| “ | I am beautiful! Boys will love me! | „ |
| ~ Sarah Sanderson while celebrating with her sisters in their newfound youthful beauty. |
| “ | Winnie...! Goodbye... | „ |
| ~ Sarah Sanderson, as the sunrise makes her explode. |
Sarah Sanderson is one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside her sister Mary) of the 1993 Disney live-action dark fantasy horror comedy film Hocus Pocus and its 2022 Disney+ sequel Hocus Pocus 2.
She is the youngest witch of the Sanderson Sisters. In 17th century Salem, Massachusetts, Sarah had an affair with her sister Winnie's lover, William "Billy the Butcher" Butcherson. When Winnie found out, she jealously poisoned Billy and sewed his mouth shut with a dull needle. This infidelity may have caused Winifred to hunt down youth and beauty, as she may have thought that her sister's greater beauty stole Billy from her. Ever since then, their sister Mary has had to act as a peacemaker between the two.
She is portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker. As a child, she was portrayed by Juju Journey Brener.
Biography[]
Past[]
Sarah was born in 1643 in Salem, Massachusetts where she lived with her two older sisters, Winifred and Mary 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 Sarah and Mary gifted to their oldest sister, scared them. Sarah 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, Sarah and her sisters successfully sought revenge against Reverend Traske by casting a spell to set fire to his home.
Afterwards, Sarah and her sisters moved into a cottage on the outskirts of Salem in the late 1600's. At some point in her life, Sarah had a relationship with Billy Butcherson, whom Winifred had an obsession with. When Winifred learned of the affair, she believed that Billy was cheating on her with her sister, flew into a jealous rage and poisoned him on May 1, 1693, sewing his lips shut with a dull needle so he couldn't reveal her secrets, even in death.
Hocus Pocus[]
In the seventeenth century, Sarah lures Emily Binx into the forest to the house where she and her sisters live. However, what she does not know is that Emily's older brother named Thackery Binx saw them enter the forest and followed them. Inside the house she helps her two sisters, Winifred and Mary, concoct a potion which will allow them to take the life force of children in order to remain young. Thackery interrupts this, however, and pours most of their potion on the floor before they can give it to Emily, but he is soon overcome by Winifred, and they proceed to inhale Emily's life force, killing Emily. They then proceed to turn Thackery into a black cat with immortality so he can 'live forever with his guilt'. But once they perform this spell, the villagers arrive at their house, and as Winifred and Mary barricade the door, Sarah stupidly says what the witches were doing.
The villagers capture the witches, but Winifred prophesies their return via the Black Flame Candle lit on All Hallows Eve by a virgin. Sarah and her sisters are subsequently hanged and left within the forest.
300 years later, a Californian boy named Max takes his sister trick-or-treating and gets together with Allison, whose mother used to run the museum that was the Sanderson house. They break into the house and Max foolishly lights the candle, thinking that it's just a bunch of hocus pocus, and ends up resurrecting the Sandersons. Max steals Winifred's spellbook at the behest of Thackery so that Sarah and her sisters cannot create the potion needed to steal the life force of children and they run.
The children all ran to the cemetery as Thackery led them. However, the witches all followed them on their broomsticks and nearly got the book back. However, before they can escape Winifred raises Billy Butcherson, her former lover, back from the dead and instructs him to get the book back before flying away to the outside of the cemetery as they cannot set foot on hollowed ground. There, they employ the help of a bus driver, ask him to find them children and eventually come across a house owned by a man dressed as the devil, who they mistake for their master. They subsequently get into a fight with the man's wife as Sarah was dancing with him, but are scared away by the dog. Outside they find that their broomsticks have been stolen.
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 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 the two bullies that make 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 using a modern cleaning broom, mop and vacuum cleaner as improvisations for their stolen broomsticks, take the book and kidnap Dani and Thackery. Sarah is instructed to sing her siren song to all the children of Salem so they will go to the Sanderson house.
After brewing the potion again they try to get Dani to drink it, but are stop 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.
Personality[]
Sarah is extremely flirtatious and enjoys "playing" with people, mainly men. As she has a sadistic sense of humor, it is strongly implied that "playing" with people means torturing them or simply engaging in inappropriate relations. Even so, she is very obedient to her eldest sister Winifred and would unlikely be as evil as she is without her guidance. Although Sarah is an airhead (much to Winifred's frustration) and often says or does stupid things, her unique power -her enchanting, siren-like voice- make her a very powerful, dangerous, and valuable witch. With her voice, she has charmed all of the children of Salem, using the song quoted above. She can be also sometimes smart and intelligent, as seen when she shouts out the correct ingredient of the Life Potion, although she is hushed by Mary who thinks Winifred has all the right answers.
Appearance[]
Sarah is well-known to be the prettiest, sexiest and most beautiful of the sisters. She has long wavy white-blonde hair, blue eyes, dark, smoky eyeshadow, wears dark red lipstick, and has a beauty mark on the right side of her chin. She wears a red laced-sleeved, low cut, dusty pink corset that emphasizes her ample bosom and a skirt composed of red and purple cloth. When outside or flying, she wears a purple cloak. She also wears tan stockings that end at black garters and black lace boots.
Powers and Abilities[]
Though she is the youngest Sanderson sister, Sarah is still a powerful witch whom none should ever underestimate. Examples of powers she was shown to possess were:
- Hypnotic Voice (limited): The ability to use one's voice to affect or directly influence other people's minds to their commands. Sarah channeled this power through her beautiful yet eerie singing voice, and while it was exclusive to children, it was still potent in the sense that she could hypnotize an entire city's children with just one song, and children under her spell are utterly bewitched and powerless to resist - after she "filled the sky" with her siren song, all the children in Salem voluntarily made their way to the sisters' cottage, and their trance was such that they utterly ignored Max's repeated warnings for them to not listen to the song.
- Potion Brewing: The ability to create beverages that produced specific magical effects. Sarah helped her sisters brew the Life Potion.
- Spell Casting: The ability to cast spells to produce specific magical effects. Sarah 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 own singing voice, she, Mary, and Sarah 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. Sarah is skilled in broom flight, and could also fly using a mop as an alternative to her normal broomstick.
- electricity: when Mary and Sarah finish half of the maxicae maxima spell they both are given electricity powers , Sarah’s power comes out of her hands and are purple The power is only limited as she and Mary are the price Winnie has to pay for completing the spell
Gallery[]
Images[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Sarah Sanderson shares the same first name as her actress, Sarah Jessica Parker.
- The origin of the song's lyrics are an ongoing debating. Some report that it came from an Edgar Allen Poe poem titled "Come Little Children". However, Poe scholars dispute this claim, because no such poem appears in Poe's official omnibus, and the lyrics do not match his style.
- Sarah is a witch from Salem. Coincidentally, years after the movie was made, Sarah's actress, Sarah Jessica Parker, had her family history examined and discovered that Esther Elwell, one of her ancestors, was accused of practicing witchcraft in Salem.