LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage review

Whether you’re a fully paid-up member of the Disney witches’ coven or are just now learning that there’s a movie called Hocus Pocus, there’s something in LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage for you.

When the LEGO Group first gave the green light to Amber Veyt’s Hocus Pocus-inspired build, vast swathes of the LEGO community were left scratching their collective head. The 30-year-old Disney movie currently holds a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, bombed hard at the box office on release – the Halloween movie bizarrely launched in July, and faced stiff competition from Free Willy, a Snow White re-release and the powerhouse that was Jurassic Park – and recovered just $8 million of its $28 million budget.

But look a little closer, and the real reasons for this set begin to emerge. In effect, 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage is a one-two punch: first, it’s keying into the cult following that the movie has managed to amass over the past three decades, born out of strong home video sales and seasonal re-releases in cinemas; and second, it’s gunning for that not-insignificant slice of the LEGO community that just loves medieval builds.

Aiming for such a wide audience is a lot of pressure to place on the shoulders of a single set, though – so can 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage pull off that rare product with surprisingly successful cross appeal, or like Icarus, is it in danger of flying too close to the sun? 

— LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage set details —

Theme: LEGO Ideas Set name: 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage Release date: July 1 (VIPs), July 4 (wide), 2023

Price: £199.99 / $229.99 / €229.99 Pieces: 2,316 Minifigures: 6 (plus one cat)

LEGO: Available July 1 (VIPs)

— Where to buy LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage —

LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage will be available exclusively from LEGO.com and LEGO Stores from July 1. Most Ideas sets typically enjoy a three-month exclusivity window through official channels, then go on sale at one or more third-party retailers. If you want it sooner, try to time it with double VIP points or a gift-with-purchase.

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— LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage build —

Before it begins to tackle striking a balance between its demographics, 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage also seeks a sort of balance between play and display – but instead of sitting completely on the fence, it swings its metaphorical legs suggestively into the field of display. That’s immediately obvious through how it rejects the standard modular approach of LEGO buildings in 2023, eschewing removable roofs and floors for hinges.

Modularity is undoubtedly more practical for play, allowing for better access to a building’s interiors, but the approach taken by 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage is better suited to a set designed first and foremost for display. You can lift up the roof or swing out the walls to peek inside, perhaps to show off the interior to friends and family, but you don’t need to disassemble anything.

The compromise – and this is really where the set pins its display colours to the mast – is that much of the interior is pretty difficult to access once every last brick is in place. You can look inside, but don’t expect to get your fingers in there and start messing around or, you know, playing with the thing. That makes removing the museum signage, velvet ropes and desk – a much-touted feature to allow the model to sit in 1693 or 1993, as per the movie – a trickier task than you might expect.

Given most of us will be displaying this anyway (it’s an 18+ set with a £200 price tag, after all), the LEGO Group will likely hear few complaints about its decision to sweep aside playability. But it’s interesting to see where 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage makes tough calls, while in other areas attempts to please pretty much everyone. Some of that comes through in that very same interior, which is packed to the brim with interesting oddities.

The result is a breezy and enjoyable building experience, as you hop from putting up the walls to furnishing the cottage and back again throughout the five-hour construction process. Cooing over all those tiny internal details afterwards is good fun too, at least for Hocus Pocus fans, from the black flame candle (with a trans-black flame, despite what the renders would have you believe) to the Manual of Witchcraft and Alchemy (written in blood and bound in human skin in the film, but a simple stickered book here).

The designers have played fast and loose with the furnishings, but there was plenty of room for creative interpretation: you don’t actually get a properly thorough look at the cottage’s interior in the movie, and of course that’s a film set where they can get away with much more, so nobody should be calling 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage out for inaccuracies. More pressing are a couple of peculiar design decisions – one of the brooms doesn’t have anywhere to clip or slot in, and just rests precariously against a wall until you inevitably knock it out of place – but they’re dwarfed by the fun techniques scattered throughout the model.

Building up those walls will give you a fair few ideas of how to expand your own medieval village, while the set’s headline function is a joy to play with: turn the water wheel and see the purple flames bubble away in the chimney. It’s simple in both concept and execution, but the best play features often are. And for all that 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage is geared first and foremost towards display, this is one interactive element that genuinely shines. (Though not quite literally as brightly as the light brick that illuminates the flames beneath the cauldron inside – the button for which is thankfully easily accessible behind the rear wall.)

This is probably starting to sound like the full package for Hocus Pocus fans, but the burning question remains: does this set manage to stick the landing for both of its audience segments? Can it be all things to all people? Well… yes. It’s packed with enough details (and characters – more on those further down) to sell it instantly to Hocus Pocus fans, weaving just enough LEGO magic to ensure it’s instantly recognisable as the cottage from the cult classic movie – but at the same time, it’s very easy to strip away those details (or at least, the ones you don’t find relevant) and slot this into a medieval layout.

