By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
Why Watch This Movie With Your Students
Here's what your students naturally take away from the movie, whether through themes, values, ideas, or perspectives.
🕯️ A friendship tested by a chain of choices. Becca and Izzy's decision to light the candle sets off consequences neither of them expected, giving students a story built on how one impulsive choice among friends can spiral quickly.
🧹 Three larger than life villains. Winifred, Mary, and Sarah return with distinct personalities and comedic chemistry, giving students a clear example of how a well defined antagonist trio can drive an entire story's energy.
🤝 Old friendships tested by growing apart. Becca, Izzy, and Cassie's shifting dynamic, from childhood closeness to teenage distance and back again under pressure, gives students a relatable look at how friendships change and get rebuilt.
🎃 A fast paced Halloween night adventure. The movie's single night structure and Salem setting give students a fun, high energy pace that keeps the central conflict moving without lagging.
📽️ A direct sequel with a built in comparison. As a follow up to the original Hocus Pocus, the movie gives students studying both a chance to compare tone, character development, and storytelling choices across a thirty year gap.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- The witches repeatedly discuss wanting to eat children to stay young, though this is played for comedic effect rather than depicted graphically.
- A decapitated zombie character appears in a gross out sequence.
- Teenagers are shown drinking at a party where no adults are present.
- Brief references to virginity and kissing, played for comedic effect.
- No strong language.
📋 A free editable parent permission slip is available for this movie. It explains the educational benefits of watching movies in class and includes a space for parental consent. → Download Free Permission Slip on TpT (Free resource)
Note for educators: Movie details and age ratings in this post are sourced from IMDb, Common Sense Media, and Wikipedia to help ensure accuracy.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
📚 English Language Arts Teachers. As a sequel to a well known Halloween classic, the movie pairs naturally with an ELA unit on sequels, adaptation, or narrative structure, especially alongside a viewing of the original. The guide's three differentiated comprehension question sets, storyboard, and synopsis tasks give students structured ways to demonstrate understanding, while the character writing and spell design tasks push into more open ended creative writing.
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers. The 30-question multiple choice set works well for ESL and ELL students, giving them a lower-barrier way to follow the movie's fast paced plot. The storyboard task also gives language learners a way to demonstrate understanding of the sequence of events without relying solely on written English.
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons. Hand it to a substitute and walk away. The three differentiated comprehension question sets, storyboard, synopsis, character writing, and spell design tasks all come with clear instructions, and answer keys are included for the comprehension questions, so a substitute can run the full session without having seen the movie.
🏠 Homeschool Parents. Hocus Pocus 2 makes for a fun, low pressure Halloween season watch for home learners, especially paired with the original movie. The guide's character writing and spell design tasks work well as independent creative projects for a single student, and the differentiated comprehension questions let them work at whatever level suits them.
🌟 Supporting All Learners Movie guides can be a wonderfully calm fit for students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities. The structured format gives every student a clear purpose during viewing, easing uncertainty and allowing them to engage at their own pace. If you teach in a special education or learning support setting, you may find this guide a gentle and practical resource. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 14-page classroom-ready resource.
Part 1: Comprehension Questions
Three differentiated sets of chronological comprehension questions: 45 full sentence questions, a shorter 30 question version, and a 30 question multiple choice set well suited to ESL and ELL students. Answer keys are included for all three sets.
Part 2: Storyboard and Synopsis
Students draw a 9 scene storyboard of what they consider the most important moments in the movie, with a brief description for each scene, then use it as the basis for writing their own synopsis of the story.
Part 3: Character Writing and Creativity
Students write about one of the Sanderson sisters, including a drawing, a description, what they liked and disliked about the character, and one thing they would change about the character's fate. A second task has students design an original spell, including its name, incantation, a visual representation, and any possible warnings.
“I used this with my Film as Literature class. It was great around Halloween.”
— April H.
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
A movie is not a break from learning. It reaches students through sight, sound, and story at once, engaging the brain in ways text alone does not, and the structured work around it is what turns the viewing into a genuine lesson. You can read the research behind this on the Why Movies Work page.
- A Teacher Notes and General Directions page opens the guide with a brief overview of everything inside: what the movie is about, then each part of the guide in order with a short description of what it entails. You know what to expect from the whole resource before you hand out a single page, so you can pick up the guide cold and teach it the same day.
- Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets, so grading is quick and you are not rewatching the movie to check answers. Some guides also include example answers for the creative and written activities.
- Print and go: classroom ready, with no additional preparation needed. Print one the morning you need it and the lesson is ready.
- Substitute and first-timer friendly. A guide can be handed to a substitute or picked up by a teacher covering the topic for the first time. Nobody running the session needs to have seen the movie.
- Differentiated comprehension sets. Most guides include two or three question sets at different difficulty levels, and most include a multiple-choice option that works well for ESL and ELL students. One class set covers your strongest readers, your strugglers, and your language learners without separate prep.
- Activities that go beyond recall. Each guide includes structured activities that ask students to engage with the movie, not just watch it, ranging from creative and written tasks to discussion and critical thinking questions depending on the guide. That variety matters in a mixed classroom: a student who freezes on a written question set may show real understanding through a drawing or a creative task, and a confident writer gets room to go beyond recall. For the teacher, it turns a movie session into work that can actually be assessed: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
