By The Wild Hunt Newsroom
Published: September 29, 2026
Nearly three decades after the Owens sisters first brought midnight margaritas, domestic witchcraft, and a delightfully chaotic resurrection spell to the silver screen, the legacy of Practical Magic has officially expanded. With the theatrical release of Practical Magic 2, Hollywood has once again thrust witches, generational trauma, and hereditary magic into the center of the cultural zeitgeist.
As The Wild Hunt has reported in recent weeks, the film arrives amid a broader, seasonal wave of witchcraft-themed entertainment. This cultural saturation has predictably reignited public discourse, drawing familiar critiques from conservative Christian commentators wary of sympathetic depictions of the occult. However, within modern Pagan and witchcraft communities, the conversation is far more nuanced. Beyond evaluating the film for cinematic merit, contemporary practitioners are watching to see how Hollywood handles a rare commodity: a story that frames witches not as malicious fairy-tale villains, but as complex, loving, eccentric, and fundamentally human people.
To unpack what the sequel gets right, what it completely botches, and whether it honors the spirit of Alice Hoffman’s literary universe, The Wild Hunt asked members of the Pagan community to share their evaluations. Following Meg Elison’s earlier critical assessment, "Nostalgia is a Curse," two other members of The Wild Hunt team—Stacy Psaros and Star Bustamonte—sat down to view the film. Their respective deep dives reveal that while the cinematic magic may be pure Hollywood hokum, the emotional resonance of the Owens family continues to strike a profound chord.
Main Facts: Returning to the World of the Owens Family
Practical Magic 2 picks up years after the events of the original 1998 film, operating as a loose adaptation of Alice Hoffman’s subsequent novel, The Book of Magic. Original stars Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman reprise their roles as Sally and Gillian Owens, joined by legacy cast members Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing as the beloved, unconventional Aunts Jet and Franny.
The plot centers on the enduring nature—and the heavy burdens—of the Owens family line. Despite the belief that the infamous generational love curse had been shattered in the original film, tragedy strikes early when Gary meets an untimely end. Devastated, Sally attempts to slam the door on her magical heritage entirely. She casts a self-imposed psychological and energetic ward, vowing never to practice magic again or even mention the family’s powers to her daughters, Antonia and Kylie.
Fast-forwarding to the present, Antonia is carving out a path as a dedicated neurosurgery student, while Kylie is a typical university student deeply in love with her boyfriend, Gideon. Gilly, meanwhile, has continued practicing magic in secret, honoring Sally’s desperate bid for normalcy.
Naturally, secrecy cannot hold back destiny. On Aunt Jet’s birthday, a mysterious raven guides her to a hidden library volume: Maria Owens’ long-lost Book of the Raven, a grimoire of left-handed magic containing the true instructions to finally undo the ancestral curse. When Kylie’s romance with Gideon is upended by a sudden, near-fatal car accident, she inadvertently discovers the truth of her heritage. Desperate to save Gideon, Kylie steals the forbidden book and flees to the family’s historical roots in England. This catalyst forces Sally, Gilly, and the aunts into a cross-continental rescue mission, plunging the family back into a world of hidden grimoires, malevolent magic-users, and hard-won self-acceptance.
Chronology of the Cinematic Return
The rollout of Practical Magic 2 has been marked by high anticipation and intense scrutiny from both mainstream culture and niche fandoms.
- Early September 2026: Advance screenings and trailers generate substantial social media buzz, prompting debates across online film forums and Pagan communities regarding the direction of the sequel.
- Mid-September 2026: The Wild Hunt publishes Meg Elison’s critique, "Nostalgia is a Curse," setting an analytical tone for how the outlet’s writers would approach the film. Elison argued that the sequel leans too heavily on familiar tropes, trading the raw potential of the original for safe, commercially packaged nostalgia.
- Late September 2026: Staff writers Stacy Psaros and Star Bustamonte complete their viewings, compiling their critiques on how Hollywood’s depiction of witchcraft holds up against real-world Pagan experiences.
- Present Day: The film continues to perform strongly at the box office, driving ongoing conversations across social media platforms and the official The Wild Hunt subreddit regarding media representation of modern witches.
