What is it that makes a great Halloween movie? There’s no doubt that in October the horror genre takes center stage and gets an opportunity to bask in fan appreciation. But while I would never want to take away from the joy of watching horror in October, I do think it’s worth recognizing that a horror movie and a Halloween movie are not always the same thing. Of course, the two often overlap (as in the slasher genre granddaddy Halloween), but many horror favorites are actually rooted in a time of year other than spooky season. For instance, the Joel Schumacher vampire classic The Lost Boys (1987) takes place in a beach town during summer break, and Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece The Shining (1980) reaches its climax in the depths of winter. By the same token, not all beloved Halloween movies are scary — my college students often tell me that their favorite fall films are childhood favorites like Halloweentown (1998) or Casper (1995).
If we’re going to consider the Halloween movie its own genre, like the Christmas movie, we have to consider what it is that makes a film worthy of the distinction beyond scares. Of course, being set in the appropriate season is a good starting point, but (at the risk of edging dangerously close to “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” territory) a movie also needs to in some way address a holiday or a season’s cultural significance to live up to the name. For fall, and for Halloween in particular, what’s most important is not the screams, thrills, and chills. Those are like the gifts stolen by the Grinch in his various Christmas movies — good fun, but not really what the season is about. We already know that midwinter holiday movies are usually about love and a return to home or family. But what hasn’t been so widely recognized is that the autumn entries consistently offer us something much more meaningful than straightforward scares: liminality.
Liminal spaces are those that exist between boundaries — by definition such a thing should not exist (boundaries are not generally thought of as having gaps between them), and they often inspire superstitions or traditions. Take the doorway of a home — you could also call it the threshold if you’re feeling traditional. It is the space of the home that is neither truly indoors nor outdoors, and traditionally a groom carries his bride across it until her feet can touch down in the part of the home that isn’t so ambiguous. Every 24 hours we hit the liminal time of midnight — neither yesterday nor today — with its own distinction as “the witching hour.” Fall is the liminal season, a time when nature shifts from bloom to hibernation but is neither completely. Of course, spring also occupies a space between summer and winter in the rhythm of the seasons, but it doesn’t carry the uncanny or spooky connections to liminality that autumn does. Halloween, countless movies and traditions have told us, is the time when the veils between worlds are the thinnest — when magic can happen and the dead may speak. The rebirth of spring may be beautiful, but no other season offers us the chance to come to terms with the uncanny sensation of occupying the space betwixt and between life and death, reality and fantasy, the magical and the banal, that autumn does.
I’ve chosen three particularly beloved Halloween movies to examine for their engagement with liminality — the true Halloween spirit. Interestingly, these movies all use sibling relationships as a way to explore connections to liminality. They also all share a basic storyline rooted in anxieties about liminality: the struggle to rescue or protect a loved one from a supernatural force that threatens to consume them. These cinematic brothers and sisters attempt to hold on to one another (often literally) as various forms of evil seek to drag one of them across the boundaries of autumn’s twilight liminality into darkness. What becomes clear across these films is that what’s most important in a Halloween movie isn’t our fear as we face these shadowy threats, but the ferocity with which we cling to one another as we pass through the darkness.
Hocus Pocus (1993)
Somehow, through the magic of cable television reruns and the charismatic performances of Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker, Kenny Ortega’s poorly reviewed film about resurrected Salem witches who seek to extend their own youth and immortality by draining the life essence from children became one of the defining films of my generation. A few years ago at an academic conference, I spoke to a resident of Salem, Massachusetts, who was profoundly exhausted by the tourists who overrun the town in October. She went on in bewilderment to explain that these tourists are not interested in the town’s historical significance of actual witch trials, but in its fictionalized depiction in Hocus Pocus. But as someone who was a child when Hocus Pocus premiered and is now an adult whose social media feed is overrun with Sanderson Sisters appreciation in October, I wasn’t at all surprised by her report.
