Winifred Sanderson
- “Lock up your children! Yes, Salem, we're back!”
- ―Winifred announcing the return of the Sanderson Sisters[src]
Winifred "Winnie" Sanderson is the main antagonist of Disney's 1993 film Hocus Pocus and its 2022 sequel. She is the eldest and most intelligent witch who lived during the time of the Salem Witch Trials, along with her two sisters: Mary and Sarah.
For her witchcraft, she was sentenced to death by the Salem townsfolk in 1693 and was later brought back from the dead by Max Dennison after three hundred years. Upon her return, Winifred began to terrorize the town in hopes of kidnapping children and stealing their souls to keep herself from dying and aging once more.
Who is the actress that played Winifred Sanderson in Hocus Pocus?
Bette Midler is the actress who plays the role of Winifred Sanderson in Hocus Pocus and its sequel. The character's younger version is portrayed by Taylor Henderson.
Provided by: Fandom
What is the name of Winifred Sanderson's sisters in the movie?
The sisters of Winifred Sanderson from Hocus Pocus are Mary and Sarah Sanderson. Mary, portrayed by Kathy Najimy, and Sarah, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, work alongside Winifred in their quest to regain youth and vitality by draining the life force from children.
Provided by: Fandom
How was Winifred Sanderson brought back to life in Hocus Pocus?
Winifred Sanderson from Hocus Pocus is resurrected in the sequel when two teenagers, Becca and Izzy, inadvertently light a Black Flame Candle in a magic shop. This shop is managed by Gilbert, a man familiar with the Sanderson Sisters' past. To halt the witches, the girls ally with Cassie Traske, a descendant of the Reverend who initially banished Winifred, and Mike, a local boy infatuated with Becca.
Provided by: Fandom
What was Winifred Sanderson's main goal upon her return in Hocus Pocus?
The main goal of Winifred Sanderson, the eldest and most intelligent of the Sanderson Sisters, upon her return was to regain her lost power. Known for her sorcerous abilities, she was a key antagonist in Disney's Hocus Pocus and its sequel. Her return was marked by her announcement, 'Lock up your children! Yes, Salem, we're back!' suggesting her intent to wreak havoc.
Provided by: Fandom
Winifred was born in 1637[1] in Salem, Massachusetts where she lived with her two younger sisters, Mary and Sarah as orphans after their father, an apothecary, died. At some point in her youth, Winifred shared a single kiss with a young boy named Billy Butcherson in a graveyard and grew to believe they were soulmates, despite the fact that he didn't reciprocate this feeling. It results in her obsession with him.
In 1653, on her sixteenth birthday, Reverend Traske arranged for Winifred to marry John Pritchett. However, she adamantly refused and took the Lord's name in vain twice due to her disgust for Pritchett, saying that she would only marry Billy. When she wouldn't relent in her decision, the Reverend deemed that she had defied the authority of the church and had her banished from Salem. Rather than allow her sisters to be taken away from her, Winifred escaped with them to the nearby forbidden wood. There, they made the acquaintance of a forest enchantress, whom they referred to as Mother, and she sensed that Winifred, too, was a witch. The enchantress gifted Winifred a spellbook, created by Satan himself, called the Manual of Witchcraft and Alchemy for her sixteenth birthday but explicitly warned the Sanderson sisters against casting a spell known as the Magicae Maxima. The Witch Mother also revealed to them that by killing children witches could stay young and "ridiculously" beautiful. Later that night, Winifred and her sisters successfully sought revenge against Reverend Traske by casting a spell to set fire to his home.[2]
Afterward, Winifred and her sisters moved into a cottage on the outskirts of Salem in the late 1600s where they worshipped Satan and practiced black magic. On May 1, 1693, when Winifred learned that Billy took her youngest sister Sarah as his lover, she, believing that he was cheating on her, flew into a jealous rage, poisoned him, and sewed his mouth shut with a dull needle so that he could not reveal her secrets even in death.