An equal amount of care has also gone into selling this as a detailed, displayable building that lives up to its 18+ tag, from its dishevelled wooden beams to its patchy slate roof. The aesthetic is absolutely in line with (for example) 21325 Medieval Blacksmith, which has never really had a true companion – 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle is woefully out of scale – but 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage finally gives castle fans a worthy successor to that 2021 LEGO Ideas set. All while retaining a little magic of its own, of course.

— LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage characters —

Maybe the biggest sticking point with 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage – at least for fans of the movie – comes in its minifigure line-up. Veyt initially suggested including 11 characters in the set, but Disney apparently knocked that down to just six: the three Sanderson sisters Winifred, Sarah and Mary, along with Max, Dani and Allison. Thackery Binx squeezes in as a cursed cat, firmly placing this roster in 1993 rather than 1693.

But while you can see why Disney has then left out human Thackery and his sister Emily (and also because Emily met her demise at the beginning of the movie – bit dark for LEGO), the most puzzling omission remains Billy Butcherson. He has a pretty big role to play in Hocus Pocus, as antagonist-turned-ally (with a hint of comedic relief), but the only reference to the undead character here comes on a stickered tombstone. Maybe Disney also didn’t want a zombie wandering around a LEGO set with its logo on the box?

Anyway, enough about what’s not here, because the six minifigures that are in the box are pretty much all perfect. Winifred and Mary benefit from brand new hairpieces; Max makes great use of a wig originally introduced in 21339 BTS Dynamite; and Dani is maybe the cutest minifigure you’ll see this year, repurposing an unreleased hat-and-hair element designed for the cancelled LEGO VIDIYO line.

All but one of these minifigures has leg printing, too, and there are versatile parts in the mix for non-Hocus Pocus fans. Dani’s mid-sized legs are maybe the only part to take to task: they’re ostensibly so she can sit down in the cottage’s chair, recreating the scene in the movie in which the witches attempt to drain her soul, but they make her way too tall. A set of plain red short legs would have been a nice addition, allowing us to choose Dani’s height depending on how we display her.

Beyond that minor niggle, this is a superb selection of minifigures that genuinely elevates 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage – and that is the best role these tiny plastic people could possibly serve in any LEGO set. Plus, you do get three skeletons, so… it’s almost like there’s nine minifigures?

— LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage price —

This section of our reviews is honestly becoming increasingly tiresome to write, because for the vast majority of LEGO sets released in 2023, the verdict is the same: it’s just that bit too expensive. The same is true of 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage, which represents a £40 jump in price on 21325 Medieval Blacksmith’s current RRP, and that set only launched two years ago.

We’ve made the comparison already in this review, but Clemens Fiedler’s Middle Ages model feels like the closest contemporary for 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage. Pop them side by side, and you might wonder where the extra cash went. Still, pick up a GWP or two (or shave maybe 20% off its asking price) and you won’t feel too hard done by.

— LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage pictures —

— LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage pros and cons —

Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of – no, hang on, wrong witches. Let’s try this again: faithful details and a fun build, fantastic characters and far-reaching appeal: these are the ingredients to the potion that is 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage, a LEGO Ideas set that could genuinely be the sleeper hit of 2023.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the first Hocus Pocus film, which has since become a cult classic, and the 100th anniversary of Disney. Hocus Pocus 2 is fresh in the minds of fans, and a third film is on the way. That’s enough ground alone to justify bringing the series to LEGO Store shelves, and that’s before you consider the second (potentially much bigger) audience the subject matter unlocks.

It was never a given – and has taken the careful attention to detail of both Veyt and a team of LEGO designers – but the execution of this medieval building is so impressive that it genuinely doesn’t matter if you’ve seen a single frame of Bette Midler with buck teeth: here is a LEGO Ideas model that you’re going to want anyway.

And all that is more than enough to prove that this set isn’t just a bunch of hocus pocus.

21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage pros	21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage cons
Entertaining build with a great headline function	Missing key characters
Delightful and desirable minifigures	Tricky to access the deepest interiors of the cottage
Surprisingly wide appeal

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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— Alternatives to LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage —

The most obvious alternative to 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage comes in the form of – you guessed it – 21325 Medieval Blacksmith, at least if you’re in the market for this particular style of Tudor architecture. If it’s magic and whimsy you’re after, look to the Disney or Harry Potter themes: 76407 The Shrieking Shack & Whomping Willow is a play-friendly set built around witchcraft and wizardry, while 43227 Villain Icons can cater for House of Mouse fans looking for a more direct display piece.

For a more affordable (but far less detailed) Disney house, there’s always 43217 ‘Up’ House.

— LEGO Ideas 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage FAQs —