Hocus Pocus begins in 17th-century Salem, when a trio of evil witch sisters — Winifred (“Winnie” to her sisters, played by Midler), Mary (Najimy), and Sarah Sanderson (Parker) — absorb the life essence of a young girl named Emily Binx (Amanda Shepherd) and transfigure her unfortunate elder brother Thackery Binx (Sean Murray) into an immortal black cat (voiced by Jason Marsden) to punish him for trying to save her. They are caught and hanged (for those counting, that makes four on-screen deaths in the first ten minutes of this children’s movie), but before their deaths they prophesy that they will eventually return to life when a virgin lights the black flame candle in their home. Three hundred years later, a skeptical teenager named Max Dennison (Omri Katz), seeking to impress his crush, Allison (Vinessa Shaw), lights the candle, declaring the story of the witches to be nothing but “hocus pocus.” The Sanderson Sisters return to life, and Max, Allison, and Max’s little sister Dani (Thora Birch) must spend Halloween night trying to prevent the evil sisters from accessing their spell book and draining the lives of the children of Salem. They are aided by Thackery Binx — still alive and still a cat — who explains to them that the witches only have enough magic to sustain themselves for the night; without stealing the lives of more children, they will be rendered permanently dead at dawn.
Hocus Pocus is a film profoundly invested in sibling relationships. Binx remains haunted by his inability to protect Emily 300 years ago and continues to seek vengeance against the witches for her death. The sibling dynamics of the villainous Sanderson Sisters are also front and center — they go beyond the typical Shakespeare-inspired affectation of constantly referring to one another as “Sister(s)” and have relationships that feel lived-in. They bicker and complain about one another: Mary resentfully asks why Sarah is not called upon to help create a potion in the film’s opening scenes, and Winifred is frequently frustrated by the other two’s generally scatterbrained ways. Binx even tell us that Winifred and Sarah competed over a romantic partner during their original lifetime, but, like a true sister, Winifred opted to murder and curse him rather than turn against Sarah. However, they also share a deep sisterly affection and understanding — Mary coaxes Winnie into participating in a “calming circle” when she becomes agitated, and they are constantly collaborating and encouraging one another.
The central relationship of the film, however, is between Max and Dani, who struggle with one another before they are united against the Sandersons. Max, the film’s protagonist, is a teenager — the liminal developmental stage between childhood and adulthood — and often attempts to distance himself from the childish antics of eight-year-old Dani. Throughout the film’s first act, Dani tries fruitlessly to pull Max out of his liminal discomfort to enjoy the childhood traditions of Halloween with her — she insists he take her trick-or-treating and extracts a promise of coordinating costumes next year in exchange for her cooperation in abandoning the candy-gathering in favor of spending quality time with Allison. Max responds with typical adolescent groans, eyerolls, and sulkiness, but he is also quick to comfort Dani when his resentful angst actually hurts her feelings. In other words, in spite of occupying our side of the boundary between the fantastical and the ordinary, the Dennisons as siblings are much like the Sandersons — sometimes fraught but always loyal, providing one another the balance of irritation and affection only a sibling can provide.
The conflict between the Sanderson and the Dennisons reaches its climax in a cemetery in the final moments before dawn. The witches successfully recapture their spell book and kidnap Dani. They manage to brew the potion necessary to steal her life, but Max and Allison use a combination of showmanship, car headlights, and the witches’ deep love of drama to steal Dani back again and destroy most of the potion. They flee to the cemetery because the Sandersons cannot set foot on holy ground, but the witches hover around them and try to snatch Dani back again before their time runs out.
Max and Allison attempt to protect Dani from this threat by having her duck into an empty grave. This puts her below the Sandersons’ physical reach, but paradoxically nearer to their domain in terms of liminality — on this Halloween night, the Sandersons occupy a unique position between life and death, one that Dani is now mirroring by being both alive and in the grave. In addition to being teenagers, Max and Allison further identify themselves with liminality by using the witches’ magical knowledge against them (thus becoming simultaneously magical and banal). Winifred even manages a modicum of respect for Allison when she calls her a “cunning little white witch” for knowing about a salt circle’s protective properties. But unlike her teenaged protectors, Dani cannot comfortably remain in a liminal space for long, and she leaves her assigned hiding place to try to help a friendly zombie, who has been decapitated in the fight, retrieve his head. Dani is immediately snatched up by Winifred, who triumphantly calls, “Bye-bye, big brother!” down to Max as she hoists Dani onto her broom and flies into the air. She hovers above them, attempting to both force-feed Dani the potion and force Max to helplessly witness his little sister’s demise from the ground.