Winifred is highly intelligent, dramatic, sadistic, cruel, smart, temperamental, clever, logical, competent, wise, witty, and evil, which makes her all the more deadly if one isn't careful. Extremely vain, she is deeply offended whenever she is called ugly and swiftly punishes anyone who dares do so. According to Thackery Binx, when she caught her lover, Billy Butcherson, cheating on her with her very beautiful sister Sarah, she flew into a jealous rage and poisoned him, sewing his lips shut with a dull needle for good measure, and for being unfaithful to her, and due to this, Winifred is described to be always the most jealous type among her sisters.
As the eldest of her sisters, Winifred is their leader, though she probably would be anyway due to her cunning and competence, traits which her sisters lack. She is also shown to be much smarter, clever, brighter and observant than her younger sisters. Mary is her right-hand witch and compliments Winifred constantly, but Sarah's air-headed idiocy in particular frequently exasperates her to no good end. However, Winifred tolerates them either because her idolized mother asked her to, or because they each have invaluable, unique powers necessary for her plans. Her own unique power is electrokinesis, which can easily and painfully subdue pesky older siblings who get in her way.
But if there is one thing she truly loves in the world, it is her beloved spellbook. Originally owned by the Devil before being entrusted to generations of witches with herself as its latest heir and able to magically change its contents to fit the situation, it is a priceless treasure that she absolutely adores. When she speaks to her book, she mostly cares for, and mostly kind to it, just like the book is her own child.
Her spellbook helps her find the perfect spells and potions to cause misfortune to others, be it painfully transforming her victims into other creatures or brewing a potion to suck away their life force. Winifred enjoys harming others with wicked glee and even when facing execution, her sarcastic, cruel sense of humor remains unfazed.
Following her second resurrection, Winifred retains much of the same qualities, but she adapts better to the modern world than she did the first time. However, her power-hungry nature and stubbornness cause her to disregard her book's warnings about the dangers of the Magicae Maxima and become determined to perform it despite having promised The Witch Mother that she and her sisters would never use it, as she wanted to take revenge on the Traske bloodline for the wrongs done to the sisters by their ancestor, Reverend Traske. As a result of not reading the warning, Winifred accidentally sacrifices her sisters in exchange for power, something that utterly devastates her and makes her feel guilty. When faced with an eternal life alone with all the power that she has ever wanted, Winifred tries to give it all back to get Mary and Sarah back, revealing that she truly loves her sisters and that all of the power in the world isn't worth losing them. In doing so, Winifred shows a softer, more human side of herself. Winifred's utter heartbreak and devastation causes her book and enemies to agree to help her one last time. Even though the Spell for Reuniting did not bring them back but rather sent Winifred to them, she just laughs with delight as it means that she will be reunited with her sisters. Instead of being hateful and angry towards her enemies as she was in the past, Winifred thanks them and tells the girls that they are lucky to have each other before she vanished to be with her sisters again, implying Winifred had found peace.
Winifred's most striking feature is her fiery red hair, which she wears in a distinctive, curled bouffant style that resembles the shape of a heart. She wears shades of green that contrast nicely with her hair in the form of a richly embroidered velvet robe over a green and deep purple dress. Eyebrow-less, buck-toothed, and with claw-like fingernails, Winifred cuts a memorable figure enhanced by her strongly rouged cheeks and uniquely lipsticked mouth. She had striped green stockings and shoes with curved points. When she went outside, she wore a dark green hooded cloak.
As the oldest sister, Winifred is the most powerful and intelligent of the three witches, with an extraordinary proficiency in dark magic. The many effects she can achieve through dark magic include:

Winifred, alongside her sisters Mary and Sarah, curses Thackery into an immortal cat.
