on Halloween night, Mary and her sisters are brought back to life by Max Dennison, a teenage boy who did not believe in the curse. After Max, his sister Dani Dennison, and a girl named Allison steal Winifred's spellbook, the three witches are forced to follow them; the three must suck the lives of children in order to live past dawn.
Mary and the others track the kids to a cemetery, where they are forced to remain on their broomsticks. Thus, Winifred raises Billy Butcherson from the dead and commands him to capture them, though he is unsuccessful. Later, Mary and the others get a bus driver to take them to find children to be victims. Mary initially believes that she has lost her powers when she smells children, though doesn't see any. At this point, they meet a man dressed as the devil, and believe him to be their master. However, after being run out by the man's wife, they realize that Halloween is a time where people wear costumes. During this time, their broomsticks are stolen, forcing the witches to continue on foot.
The witches then follow the children to the party where Max's parents are, and after being exposed to the room by Max, Winifred takes charge and ridicules him before singing I Put A Spell On You, therefore, enchanting all the adults causing them to dance forever. After this, the children lead the witches to the school after Allison gets an idea from a restaurant, and after unwittingly walking into the furnace, they are locked in and the children burn them alive.
However, they did not die due to the curse protecting them from death until sunrise and they end up capturing and locking up two bullies that had made fun of Max after they incidentally call them ugly, as well as "chicks", which they find insulting. Winifred, desperate for her eternal youth, decides to try and make the potion from memory. Sarah, surprisingly, shouts out the correct ingredient, but is hushed by Mary who thinks Winifred has all the right answers. At Max's house though, Max and Allison open the book, therefore, allowing it to send out a signal to the witches, who fly to the house, with Mary using a vacuum cleaner to replace her stolen broomstick. They take the book and kidnap Dani and Thackery. Mary accompanies Winifred to the house and assists in making the potion.
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 a car. They soon realize they have been tricked, follow the children back to the cemetery and attempt to get Dani to drink the potion again, though Winifred drops the potion whilst Sarah tries to help Mary escape the children. Max catches the potion and threatens to smash it, but drinks it instead after Winifred says she'll kill Dani if he smashes it. After a struggle with Max, Winifred and the boy both fall to the ground and Winifred starts to take his life force, but the sun comes up. Winifred turns to stone and explodes in green light whilst Sarah and Mary implode in purple and red light.
At the end of the movie, however, the book is seen and it blinks, therefore hinting the witches may return once again.
Appearance[]
Mary has dark hair twisted in a distinctive style like a witch's hat, a plump physique, and dark brown eyes. She wears a red vest that has several metal rings attached to the bottom over an orange shirt, a plaid skirt underneath a reddish-purple apron, and a red matching cloak. Mary has a beauty mark on the right side of her nose and a habit of biting the left side of her lower lip, giving her face a lopsided look. When Mary went outside, she wore a red cloak.
In the sequel, Mary is thinner, in addition to looking somewhat aged, she wears the same clothes as in the first film, but the most notorious feature is that she now bites her left lip instead of the right, but this is due to a slap that she received. Winnie gave during her song when they are resurrected, since when she is seen resurrecting with her sisters she is seen biting the right part of her lip.
Personality[]
Mary is Winifred's right-hand witch, always trying her best to appease Winnie and calm her rages. As such, even though she has a slightly rivalry with her younger sister Sarah, their relationship is mostly sweet and loving. In her quest to stay on Winnie's good side, Mary compliments her whenever she can and has a habit of repeating whatever she says. Although perhaps not as cunning or as evil as her eldest sister, she is more competent, clever, and observant than Sarah. And also she's not as ditzy and airheaded as Sarah.
Mary is the most caring of the Sanderson sisters, but only to her sisters. It is Mary that suggests forming a calming circle to ease their stress, and it is Mary who takes care of Winnie when she loses hope.
However, when it comes to children, Mary delights in tracking them down with her powerful sense of smell and suggest various ways of cooking them, from barbecue to "shish-ka-baby", heavily implying her and her sisters to be cannibals.
Powers and Abilities[]
As the middle Sanderson sister, Mary is a powerful witch in her own right. Examples of powers she was shown to possess were:
- Supernatural Smell: The ability to possess a sense of smell drastically beyond what was naturally possible. Mary's sense of smell was such that she could locate children both in close proximity and from great distances, and could even accurately determine the children's genders and ages.
- Potion Brewing: The ability to create beverages that produce specific magical effects. Mary helped her sisters to brew the Life Potion.
- Spell Casting: The ability to cast spells to produce specific magical effects. Mary often helped her sisters cast spells. Other additional abilities she derived from this power are:
- Cursing: The ability to induce curses. To punish Thackery Binx for insulting them, and to force him to live forever with his guilt over failing to save his sister from them, the three sisters cursed him to become an immortal black cat.
- Continual Action Inducement: The ability to cause others to keep doing one action or a series of actions until they literally die. After Winifred hypnotized the adults through her singing voice, she, Sarah, and Mary went on to sing a catchy song interwoven with a spell that made the adults "dance until they died" (though it was fortunately broken before said deaths could occur).
- Broom Flight: The ability to fly using brooms. Mary is skilled in broom flight, and could also fly using a vacuum cleaner as an alternative to her normal broomstick.
- electricity: when Mary and Sarah complete half of the Maxicae maxima spell they are given electricity powers. Mary’s lightning shows itself out of her fingers like finger guns
Trivia[]
- According to Allison in a piece of deleted dialogue from the shooting script, Mary's father was a bloodhound, explaining her dog behavior.
- This turned out to be false in the sequel, as it was mentioned that the sisters shared one father, who had died before Winifred's sixteenth birthday, had been an apothecary.
- The real-life reason why Mary bites the left side of her lip in the second movie instead of the right is because her actress Kathy Najimy can't keep her lip on that side for long. Reason why in the sequel the reason was made to be a slap from Winnie to Mary that makes her change sides.
- This had already been seen briefly in the first movie when Mary begins to cry because she thinks she has lost her power and Winnie slapped her several times to get her to regain her composure and it is seen that the side of the bitten lip changes several times while she receives the slaps.