Binx, however, dashes up a tree and knocks the potion from Winifred’s hand. Max catches it, and immediately demands Dani be returned to him or he will smash the bottle. Winifred counters that if he smashes it, she will kill Dani. Max responds by drinking the potion, thus making his own life the only one the Sandersons have the possibility of draining in order to sustain themselves. While the movie’s spookiness has been heavily infused with goofy comedy up to this point, the moment when Winifred returns to the ground to exchange Dani for Max is strikingly dark. Bette Midler drops all camp from her performance in favor of snarling villainy, and Dani never is more vividly a vulnerable child than as she glances, tearfully and desperately, towards her big brother from the witch’s clutches. Max has essentially forced his way into the darkness in order to shove Dani back out of it, as he believes he will be able to hold Winifred off long enough for her to be destroyed by dawn.
In their final moments of conflict, Winifred and Max both occupy an unsustainably precarious kind of liminal existence between life and death. Winifred — representative of evil and death who clings to life — desperately clutches at Max in an attempt to both rob him of life and beat the dawn, as Max — a teenager who did not believe in magic but has now sacrificed himself to it without the intention of dying — attempts to shake her off. Max’s success seems to largely be a matter of luck; the sunrise obliterates all three Sandersons just in time. The liminal threat of Halloween is over, all siblings are returned to their appropriate spaces, and the magical in-between they have occupied for the night is gone. The Sandersons explode in sparkles and dust (Sarah and Mary both use their last words to say goodbye to their sisters), and the Dennison siblings embrace in the dawn light. Thackery Binx receives his own release from liminality, as he dies at last. Despite Dani’s tears (and mine, in every childhood viewing), Binx’s spirit — now human again — explains to us that he is happy to be free. He joyfully reunites with Emily’s spirit, and they pass through the gates of the cemetery hand-in-hand, presumably Heaven-bound. In Hocus Pocus, death itself is not the worst possible outcome; the torment lies in being pushed to the wrong side of a liminal divide.
In this spirit, it seems worth noting that Hocus Pocus’s continuing, perhaps even increasing, popular culture cache and promised sequel are owed not to those viewers who were in Max’s life stage at the time of its premiere, but instead to a generation of Danis who grew up to be Sandersons. The fans who most vocally insist on Hocus Pocus as appointment autumnal viewing were children when they first saw it (more likely on television than in the theater), and thus most readily positioned to identify with Dani — her embrace of the imaginative elements of Halloween, fear of the witches, and mix of fascination and disdain for the teenage romance that blossom between Max and Allison, all mirror the childhood viewer’s experience. But these fans have crossed the liminal threshold into adulthood and now repost memes, send gifs, and buy t-shirts that proclaim their similarities to the Sandersons. Perhaps most popular is the moment when Winifred is first introduced — throwing open the shutters, rolling her eyes and declaring, “Oh, look. Another glorious morning. It makes me sick!” We may not seek to suck the lives from children on Halloween, but many enjoy the holiday because, like the Sandersons, we want to slip into the liminal space nearer to childhood that it opens.
Over the Garden Wall (2014)
Less widely known, but at least as passionately beloved by fans, Over the Garden Wall is an animated miniseries that follows two brothers, Wirt and Greg, as they attempt to navigate the mysterious liminal space of The Unknown and return home. In a recent interview on the YouTube series Hot Ones, Elijah Wood, who voices Wirt, identified Over the Garden Wall as one of the “under the radar” projects he most appreciates fans mentioning to him. In particular Wood praises the “animation style that feels very much like it evokes something from the past; it’s really stunning.” The story of the brothers’ journey across this dark, fairy- and folktale inspired space unfolds across ten episodes (each about ten minutes long) that add up to what is essentially a single feature. They are accompanied by Beatrice, a conflicted talking bluebird with her own motivation for making the journey. The three face many supernatural dangers on their way; foremost amongst these is The Beast, an imposing horned figure seen almost exclusively in shadow. The exact mechanics of The Beast’s predations are not revealed until later in the story, but he is the dark force that renders the forest of The Unknown a space of constant threat for lost travelers like Wirt and Greg.