In 1693, the Sanderson Sisters, now graying and stooped with age, decide to brew the Life Potion, which will steal the life force of a child to restore their own youth and vitality. As Winifred and Mary work on the potion, they send Sarah out to lure a child with her siren-like voice. She soon returns with a young girl named Emily Binx, whom they bewitch in no time to sit docilely in a chair as they finish up the potion. However, just after Emily obediently drinks the potion, the girl's elder brother Thackery interrupts them and attempts to rescue her. Mary and Sarah gleefully chase him around the room, but he manages to knock them down by shoving their enormous cauldron at them, spilling the rest of the potion in the process. A furious Winifred easily subdues him with her powers before Mary points out that the potion is working: Emily's life force is visible. The sisters eagerly crowd around Emily and suck her life force away until their youth is restored and Emily dies of old age on Halloween night.[4]
Rejoicing at the success of their potion, the witches then turn their attention to Thackery. Winifred initially plans to simply kill him, but she changes her mind when he calls her a hag and decides that he deserves a harsher punishment. Together with her sisters, she curses him to live forever in the form of a black cat, doomed to live for all eternity with the guilt of his failure to save Emily.
Just after they perform the spell, an angry mob arrives at their cottage, led by Emily and Thackery's parents. Winifred and Mary attempt to barricade the door and convince the crowd that they're merely spinsters spending a quiet evening at home, but an air-headed Sarah impulsively adds that they've been killing children before her sisters can stop her. Soon enough, the sisters are captured and hanged. But before they die, Winifred casts one final spell declaring that on Halloween night when the moon is full, a virgin will summon them back from the dead, allowing them to once again claim the lives of all the children in Salem.

Winifred, alongside Sarah, are surprised by Dani's appearance.
A full three hundred years later, the sisters are revived when someone lights the Black Flame Candle, whose mysterious powers can summon them back from the dead- but only for a single night. Nevertheless, the sisters are overjoyed at returning to their cottage, even more so when Mary announces that she smells children. Her powerful nose leads them straight to a young girl's hiding place, forcing her, Dani, out into the open. They pick her up and almost succeed in throwing her into their cauldron when Dani's older brother, Max, - the one who lit the candle- jumps out of hiding, demanding that they release his sister. Amused, Winifred easily subdues him with her powers. Winifred practices her witchcraft on him delighted that she hasn't lost her touch at all. However, Dani and Max's friend, Allison manages to wallop Mary with a frying pan as Dani hits Winifred and Sarah with her trick-or-treat bag. Before Winnie can retaliate, a black cat attacks her out of nowhere, giving Dani enough time to wake up her dazed brother. Max triggers the sprinklers, which he convinces the witches is a "burning rain of death". The cat orders Max to grab the spellbook, batting at him impatiently when Max stares at the talking cat in shock. Nevertheless, he breaks into the glass case containing the book and makes his escape along with the cat.
The sisters find them at the cemetery and Winifred summons her ex-boyfriend, Billy Butcherson, to get her book back. The sisters encounter a bus driver and ride on the bus until Mary smells the children. But they were confused when the children were wearing costumes. They encounter a man dressed as Satan and mistaking him for their true master and his wife to be Medusa (a woman with snake-like curlers in her hair), but were so chased out of the house by the man's wife but finds their brooms gone after they were taken by some children dressed like the sisters. When Winifred unmasks a kid in a costume, she realizes the truth of Halloween children wear costumes and run amok which Sarah finds funny and Winfred punches her in the stomach to get her to stop.

Winifred sings "I Put a Spell on You".
The sisters went to a Halloween party where Max's parents and Max, Dani, and Allison tried to warn them, but they didn't believe them, so Max went to the stage and used a microphone to tell everyone about the Sanderson Sister and revealed them, but Winifred ridicules him before singing "I Put a Spell on You" therefore enchanting all the adults causing them to dance until they die. After this, they went to Max and Allison's high school where Max spoke through the microphone at the office telling them that the spellbook was there. The sisters heard a voice talking about a book which the sisters think is about the spellbook, but it was actually a tape recording and were unwittingly led to a kiln where the children locked the door and burned them alive after Allison got an idea from a restaurant.
However, they did not die due to the curse protecting them from death until sunrise. Mary used her smell to find Max, but they were led to two high school bullies, Jay and Ernie (better known as Ice) as Ernie was wearing Max's shoes that he stole them during their first encountering with Max and making fun of him. After Jay called the sisters ugly chicks, the sisters captured them and took them to their cottage locking them in small hanging cages. Knowing they didn't have much time left, Winifred tried to make the potion from memory, but she couldn't remember the ingredients and called out to her book and cried in despair.

