Disney has long been known for its animated films and long before the studio embarked on the journey to remake many of those classic films, they created a number of original live-action stories. One such film was Hocus Pocus, a spooky tale which focuses on the Sanderson Sisters who prayed upon the village of Salem until 1693. After being hung for their crimes, 300 years later they are inadvertently awoken where they continue their quest of eternal youth but in a strange new world. The film was released in 1993 and soon became a cult hit and last year a follow-up was released on Disney+. The fandom around the film is so great it inspired fan designer Amber Veyt to recreate the Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage for LEGO Ideas. It was chosen to become a future Ideas set which will be released next month. Here’s an early look at this interesting upcoming new set.
Product Details
Capture the bewitching joy of a classic film with this collectible LEGO® Ideas Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage (21341) set. The cottage can be opened in multiple ways for easy viewing of the interior details, including the museum gift shop, cauldron with a LEGO light brick to illuminate the fire underneath, Book of Spells and the witches’ bat-infested bedroom. Detach the side room where Dani Dennison was captured by the witches and turn the water wheel outside to make pink ‘smoke’ puff out of the chimney.
Nostalgic fun
A top Halloween gift idea for fantasy-comedy fans, the set features 6 LEGO minifigures, plus a Thackery Binx (in cat form) figure. The characters come with lots of accessory elements to bring Disney Hocus Pocus scenes to life, including a green lightning spell, Dani’s Halloween pumpkin bucket and the broom, mop and vacuum cleaner the witches fly on in the film. The gate/graveyard build can be used as a display stand for all the included characters.
- Set Name: Disneys’s Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage
- Set Number: 21341
- Theme: LEGO Ideas
- Pieces: 2316
- RRP: £199.99/$229.99/299.99€
- Number of Bags: Bags x 15
- Stickers: Sheet x 1
- Minifigures: Winifred Sanderson, Sarah Sanderson, Mary Sanderson, Max Dennison, Dani Dennison and Allison Watts, plus a Thackery Binx in cat form
- Instructions: Paper Booklet + Builder App
- Availability: LEGO Stores & LEGO Online from July 1st (VIP Early Access) July 4th (General Release)
The original design was submitted to LEGO Ideas by Amber Veyt back in 2020 where it soon hit 10,000 supporters but unfortunately, it wasn’t approved. However, you can’t keep a good witch down and the project was resubmitted to LEGO Ideas in 2021, this time around it was chosen by the LEGO Ideas team to become the 49th LEGO Ideas set. Making it the latest Disney film to inspire a LEGO Ideas set. Obviously, there are a few differences between the fan design and the set being released next month. The final set includes fewer minifigures and the layout of the cottage is a little different. Here’s the original design to act as a comparison. You can see more images of Amber’s fan design here.
Although the instructions look a little plain on the outside, there are a few pages dedicated to the fan designer’s story, a focus on the LEGO Design Team behind the set and some trivia about the films. It’s certainly a missed opportunity to not make the instructions look like the sentient Spellbook used by the witches in the film.
Before building the cottage, you create a smaller, separate section which forms part of a graveyard and the main gate to the cottage. It’s a simple little build, but it has some nice little details, including a couple of Easter Eggs on the gravestones. Unfortunately, as the set doesn’t include Billy Butcherson the graveyard is quite small and doesn’t feature his final resting place, which was featured in the original fan design.
The cottage building is built in an unusual way. Normally enclosed buildings such as this have large interlocking wall panels, with the buildings built in stacked layers or two halves so the interior can be accessed. Here the building is made up of various smaller wall panels. It doesn’t make it fragile in any way but it does help capture the cottage’s 17th-century design along with its rundown appearance later on in the film.
I like how detailed the exterior is, with overgrown plants snaking up the walls, panelled walls and a crumbling roof. You’ll also notice the large water wheel, which powered one of the set’s main working functions. The Wheel is connected to the rod inside the cottage which runs through the chimney stack. Turning the wheel causes the purple smoke to bellow from the cottage. There’s also a hidden switch in the base of the cottage, when pressed it illuminates the fires under the cauldron inside the cottage.
The interior is filled with detail, if have watched Hocus Pocus, you’ll know the cottage is featured in two different time periods – the 17th century and 300 years later in the early 90s. The modern-day version of the cottage has seen the building turned into a museum focused on the legend of the Sanderson Sisters. So it features elements from both time periods including the cauldron, various pots and potions, plus the fabled spellbook. It also has some of the furnishings from when it was a museum such as a till and various information plates. Many of these features can be removed such as you wish to have the cottage in its original form.
The interior is a little tricky to access, in my opinion. You can access the interior of the set by opening a pair of doors at the back of the set. But this doesn’t offer easy access to all of the set, although it does give you a better view of the interior. You can also flip open one half of the roof to give further access to the interior. This is where you’ll find another rather grim Easter Egg, with two hanging cages featuring a pair of skeletons. This suggests both Ice and Jay remained trapped in their cages and were left to perish.
There are some fun buildable elements found in the set, which tie to key moments from the film, some of my favourites include the Witches’ alternative broomsticks, the spellbook’s display case and the black flamed candle. It’s a shame some of these are so hidden away within the set as they become difficult to see.
As mentioned, the set doesn’t feature as many characters as the fan design. But there’s a good reason for that. Many of the characters have a unique appearance which can only be truly captured by creating new elements. The more characters the set would include, the more new elements it would require, which would push up the set’s price even more. Or existing elements would be used and the characters would look as good. Instead, the focus on just the main characters results in great recreations of them, particularly the witches.
The three witch sisters have quite quirky looks in the films, not the classic witchy appearance but each sister is unique with what they wear, their faces and their hairstyles. Their minifigure versions are great, you can instantly tell who they are. Both Winifred and Mary have new hairpieces, there really wasn’t any other way to capture their unique hairdos than with new elements. Their faces are also quite fun and perfectly capture each of the witches’ comedic expressions. The three other characters are inspired by the kids from the film. Max and Alison are fairly generic in their appearance, which is to be expected but Dani is a great minifigure. Her outfit is really detailed and the hair and witches hat combo makes it one of the set’s best minifigures. Binx is also included in the set in his cursed cat form.
Overall
The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage is an interesting set to build. Creating the exterior is quite unusual as it’s made up of various sections of the outer wall, instead of large panels. This gives it some unique details both inside and out. There are plenty of little nods to the film within the set although they can be difficult to see due to the access to the inside the set. It’s also a shame that some of the stickered pieces are printed. Regardless, it is a fun set to build and although it does miss a couple of characters, those included in the set are perfectly executed, in particular the witches and Dani. It’s a great set for fans of the film but also looks generic enough to fit in with other sets from a similar era. One thing I’m very surprised by is that the set is being released so soon after it was chosen to become a future set. It’s been under a year since the set was revealed as a future LEGO Ideas set. So the timescale between design and release is quite impressive. Disney’s Hocus Pocus The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage set will be available through VIP early access from July 1st before its general release on July 4th.
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This set was provided to BricksFanz by the LEGO Group for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or Disney. Providing a set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
