Whether you’re a fully paid-up member of the Disney witches’ coven or are just now learning that there’s a movie called Hocus Pocus, there’s something in LEGO Ideas
When the LEGO Group first gave the green light to Amber Veyt’s Hocus Pocus-inspired build, vast swathes of the LEGO community were left scratching their collective head. The 30-year-old Disney movie currently holds a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, bombed hard at the box office on release – the Halloween movie bizarrely launched in July, and faced stiff competition from Free Willy, a Snow White re-release and the powerhouse that was Jurassic Park – and recovered just $8 million of its $28 million budget.
But look a little closer, and the real reasons for this set begin to emerge. In effect,
Aiming for such a wide audience is a lot of pressure to place on the shoulders of a single set, though – so can
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Theme: LEGO Ideas Set name:
Price: £199.99 / $229.99 / €229.99 Pieces: 2,316 Minifigures: 6 (plus one cat)
LEGO:
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LEGO Ideas
--- LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage build ---
Before it begins to tackle striking a balance between its demographics,
Modularity is undoubtedly more practical for play, allowing for better access to a building’s interiors, but the approach taken by
The compromise – and this is really where the set pins its display colours to the mast – is that much of the interior is pretty difficult to access once every last brick is in place. You can look inside, but don’t expect to get your fingers in there and start messing around or, you know, playing with the thing. That makes removing the museum signage, velvet ropes and desk – a much-touted feature to allow the model to sit in 1693 or 1993, as per the movie – a trickier task than you might expect.
Given most of us will be displaying this anyway (it’s an 18+ set with a £200 price tag, after all), the LEGO Group will likely hear few complaints about its decision to sweep aside playability. But it’s interesting to see where
The result is a breezy and enjoyable building experience, as you hop from putting up the walls to furnishing the cottage and back again throughout the five-hour construction process. Cooing over all those tiny internal details afterwards is good fun too, at least for Hocus Pocus fans, from the black flame candle (with a trans-black flame, despite what the renders would have you believe) to the Manual of Witchcraft and Alchemy (written in blood and bound in human skin in the film, but a simple stickered book here).
The designers have played fast and loose with the furnishings, but there was plenty of room for creative interpretation: you don’t actually get a properly thorough look at the cottage’s interior in the movie, and of course that’s a film set where they can get away with much more, so nobody should be calling
Building up those walls will give you a fair few ideas of how to expand your own medieval village, while the set’s headline function is a joy to play with: turn the water wheel and see the purple flames bubble away in the chimney. It’s simple in both concept and execution, but the best play features often are. And for all that
This is probably starting to sound like the full package for Hocus Pocus fans, but the burning question remains: does this set manage to stick the landing for both of its audience segments? Can it be all things to all people? Well… yes. It’s packed with enough details (and characters – more on those further down) to sell it instantly to Hocus Pocus fans, weaving just enough LEGO magic to ensure it’s instantly recognisable as the cottage from the cult classic movie – but at the same time, it’s very easy to strip away those details (or at least, the ones you don’t find relevant) and slot this into a medieval layout.
An equal amount of care has also gone into selling this as a detailed, displayable building that lives up to its 18+ tag, from its dishevelled wooden beams to its patchy slate roof. The aesthetic is absolutely in line with (for example) 21325 Medieval Blacksmith, which has never really had a true companion –
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Maybe the biggest sticking point with
But while you can see why Disney has then left out human Thackery and his sister Emily (and also because Emily met her demise at the beginning of the movie – bit dark for LEGO), the most puzzling omission remains Billy Butcherson. He has a pretty big role to play in Hocus Pocus, as antagonist-turned-ally (with a hint of comedic relief), but the only reference to the undead character here comes on a stickered tombstone. Maybe Disney also didn’t want a zombie wandering around a LEGO set with its logo on the box?
Anyway, enough about what’s not here, because the six minifigures that are in the box are pretty much all perfect. Winifred and Mary benefit from brand new hairpieces; Max makes great use of a wig originally introduced in 21339 BTS Dynamite; and Dani is maybe the cutest minifigure you’ll see this year, repurposing an unreleased hat-and-hair element designed for the cancelled LEGO VIDIYO line.
All but one of these minifigures has leg printing, too, and there are versatile parts in the mix for non-Hocus Pocus fans. Dani’s mid-sized legs are maybe the only part to take to task: they’re ostensibly so she can sit down in the cottage’s chair, recreating the scene in the movie in which the witches attempt to drain her soul, but they make her way too tall. A set of plain red short legs would have been a nice addition, allowing us to choose Dani’s height depending on how we display her.
Beyond that minor niggle, this is a superb selection of minifigures that genuinely elevates
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This section of our reviews is honestly becoming increasingly tiresome to write, because for the vast majority of LEGO sets released in 2023, the verdict is the same: it’s just that bit too expensive. The same is true of
We’ve made the comparison already in this review, but Clemens Fiedler’s Middle Ages model feels like the closest contemporary for
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Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of – no, hang on, wrong witches. Let’s try this again: faithful details and a fun build, fantastic characters and far-reaching appeal: these are the ingredients to the potion that is
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the first Hocus Pocus film, which has since become a cult classic, and the 100th anniversary of Disney. Hocus Pocus 2 is fresh in the minds of fans, and a third film is on the way. That’s enough ground alone to justify bringing the series to LEGO Store shelves, and that’s before you consider the second (potentially much bigger) audience the subject matter unlocks.
It was never a given – and has taken the careful attention to detail of both Veyt and a team of LEGO designers – but the execution of this medieval building is so impressive that it genuinely doesn’t matter if you’ve seen a single frame of Bette Midler with buck teeth: here is a LEGO Ideas model that you’re going to want anyway.
And all that is more than enough to prove that this set isn’t just a bunch of hocus pocus.
| Entertaining build with a great headline function | Missing key characters |
| Delightful and desirable minifigures | Tricky to access the deepest interiors of the cottage |
| Surprisingly wide appeal |
This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.
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--- Alternatives to LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage ---
The most obvious alternative to
For a more affordable (but far less detailed) Disney house, there's always 43217 'Up' House.
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