Winifred shrieked after Dani called her ugly.
Allison and Max, despite the warnings that nothing good can come from the book, open it to find a cure for Thackery's immortality and the book sends out a signal after being opened. Winifred saw the signal and used a corn broom, while Sarah used a mop and Mary used a Hoover vacuum cleaner to fly to its location. They secretly invade the house and grab the book, but after accidentally breaking some glass and knowing that Max and Alison would come to get Dani and Thackery, they hide in the closet as Sarah hides under the blankets. Max and Alison arrived and the sisters revealed themselves. The sisters violently explode from the house, but not before Winifred reveals the nature of the spell that brought them back to Allison.
Winifred and Mary made their way back to the cottage while Sarah sang her siren song to all the children of Salem so they would go to the house. When Dani calls her "the ugliest thing that ever lived", Winifred decides to kill her first. After brewing the potion again they try to get Dani to drink it, but are stopped by Max who tricks them into thinking the sun has risen by using the headlights of his parents' car and Max drains all the potion. However they realize they have been tricked and Winifred is upset that her potion is all gone, but there is still enough potion left for one child. Despite Sarah and Mary saying that they have Jay and Ernie and that more children are here, Winifred wants to use the life potion on Dani as revenge for calling her ugly.

Winifred is turned to stone after stepping foot on hollowed grounds in a cemetery.
The sisters chase after them and Winifred orders Billy to kill Max, but he uses Max's knife to sever the stitches on his lips, he apparently breaks the control Winifred has over him and joins the kids against them. Dani is put in Billy's grave while Allison circles some salt around to prevent the witches from reaching her. The sisters arrived and fought the kids and Billy. When Winifred knocked down Billy's head, Dani came out to give Billy his head back giving Winifred the opportunity to grab her. Winifred takes out the vial of potion and tries to force Dani into opening her mouth to drink it to "teach" her a lesson about "calling people ugly", but Thackery saves Dani by knocking the last vial of the life-stealing potion out of Winifred's hand and Max catches it. Winifred grabs Thackery and throws him to a rock. Max threatens to smash the vial of potion, but Winifred threatens to kill Dani if he does. With no other choice, Max drinks the potion and Winifred lets Dani go and grabs Max trying to suck his life force, but Max tried to hold her off while Dani, Allison, and Billy hold back Sarah and Mary to prevent them from helping Winifred by grabbing the plug hanged from Mary's vacuum cleaner. They let go causing the two sisters to fly high up to the air out of control and letting Max and Winifred fall to the ground. Winifred recovers and tries to steal Max's life force, but because she is standing on hallowed ground, she turns to stone as the sun comes up. Sarah and Mary both explode, with Winifred's statue doing so afterward.
At the end of the film, however, the book is seen and it blinks, therefore hinting the sisters are not entirely gone.
In 2022, Winifred and her sisters are resurrected once again when two girls Becca and Izzy light a new Black Flame Candle. Gilbert, the owner of the magic shop that the Sanderson Sisters' cottage was turned into, reveals that he had witnessed the sisters in 1993 when he was a young boy. After finding Winifred's spellbook, Gilbert learned how to make a new Black Flame Candle and tricked Becca and Izzy into resurrecting the Sanderson Sisters.
Winifred decides that this time, they will perform the Magicae Maxima, the Power Spell that the Witch Mother had warned them that they must never ever perform. However, the book resists Winifred's attempts to read the spell, causing her to force the spellbook to show her it. Winifred sends Gilbert to dig up Billy Butcherson, needing his head for the spell, and gives him a time limit or his life will be forfeit and traps the girls in the basement. Before leaving, Winifred hides her book on a bookshelf full of replicas of the spellbook and departs with her sisters in search of Mayor Traske, their old archenemy Reverend Traske's descendants, for his blood.