While Hocus Pocus is (despite a few intense elements) clearly a children’s movie, Over the Garden Wall is an outing most legible to viewers who have at least reached adolescence. It is, on the whole, a more mature and sophisticated story than Hocus Pocus — the frightening nature of The Beast, the haunted tone of melancholy that often weaves through the episodes, the grim implications of some of the situations, the subtle variations in animation style and their connection to the storytelling, the original music that alternately evokes nostalgia and whimsy — all of these elements render it less accessible to young children. Its adult-oriented themes succeed in spite of the fact that, in many ways, Over The Garden Wall remains firmly rooted in childhood silliness and fun. Much of this comes courtesy of Greg, the younger brother, a comically pure innocent who is both far less precocious than Dani and completely unfazed by the forces of darkness he encounters. Greg wholeheartedly and joyfully embraces each situation, and his combination of joie de vivre, unshakable good-heartedness, and exuberant mischief make him one of the most winsome fictional children on record. Teenaged Wirt has the misfortune of being a more realistic character than his brother. He is far more tormented by the insecurities of adolescence than Max Dennison, stumbling over his words when agitated, plagued by self-doubt, and resentful of the confidence he perceives others as possessing. Greg is a fantasy of childhood innocence that an older person, now burdened by some of life’s darker truths, would project and embrace; Wirt is near-constantly embodying the crawl-out-of-your-skin awkwardness that puberty inflicts on us all.
The series introduces the two as they walk through a forest (Greg toting a comically large frog), an instant before Wirt realizes he does not know where they are. The moment offers a complete distillation of their dynamic:
Greg: Albert, Salami, Giggly, Jumpy, Tom, Thomas, Tambourine, Leg Face McCullen,
Artichoke, Penguin, Pete, Steve, but I think the very worst name for this frog is —
Wirt: Wait. Wait a second. Uh, Greg? Where are we?
Greg: In the woods.
Wirt: I mean, what are we doing out here?
Greg: We’re walking home.
Wirt: (panicking) Greg, I think we’re lost. We should have left a trail or something.
Greg: I can leave a trail of candy from my pants! (flings a handful of candy on the ground)
Wirt: (sighs) No. Though I am lost, my wounded heart resides back home, in pieces,
strewn about the graveyard of my lost love, for only — Oh! Do you hear that?
Greg: Yeah.
Wirt: Do you think it’s some kind of deranged lunatic with an ax, waiting out there in the
darkness for innocent victims?
Greg: (runs toward the sound)
In this moment we see Wirt’s anxiety, adolescent self-seriousness, and (perhaps understandable) tendency to tune out Greg’s near-constant stream-of-consciousness chatter. Meanwhile, Greg demonstrates a general disregard for danger; a penchant for focusing on details others tend to ignore; and, in spite of the fact that Wirt does not feel listened to, he takes what his big brother says completely to heart (he continues leaving a trail of candy behind him for the rest of the episode). In order to escape both The Beast and The Unknown, the brothers must transcend this dynamic — Greg must slow down and learn to take something seriously but, far more importantly, Wirt must both find confidence and take responsibility for himself and his brother.
For most of the story, The Unknown seems to be a generic fairytale forest, occasionally interrupted by a village, a tavern, a mysterious mansion, a lonely cabin, etc. However, the penultimate episode reveals that Greg and Wirt actually belong in our own world and arrived in The Unknown after being knocked unconscious and falling into a lake on Halloween night. Their adventures in The Unknown take place in the moments that, underwater, they hang between life and death. This revelation clicks a number of details throughout the story into sharper focus — for instance, Wirt’s initial confusion and panic at their finding themselves in the forest, as well as the numerous references to other “lost souls” who have been devoured by The Beast. It also provides the context for how the relationship dynamic of their normal lives led to them being lost in the apparent Limbo of The Unknown and threatens to trap them there forever. It is revealed that the insecure, indecisive Wirt recorded a cassette tape of his poetry and clarinet music to present to his crush, only to immediately chicken out from going through with it. Greg, however, overly attentive to his brother’s initial intentions, ignores Wirt’s hesitation and causes it to be delivered anyway. It is in attempting to recover the tape, which Wirt insists upon doing all the while blaming Greg for their misfortune, that the two find themselves in the mortal danger that dispatches them to the liminal space between life and death of The Unknown.
