As "Hocus Pocus" celebrates its 25th anniversary, we look at why the film has endured, thanks to an annual dominance on TV in October.

For a generation of millennials reared in the 1990s, the arrival of fall is really just the beginning of “Hocus Pocus” season.

The 1993 Disney movie about the Sanderson sisters, three witches — played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy — burned at the stake in 1693 Salem only to be resurrected to run amok and steal the youth of children in the age of Kurt Cobain and acid-washed jeans has enjoyed the kind of afterlife most movies can only dream of.

Now you’re probably asking: "Why am I reading about a movie in a column about television?"

In the 25 years since its theatrical release, the film has come to define the fall season (and Halloween, in particular) for millennials and beyond thanks to a generous helping of annual reruns hosted by what was ABC Family and is now Freeform.

In a sense, “Hocus Pocus” has become a TV movie, an annual tradition to which movie fans make their pilgrimage through the small screen.

In those intertwining years, the film has become a staple — and often, centerpiece — of Freeform’s Halloween programing (recently rebranded the 31 Nights of Halloween, up from the original 13). This year, to celebrate the film’s quarter-century birthday, Freeform is showing it no less than 21 times Oct. 1-30, as well as staging a reunion special on Oct. 20.

It all culminates in a 24-hour marathon of “Hocus Pocus” and the reunion on Halloween, marking the official ceding of dominance to its October supremacy.

But what’s so special about it, you ask?

Well, it’s pretty simple — “Hocus Pocus” is just a great rewatchable movie.

My love of it is not unique in my age group and social circles. I’ve been quoting it ever since I wore out my first VHS copy and ABC Family started its annual tribute — just ask my parents.

As an adult, I appreciate “Hocus Pocus” as a snapshot of my childhood, set against the almost mythic beauty of a New England fall that I didn’t get to see growing up in North Carolina.

Seared into my mind are Midler's woodchuck front chompers, the gorgeously detailed costumes, the interesting conversation with my parents about what it meant that a virgin had to light the Black Flame candle, the lyrics to Midler’s giddy “I’ve Put a Spell on You” performance, the gothic-on-a-budget set design, the bizarre husband-and-wife cameo from real-life brother and sister Gary and Penny Marshall, and Najimy’s face as she takes flight on the same vacuum cleaner my grandparents used to own.

As a gay man, my love of the movie is only solidified now because it’s dripping in camp. The outrageous makeup and hair, the cheesy comedy, the exaggerated acting and the idiocy of the heterosexual teenage boy, it’s a feast of queer treats starring three gay icons.

More generally speaking, the film lives on because of its simplicity, which is not a dig at its quality. It’s a straightforward story of witches seeking revenge and vitality that doesn’t require much narrative imagination, freeing its audience up to find those nuanced flourishes like quotes and gestures we’ve come to latch onto.

The reliability of knowing it will be on your TV ready to welcome you into the chill of fall at the exact moment you’re sick and tired of the summer heat ingrains the movie in your life — or at least it does for those who grew up with it as a standard.

In many ways, it is television that has granted “Hocus Pocus” and the Sanderson sisters an immortally the big screen — and the souls of Salem’s children — never could.

Reporter Hunter Ingram can be reached at Hunter.Ingram@StarNewsOnline.com.