At the town festival, the Sanderson Sisters bewitch the attendees by singing "One Way or Another" and send them out to help them find Mayor Traske. They're eventually led to his house by Cassie Traske's boyfriend Mike where Becca, having escaped, confronts them with a water bottle full of what she claims is the only Aralia berry juice in Salem, threatening to pour it out if they don't let her out alive. As Becca distracts the witches, Izzy and Cassie trap them in a salt circle, intending to leave them there until sunrise. However, the Mayor comes home, inadvertently revealing to the witches that Cassie is also a part of the Traske bloodline. The Roombas that Mary had been using to fly arrive and clean up the salt circle, freeing the Sanderson Sisters who kidnap Cassie and take her to the Forbidden Wood.
There, Gilbert has gathered all of the other ingredients, including the severed head of Billy who has been stuck as a zombie ever since Winifred awakened him in 1993. Winifred magically restores Billy's stitches in order to shut him up, gathers Cassie's blood and summons the book to her in order to perform the spell. After blasting Gilbert away, the witches begin performing the spell, but they are interrupted by Becca who has just discovered that she is also a witch. However, Becca proves to be no match for the Sanderson Sisters whose powers have been increased by the interrupted spell. Izzy frees Cassie and they flee, chased by Mary and Sarah. Noticing the spellbook's reluctance regarding the spell, Becca manages to convince it to abandon Winifred. The witches attack Becca, Izzy and Cassie, but they manage to shield themselves by sharing their power and Winifred decides to finish the spell without her book's help.
The witches manage to complete the Magicae Maxima and celebrate their new power, discovering that the Black Flame Candle has gone out, but they are still alive. Becca, Izzy and Cassie arrive and tell Winifred that she should've read the warning in the book about the spell: it takes what the caster values most as the price for the power. As this is her sisters for Winifred, Mary and Sarah turn to dust. Utterly devastated and heartbroken by her sisters' deaths, Winifred desperately tries to reverse the spell and begs her book for help. Sympathetic to its' old mistress, the book opens to a spell for the girls and Winifred tells Becca that she is a new witch and that only a witch and her coven can manifest what is written. Winifred begs the girls for help, willing to give up all of her power just to have her sisters back as her powers are nothing without them. Becca agrees to help Winifred and she, Izzy and Cassie perform the Spell for Reuniting. Mary and Sarah don't return, and Becca explains that the spell works by sending Winifred to her sisters, not the other way around. As Winifred begins to disintegrate into dust and delighted, she thanks the girls, telling them that they are lucky to have each other. Mary and Sarah's dust swirls around Winifred as she turns to dust and implodes, reuniting with her sisters in the afterlife. Watching the deaths of the Sanderson Sisters, the book cries.
However, Gilbert's cat, Cobweb, watches over a box containing another Black Flame Candle, suggesting that the Sanderson sisters may not be gone for good.
Winifred makes an appearance in the video game Disney Emoji Blitz. She is a playable character who has the ability to resurrect the most recently used powerups from the grave. She and her sisters, Mary and Sarah, are currently the only playable Hocus Pocus characters.

Winifred Sanderson, as she appears in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode.
Winifred, alongside her sisters: Sarah and Mary, appears in Disney Heroes: Battle Mode, originally for special events during the 2021 Halloween season. In the game, Winifred's abilities are referenced from her original film - including magic-green sparks from her hands, throwing the potion vial, and placing an enchantment upon enemies through song.
When Winifred is defeated in the game, she will spark green and blast away.

Winnie Sarah and Mary at Disney World
Winifred and her sisters returned in a special Castle Show at the Magic Kingdom. During the show she and her sisters try to brew the perfect Halloween Potion, receiving assistance from various Disney Villains. She isn't respectful towards the first two characters but she treats Maleficent with respect. After completing the Potion, she celebrates by singing "I Put a Spell on You".
- One possible explanation for her unusual knowledge is that Winifred possessed some manner of clairvoyance that enabled her awareness of certain things or she simply learned about driving permits in the brief amount of time she was resurrected.
- This turned out to be false in the sequel, as it was mentioned that the Sisters' father, who had died before Winifred's sixteenth birthday, had been an apothecary.
v - e - d | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
v - e - d | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
v - e - d | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|