This dynamic persists throughout their adventure in The Unknown — Wirt makes a snap judgment, Greg commits to it fully, Wirt immediately regrets his decision and attempts to take it back, Greg’s action has rendered take-backs impossible, and Wirt resents Greg for forcing him forward instead of allowing him to stew in place. Wirt complains that Greg is “always pushing” him, but he fails to recognize that he is actually the one making the vast majority of the choices for both of them. Wirt’s impulse to remain undecided makes him vulnerable to The Beast, who transforms travelers into the trees he burns to sustain himself once they give up and remain in one place long enough for his branches to overtake them. This is precisely what occurs when Wirt announces that all that has gone wrong for them is Greg’s fault and that he is simply going to sleep rather than continue to try to figure out what to do next. His discouragement, petulance, and exhaustion are largely understandable in the context of the moment, but Greg takes Wirt’s assignment of responsibility completely to heart. When, during the course of some dream heroics, Greg is offered a wish, he very responsibly wishes for a way home for himself and his brother. But he is told Wirt cannot return — The Beast has claimed him, as evidenced by the branches already creeping in around him. Greg assumes that this, too, is his fault and instead wishes to take Wirt’s place so his brother can return home alone. As Wirt begins to stir from his sleep, Greg willingly disappears with The Beast into The Unknown’s darkness.
However, the loss of his brother catapults Wirt from adolescent languishing into a far more mature and self-aware version of himself. Wirt is determined to rescue Greg, and in so doing he releases all petty resentments he has carried through the series, accepting responsibility for what he has done and extending forgiveness to Beatrice for her own compromised choices. The two find Greg weak and entwined in branches, in what appear to be his final moments before being fully transformed into one of the nightmarish trees that will provide fuel to The Beast and the lantern he claims holds the souls of his victims. Wirt attempts to free Greg, but The Beast appears, saying Greg is too weak to go on. He offers to put Greg’s spirit within the lantern. Wirt can then become the lantern-bearer; as long as Wirt feeds its flame with the wood made from other lost travelers, Greg will survive within. For a moment Wirt appears to accept this fate for both of them — in his desperation to save his brother, he momentarily surrenders hope of their returning home. But before he can turn over the lantern to The Beast, he pauses. His eyes widen, and then with confidence that he appears to surprise himself with, he says, “Wait. That’s dumb.”
The Beast reacts with shock, rage, and intimidation. But Wirt sees through the nightmare creature in a way no one else in The Unknown has been able to. He intuits that the lantern actually holds The Beast’s essence and that The Beast uses the promise of a sustained, liminal existence for his victims to manipulate their loved ones into unknowingly aiding and protecting him. In Over the Garden Wall, liminality is a sentence of certain misery for those unwilling to risk the uncertainty of embarking on their next adventure. Wirt and Greg arrive there due to Wirt’s indecision and refusal to accept consequences for his choices, and they can only escape once he stops being ruled by the impulse to double back to something that is unsatisfactory but at least carries the comforts of certainty. Once he has fully rejected The Beast — not only refused his offer, but seen the artifice of its premise and realized the limits of The Beast’s powers — he is able to gather up Greg and exit The Unknown easily.
Wirt regains consciousness underwater in the real world and drags Greg out of the lake before collapsing next to it. The two are transported by ambulance to the hospital, where Wirt awakens to Greg recounting their adventures to the other high school students they had been with that evening. Greeted by his crush (turns out, she does not have a tape player), Wirt demonstrates the growth that allowed him to rescue himself and Greg from the liminality of The Unknown by inviting her to listen to the tape with him at his house. The finale takes pains to demonstrate that the adventure in The Unknown was not simply a near-death hallucination. In addition to Wirt and Greg’s shared memories of the experience, Greg’s frog still lights up with the magical bell he swallowed on their adventure, and the viewer sees the positive impact the boys have had on the residents of The Unknown as they contentedly settle in for the winter.
Liminality is clearly defined in Over the Garden Wall — the space is, after all, literally called The Unknown. The danger of The Unknown is in being consumed by it; it is not actually the darkness, but the fear of it holding travelers in place that poses the risk. Wirt successfully escapes The Unknown because he both embraces the value of childhood innocence represented by Greg and gains the courage to face outcomes he knows he cannot anticipate or control. In many ways, Wirt’s experience of The Unknown serves as a compelling allegory for the crucible of adolescence. The liminality of Halloween invites us, like Wirt, to face the darkness and confidently move through it, rather than remaining trapped by the false reassurance of the familiar.
