Ever since Hocus Pocus first hit theaters in 1993 it quickly became a fan-favorite Halloween flick. Starring Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica ParkerKathy Najimy, Omri Katz, Thora Birch, Doug Jones and Vinessa Shaw, the film followed the story of Winifred, Sarah and Mary Sanderson, three witches who come back to life after they have been dead for 300 years when a teenager named Max lights the black flame candle. While Max, his sister and his girlfriend attempt to kill the three witches, the hags try to kidnap all the children in Salem, Massachusetts, so they can stay young forever.

Nearly 30 years later, and the spooky movie is still a classic Halloween film with a sequel released in 2022! After rumors about a Hocus Pocus 2 bad been swirling fo years, Disney confirmed in May 2021 that there was more to come from the Sanderson sisters.

Fans of the witches are able to watch Hocus Pocus  and its sequel on repeat all October long (and even after) thanks to Disney’s streaming service. But as it turns out, the classic flick wasn’t all talking cats and broomsticks when the cast was on set back in the day.

“It basically was everything I could have dreamed of in a movie like that and especially I also watched The Wizard of Oz over and over again as like a basically 5 and 6-year-old. So this felt like a modern version of The Wizard of Oz for me. It was [one of] my favorite projects I’ve worked on,” Vinessa told Entertainment Tonight about the flick in October 2021, sharing her favorite on-set moments. “The cat being one of the first CGI cats and all the breakthrough things.”

How did they bring Thackery Binx the cat to life? The actress spilled some tea!

“What was so cool about the cats was there was literally a wall of cats that all could do one thing, so they trained them to do one thing,” she told ET. “So if they jumped on your shoulder, that was the one thing they could do. Or if they slept on you while you were holding them, that was the best cat for that job. And the cat who like slammed the book closed when we were trying to figure out a spell, when we were running from the sisters. … I just loved the fact that every cat had one thing that they could do and we basically had a buzzer in our pocket when you see the scenes with us and a cat. You press the buzzer and then the cat does whatever it does, so we’re hiding these buzzers in our pocket and had to feed them cat food during rehearsals so they would know to follow us, jump on us, sleep with us.”

There’s actually a bunch of seriously shocking behind-the-scenes secrets about the spellbinding movie. Scroll through our gallery to uncover them all!

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