Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Hocus Pocus arrived from Walt Disney Pictures in the summer of 1993, a modestly received family comedy that found its true audience years later through home video and annual October television airings. Directed by Kenny Ortega, it paired Disney's family-friendly polish with a witch-comedy premise built around three resurrected sisters loose in Salem on Halloween night. Its afterlife as a seasonal perennial has made it one of the studio's more unlikely enduring properties, prized now less for its box office run than for the cult devotion it built decade by decade among fans who return to it every autumn.
This cell centers on Winifred Sanderson, the eldest and most commanding of the three Sanderson sisters, the role most identified with the film's popularity and the character collectors most often seek out. Winifred functions as the story's driving force, the sister whose ambitions and schemes propel the plot, making any frame bearing her name a piece of the film's central engine. Whether drawn from a trailer assembly, a title card, or a credits sequence, this kind of cell preserves the production's own presentation of its lead, the moment where audiences were formally introduced to her name and place in the story.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm theatrical release print of Hocus Pocus (1993).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges, evenly spaced; punched edges appear clean with no visible tearing or distortion.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along one edge between the perforations and the frame line, appearing as a dual bilateral variable-area (stereo) track; a Dolby Digital data block pattern is also visible in the inter-perforation gaps on the same edge, consistent with a Dolby SR·D combined track.
Edge print
The text 'EASTMA' is legible along the lower edge, reading in reverse, indicating the strip is emulsion-up; no key numbers are legible at this resolution.
Base & colour
The clear base shows a warm amber-yellow tint along the rebate; the dye image reads with rich, saturated colour and no visible fading or red shift.
Projection history
Light vertical scratching is visible across the frame area, consistent with a print that has passed through a projector gate.
Picture
Positive colour image; all three frames appear to be consecutive frames from a single continuous shot, and the period costume and interior setting are consistent with the theatrical release of the film on record.
Era check
The combined Dolby SR·D optical/digital soundtrack format and Eastman colour stock with amber base are consistent with a mid-1990s theatrical release print, matching the 1993 production date of the film on record.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000063376
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