Supporting Data and Cultural Context
While Hollywood’s framing of witchcraft has evolved significantly since the satanic panic eras of the 1980s and 90s, cinematic magic remains bound by strict narrative conventions. Practical Magic 2 is no exception, leaning heavily on tropes that simultaneously endear the film to audiences while drawing groans from actual practitioners.
Key Cinematic Tropes vs. Real-World Witchcraft
- The Gender Binary of Magic: The film perpetuates the tired trope that only women possess inherent magical capabilities. In reality, modern Paganism and witchcraft traditions embrace practitioners of all genders.
- The "Left-Hand Path" Villain: The sequel introduces a malevolent, repressed male antagonist practicing "black magic" to usurp power he is not owed. While narratively convenient for breaking the curse, it reinforces archaic moral binaries regarding magic.
- The Forbidden Grimoire: Complete with mystical pages that magically refuse to open until the precise bloodline conditions are met, the plot device draws heavily on Gothic horror tropes (akin to the Necronomicon) rather than how real grimoires or magical journals are compiled and utilized.
Despite these fantastical departures, the film succeeds in its core emotional framework: portraying witches not as monsters, but as a tight-knit family navigating the complexities of human relationships, generational trauma, and self-discovery.
Official Responses and Staff Reviews
The internal reviews from The Wild Hunt team highlight a fascinating dichotomy: the ability to simultaneously critique a film’s factual inaccuracies while deeply appreciating its emotional and cultural comfort.
Stacy’s Take: Romance, Curses, and Midnight Margaritas
Stacy Psaros approached the film with an eye for the comforting, rom-com beats that made the original a cult classic.
"A generational love curse. Chocolate tipsy cake. The aunts. Attempting to break said curse. Midnight Margaritas. No real magic to be found, but enough ‘Hollywood’ magic to make it fun," Psaros observed.
Psaros praised the film’s pacing and the nostalgic return of the Owens women, noting that while the narrative mechanics are predictable, the emotional payoff works. "I didn’t go into this movie expecting real magic, but the depiction of witches as normal, if eccentric, people gave me hope again, just like the original did. Pass me a margarita and a black umbrella. It’s time to fly."
Star’s Take: Hokum, Nostalgia, and Unresolved Characters
Star Bustamonte offered a sharper critique of the film’s reliance on outdated magical cliches, while still acknowledging its entertainment value.
"Hollywood has a long history of misrepresenting magical practices, no matter what filmmakers say about using actual practitioners as consultants. But to be fair, this was not a documentary. It was a film loosely based on Alice Hoffman’s novel The Book of Magic," Bustamonte noted.
Bustamonte expressed frustration with the continued erasure of male practitioners and the cartoonish framing of the film’s villain, describing the antagonist as "more of an entitled and clearly repressed white man who managed to convince himself he was owed something that he was not. I’ve met better potential villains on a late-night grocery run!"
However, Bustamonte praised the performances of the core ensemble—particularly Bullock, Kidman, Wiest, and Channing—and found deep poignancy in how the film handled the eventual passing of Aunts Jet and Franny. "We should all hope for such a soft and meaningful passing, frankly."
Broader Implications for Pagan and Witchcraft Representation
The release of Practical Magic 2 and the subsequent discussions within communities like The Wild Hunt underscore a broader reality about media consumption among modern Pagans: an audience can simultaneously possess a hyper-critical eye for occult tropes and a deep affection for comforting pop-culture myth-making.
When mainstream cinema portrays witches as complex protagonists rather than targets for persecution, it shifts the cultural baseline. Even when filtered through lenses of generational curses, magical books, and cinematic liberties, stories about the Owens family validate themes central to the Pagan experience: the importance of chosen and blood family, the struggle to accept one’s inherent nature, and the power of community healing.
As long as Hollywood continues to return to the well of magical realism, practitioners will likely continue to parse the line between cinematic fiction and lived reality. But as the Owens family demonstrates time and again, some things—like midnight margaritas and the refusal to deny who you truly are—are worth revisiting.
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