Practical Magic (1998)
Much like Hocus Pocus, Practical Magic was poorly reviewed upon its theatrical release, but found a devoted audience via cable television airings and home video rentals. The movie tells the story of sisters Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman) Owens, the latest pair of witches in a matriline of magical women stretching back to the Puritans. In addition to the suspicion and sometimes outright venom they face from locals in their New England island community, all women in the Owens family suffer an unfortunate curse inadvertently cast by a heartbroken ancestor: any man who loves one of them will meet an untimely death after a fairly short period (the exact duration is never specified, but Owens girls seem to consistently be fatherless before the age of ten). This curse leaves Sally and Gillian orphaned as children, and they are raised in an idyllic Victorian house by the sea by their delightful, magical aunts, Frances (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest). The sisters respond to their circumstances in opposite ways — Sally attempts to distance herself from her family “gifts” and longs for normalcy and acceptance, while Gillian flings herself into hedonism and sensation-seeking far from home. Despite this, the sisters remain close. Gillian swiftly appears next to Sally when the curse leaves her widowed and deeply depressed, and Sally rushes to rescue Gillian when Jimmy (Goran Visnjic), her most recent boyfriend, turns abusive. Unfortunately, neither sister anticipates the depths of Jimmy’s sadism, and they are forced to kill him when he attempts to murder Gillian. Terrified they will end up in prison, the two bury him in the garden and attempt to move on, only to find themselves dogged by both a police detective (Aidan Quinn) and Jimmy’s vengeful spirit.
Unlike Hocus Pocus and Over the Garden Wall, in Practical Magic the liminal space — best represented by the Owens’ family home — is where the protagonists belong. The struggle for Sally is not to pass through the liminal space and emerge intact, but to rejoin her sister there after they have each strayed too far away: Sally into the banality of attempting to be accepted by her community as an everyday wife and mother, and Gillian into the demonic afterlife into which Jimmy’s spirit attempts to drag her. It is also a movie that, 15 years before Frozen, depicted a sisterly bond as the form of true love potent enough to break a curse and drive out death.
The centrality of sisterhood to the movie is emphasized in the fact that the Owens family is made up of three generations of sisters — Jet and Frances, Sally and Gillian, and Sally’s daughters Kylie (Evan Rachel Wood) and Antonia (Alexandra Artrip). Impressively, in spite of their (tragically short-lived) marriages and apparent tendency to only give birth to girls, they have maintained their family name for 300 years. There are no hyphenates or maiden names in this family; an Owens woman is an Owens woman. However, their rootedness (Gillian excepted) to their ancestral home and their strong connection to their family name also makes them ready targets for townspeople who recognize them as figures of liminality and therefore dangerous. They are part of the community and also kept at arm’s length, mundane and magical, possessed of unearthly power yet unable to protect their loved ones from it. Sally experiences a brief period of acceptance during her marriage, but the death of her husband forces her and her daughters to return to the home Sally was raised in with Jet and Frances and back into a spotlight of local superstition. Sally deeply resents the role magic has played in her tragedy and in her forced return to being ostracized from the community. She does everything she can to reject her liminal identity and insist that she and her daughters will be “normal.”
In spite of being marketed as a romantic comedy (which could only have contributed to critics being baffled by the film’s dark moments dealing with grief, violence, and intergenerational trauma), in the world of Practical Magic, men are presented as, at best, incidental, or, at worst, literal demons. The introduction of the cop — who, we rapidly deduce, is Sally’s fated soul mate — is much more interesting for the tension he creates between Sally and Gillian than for the blossoming romance between him and Sally. By the film’s climax, he has realized he is well out of his depth in facing the supernatural and left town; the three generations of Owens women must look elsewhere for support in driving out Jimmy once and for all. They find it in the women of the town to whom Sally has consistently failed to pass herself off as normal. In a scene played just a bit too cutely as a queer allegory, Sally uses the “phone tree” provided by her daughters’ school to call up the mothers of the community and announce that she is indeed a witch and in need of their help. Cheerful music plays as Sally nervously dances around the kitchen and says things into the receiver like, “You know all that stuff that everyone’s always whispering about me? Well, here’s the thing. I’m a witch!” In case the metaphor is still too subtle at this point, the next cut is to one of Sally’s new-age enthusiast employees. She excitedly says, “The best news:Sally just came out!” to a friend on the phone who replies, “What a fabulous affirmation.”
