Hocus Pocus Filming Locations

   Over the summer, we visited Salem, Massachusetts. One of the main things we wanted to see while in the area was various places used in the 1993 Disney movie "Hocus Pocus". Unfortunately we didn't have access to the film before the trip(why I never bought it before, I do not know!), so there were places we missed. But I am quite pleased with the locations we were able to find.

   The film starts in the past at a small village. I would include that location here, but the historic village was closed at the time, and photos from the fence show an area quite overgrown. You can barely make out the buildings through the woods.



   So we start with our main character, Max, riding home from school through the cemetery when he is stopped by some local bullies. This was filmed at Old Burial Hill in Marblehead, which is a few miles south of Salem. Geography-wise, this is going quite out of the way if he was headed home from the school in Salem to his home on Ocean Avenue! You can see the exact headstones match up almost perfectly in my photo with the screenshot from the film(although the gray one with the deathshead is completely different than the one there-not sure about that).

   The next location is Max and Dani's home. This is a beautiful home that sits Ocean Avenue, on the edge of a small inlet on Salem Harbor. As you can see, it is almost exactly the way it was all those years ago. Beautiful.

    Up next is the home of the girl that Max likes, Allison. From here the three head out to visit the old home/museum of the Sanderson Sisters, only to make matters much worse. The house is called the Ropes Mansion, was built in the 1720s, and is on Essex Street in Salem.

   Finally we have the Old Town Hall in Salem. In the movie, this is where the big adult Halloween party is taking place. The Sanderson Sisters show up and things go from bad to worse(no spoilers though!). The actual town hall here was built around 1816 and is right near the center of Salem. At first I had thought I had photographed the wrong side. The other side is the side facing a courtyard and the street, but also has three sets of stairs leading up to the three doors and there is no way a car could pull up the way the one does in the screengrab. I'm not sure why the windows were all boarded up during our visit, but at least I photographed the right side!

    Nearly all of the rest of the movie was filmed on a sound stage. But it was quite fun to see these locations from a movie that has been a family favorite for many years!


****All screenshots from the film are property of Disney films and whoever else owns them. The other four photos are copyright by me****