I forgot this was a thing until youtube recommended me a clip. I skimmed over it and a plot summary. Thanks, Disney. I'm not religious and suddenly I feel like crossing myself and reaching for a rosary. I remember the original, where the three witches were evil and selfish. Not just the run-of-the-mill Disney slapstick evil, but casually joked about when they sold their souls to the devil, their spellbook bound in human skin, filled with recipes for cursing people with plagues, cursing people into animal form for hundreds of years, a potion that drained the life from children to maintain your youth. You know, fun Wicca book of shadows stuff!
Now we're in the sequel. ~Sassy~ Winifred defied the mean church man wanting to wield his Patriarchal power to make her (yuck) MARRY someone! The sisters fled into the woods where they met a witch! She gave them the spellbook and warned against casting the omnipotence spell! 400 years and change later, we've got Super Awesome Sarcastic Brown Teenage Wicca Girls; I need not describe them further because you know every single template these characters fall into. Shenanigans ensue. They learn they're also witches! They can do magic spells and fight the freshly re-resurrected Sanderson sisters. Winifred eventually finishes her omnipotence spell but OH NO! There was a price! Her sisters died casting it! Now she's sad. The three teenagers use the spellbook and do some Charmed shit to send her to "be with her sisters", which destroys her. She smiles and vanishes. The three girls walk into the sunrise holding Winifred's spellbook, talking about practicing their new powers while the original forest witch flies overhead.
What the f u c k. I'm all for a story where magic is a neutral (potentially misunderstood!) tool, and the morality comes from the person using it. This story isn't one of them. Hey girls, don't you want a devil book of your own? Real human skin with child-murdering spells on the Disney store, only $299.95 plus shipping. If you act now, you get a free pact with Satan for your very own Paplatine lightning fingers!
If I grew up calibrating my moral compass using streaming services today, I'd learn that the key feature of a hero is becoming a murderous, bloodthirsty torturing sociopath anytime someone upsets me, and that the correct resolution to this is the other party realizing they were wrong for upsetting me and apologizing for it.