This is not the film’s only moment of paralleling queer identity with the family of powerful women who do not keep men in their lives for long. In one of the film’s most quoted lines, Frances says to Sally, “My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.” (This is, objectively, a “fabulous affirmation.”) Sally’s aunts, sister, and even her young daughters often urge her to embrace her true nature and the power that it holds, while Sally continually insists that she would rather be a normal member of society than be herself. When the Owens women are not either mourning or attempting to dodge the vengeful spirits of their lost loves, their home is, by all appearances, an exceedingly inviting intergenerational feminist compound full of dappled sunlight streaming through windows, soft upholstery over beautiful wooden furniture, and wardrobes full of chunky knit sweaters, maxi skirts, and gauzy scarves. The power of the Owens women is a feminine one, but not one that derives from seduction. The general absence and powerlessness of men in the film minimizes the impact of the male gaze on its women. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are unquestionably stunning, but their characters are often presented as decidedly un-glamorous. Their “at home” hair styles are typically haphazard braids or messy ponytails, and they are often shown in realistic (i.e. loose-fitting and mismatched) loungewear. They are emotionally unfiltered with one another, sharing laughter, anger, and tears as they arise naturally. None of these design or performance choices are meant to connote that the Owenses are “out of control;” they demonstrate the degree to which the film is rooted in a feminine, even sisterly, gaze.
In embracing her true identity as a witch and calling on the women of the community for help in saving Gillian from Jimmy, Sally invites the everyday women of the town into the liminal space of the Owens home. All eagerly accept, many expressing sympathy for Gillian’s situation — as one puts it, it’s the familiar story of “a bad breakup, and now the guy just will not leave her alone.” Even Sally’s PTA nemesis Sara (Lucinda Jenney) arrives, broom in hand, somewhat awkwardly explaining, “Well, you know, ever since I was a little girl I’ve wanted to see inside your house.” Sara’s admission is an excellent distillation of the way Practical Magic speaks to its fans and established itself as a beloved Halloween film, particularly for women. We may fear liminality, and in a patriarchal society we have been taught to distrust women who wield power without the authoritative oversight of a man. But many also find we have a powerful curiosity and longing within us — wouldn’t we like to see inside a space where feminine power and matriarchal wisdom reign? It may be forbidden, imaginary, and impossible, but has any space looked more welcoming than a Victorian house by the sea where wise women laugh, perform magic, and eat brownies for breakfast?
This is emphasized in the scene where, late one night, Jet and Frances are shown casting a spell and adding ingredients to what we are initially led to believe is some kind of potion. However, as the camera pulls back, it is revealed that they are actually cackling over a blender. Upstairs, Gillian wakes up Sally, who immediately knows the late-night sound of the blender means “the aunts” are indulging in midnight margaritas. She and Gillian excitedly race downstairs to join their aunts, and the four drink, dance, and laugh around the kitchen to the tune of the Harry Nilsson classic “Coconut.” It is a simple moment of feminine familial love and joy in the middle of the increasing tension of Jimmy’s haunting, and judging by its immortalization in meme form, I am not the only person who sees it as a form of womanhood to aspire to. Right now my own daughters are young enough that, when we are on vacation with my best friend, they are dispatched to bed before it is time for sangria and Turner Classic Movies. But it’s hard for me to think of something that would bring me more joy than for them to dance down the stairs and join us once they are adults.
Ultimately, it is physical touch and affirmation of connection between women that banishes Jimmy’s spirit and saves Gillian. The initial spell the Owenses and the women of their community attempt to use to drive Jimmy out also weakens Gillian’s body — they may be able to send him to Hell, but his possession of Gillian is such that the process will also kill her. Sally begs them to stop, desperate for another option. The two sisters lay next to each other on the floor of their ancestral home, separated by the circle of broomsticks on the floor that contain Jimmy’s spirit, and, by extension, Gillian’s body. Sally begs Gillian to stay with her, not to give up, while Gillian — exhausted, battered, and despairing — begs Sally to accept that she cannot be saved. It is the first time one has been outside the reach of the other in a moment of trauma, and the pain for both is palpable. Their aunts and the other women of the community look on tearfully as Gillian tells Sally, “I love you,” and closes her eyes, apparently intending these to be her last words.
Sally, however, jumps to her feet, announcing that she knows what to do. She has her aunts open the circle and taunts Jimmy, now in full control of Gillian’s body, with tequila to provoke him into reaching across the magical barrier. Immediately several women seize Gillian/Jimmy to immobilize her/him, and Sally swiftly produces a knife. “My blood,” she says, over a close-up of her palm as a wound opens. “Your blood,” she continues, cutting into Gillian’s hand. Finally, she determinedly says, “Our blood,” and seizes her sister’s hand, pressing their wounds together. It is a promise of solidarity that they made to one another years ago and has linked them throughout the movie. Once Sally has a hold of her sister’s hand, she crawls into the circle next to her and clasps her tightly. A blinding light originates in their embrace and fills the room as shots of Gillian and Sally together throughout the movie flash across the screen: arriving at their aunts’ home as orphaned children, young Sally comforting Gillian after she has been taunted and attacked by other local children, the two in adulthood — separated by distance — each looking at their shared scar and knowing the other needs her, laughing together, embracing one another, and finally Sally whispering, “I love you, Gillian,” as her sister begins to revive. These shots are interrupted by close-ups of the hands of the women now forming a circle around them and bearing witness to their love. Over and over women’s hands grab one another; each clasp is accompanied by a definitive sound, like a heavy door slamming. The room once again fills with blinding light, and for a brief moment we see the Owens’ bereaved ancestor Maria (Caprice Benedetti) alone in this place hundreds of years before, her grief suddenly disrupted by a look of surprise and peace. Sally and Gillian share a breathless and joyful look, and the women around them laugh in exhilaration. Jimmy’s cursed spirit departs, leaving behind a pile of ashes and dirt. The women use their brooms, symbols of both magic and domesticity, to sweep the last remnants of him from the Owens home.
In the film’s final voiceover, Sally confirms that the curse is broken and the Owens women may now accept a man’s love without endangering his life, though she is not entirely sure how that came to be. She muses, “Can love travel back in time and heal a broken heart? Was it our joined hands that finally lifted Maria’s curse? I’d like to think so.” But regardless of the mechanism of the connection between banishing Jimmy and ending Maria’s curse, the Owens women are now all home, happy, and accepted by the community for who they truly are. The final scene takes place on Halloween, when their neighbors gather at the Owens home to watch three generations of witches, in full pointy hat and striped sock regalia, jump off the roof hand in hand with their sisters and float breezily to the ground. Most importantly, Sally — witch, sister, mother, niece, and (with the return of a certain officer of the law) lover — has made peace with every element of herself, and embraced a publicly liminal existence.
As the only movie of these three aimed primarily at adults, Practical Magic has the most complex relationship to liminality. It acknowledges the dissonance, discomfort, and challenge of an existence that does not remain within recognizable boundaries, but it also advocates for those whose identities defy such boundaries to maintain and protect their own space. It engages directly with grief, trauma, and sexual violence, but it is also filled with laughter, whimsy, and love. It is perhaps both the film’s greatest strength and weakness that it is as unapologetically contradictory and conflicted as liminality itself. And while such tonal vacillations may be bewildering to most movie critics, it turns out to be all too legible to those enthusiasts of the season whose own life experiences reflect the challenges of living in the spaces between social expectations.
The continuing popularity of these films, particularly in October, demonstrate that both the allure and the threat of liminality distilled in the rituals of Halloween persist for a lifetime, even as our relationships to the liminal may change. By consistently centering siblings — a relationship dynamic that overall tends to get less attention in film and television than romantic partners, parents and children, or even friends — these films emphasize the slippery nature of the liminal. After all, who but siblings hold so much in common while being so radically different? From children fearing witches to adults wondering if we may not be better off as witches ourselves, exploring the liminal brings us just a little too close to darkness and death for comfort. But a true Halloween movie shows that darkness will inflect all our lives in one form or another; what matters is having a hand to cling to and someone to fight for as you face it down.
