Season of the Witch (1973 film)

This article is about the George A. Romero film. For the Halloween (franchise) film, see Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Season of the Witch

Original film poster under the name Hungry Wives
Directed by George A. Romero[1]
Produced by Nancy M. Romero[1][2]
Written by George A. Romero[1]
Starring
  • Jan White
  • Raymond Laine
  • Ann Muffly
Music by Steve Gorn[1][2]
Cinematography George A. Romero[1]
Edited by George A. Romero[1]
Production
company
The Latent Image, Inc.[2]
Distributed by Jack H. Harris Enterprises, Inc.[2]
Release dates
  • 1973 (1973)
Running time
 130 minutes
Country United States[2]
Language English[2]

Season of the Witch is a 1973 American film directed by George A. Romero. The film is about a housewife (Jan White) who discovers with her friends that a local woman, Marion (Virginia Greenwald), practices witchcraft. The friends visit Marion and White finds herself interested enough in witchcraft to experiment with it for herself.

The film was originally made under the title Jack's Wife, with a small crew, giving director George A. Romero the duties of an editor, cinematographer and screenwriter. The film's distributor cut major parts of the film and changed its title to Hungry Wives!, marketing it as a softcore pornography film. The film failed to find an audience on its initial release and was re-released years later under the title Season of the Witch.

Plot

Joan Mitchell (Jan White) is the 39-year-old wife of a businessman, Jack Mitchell (Bill Thunhurst). They live in suburban Pittsburgh with their 19-year-old daughter Nikki (Joedda McClain), a student. Joan is unhappy and bored with her housewife role. Jack is busy, domineering, and sometimes violent, embarking on long business trips every week. Joan has been seeing a psychotherapist because of her recurring dreams about her husband controlling her. He makes repeated references to needing to "kick some ass"—a colleague's, his own child's, his wife's. Eventually, he strikes Joan in the face.

Joan and her friends learn about a new woman in the neighborhood named Marion Hamilton (Virginia Greenwald) who practices witchcraft. Prompted by curiosity, Joan and one of her friends, Shirley (Anne Muffley), drive over to Marion's house one night for a Tarot reading. Marion is the leader of a secret witches' coven.

Joan and Shirley drive home to Joan's house, where they meet Gregg (Raymond Laine), a student teacher at Nikki's college (with whom Nikki has a very casual sexual relationship). The four drink and talk. Gregg shows an interest in Joan, who rebuffs him. Joan throws Gregg out of her house after he cruelly tricks Shirley into believing that she has smoked pot. After taking Shirley home, Joan returns home to hear Nikki and Gregg having sex. Turned on, she quietly goes to her bedroom and begins touching herself until Nikki walks in on her.

The next day, a furious Nikki leaves without telling anybody where she is going, and soon afterward Jack leaves for a one-week business trip, with Joan feeling more lonely than ever. Joan buys a book about witchcraft. She conjures a spell to make Gregg attracted to her, and soon they are engaged in an affair. She also has increasingly terrifying nightmares, in which she is attacked by an intruder wearing a Satanic mask. As she explores witchcraft further, practicing rituals and researching spells, Joan's world continues to change. The police tell Joan they have found Nikki in Buffalo, New York and that she will be coming home in three or four days. After one last sexual encounter with Gregg, Joan tells him she does not want to see him again.

After another terrifying nightmare involving the masked intruder, Joan shoots and kills her husband, who has unexpectedly returned home early from his trip. Whether this event is accidental or intentional is not revealed. Joan is initiated into Marion's coven in an elaborate and campy ritual. The language used by the women makes reference to treasuring each coven member as part of the sisterhood. Cleared of her husband's death, which was ruled an accident, Joan attends a party with her friends. Prompted by a compliment on her beautiful and youthful appearance, she quietly reveals that she is a witch. She smiles wryly when people around her refer to as "Mrs. Mitchell", or simply "Jack's wife".

Production

The film originally began production under the title of Jack's Wife.[3] Romero got the idea for the film after reading about witchcraft for a different project.[4] While working with public television in Pittsburgh, Romero became aware of the Feminist movement, which also influenced his script.[4]

The film was shot with a small crew in 1972 on 16mm film in Pittsburgh.[2][5] It suffered from production problems when the original budget of $250,000 was lowered to $100,000.[5] Romero was pressured by the distributor to make two sex scenes between the characters of Joan and Greg pornographic, but refused.[6]

Style

In 1973, Romero described the film as "not really" being a horror film, but as a film that deals with the occult peripherally.[7]

Release

Romero had trouble finding distributors for the film. In 1973, Romero described that distributors were finding the film "too wordy".[8] The film was distributed by Jack H. Harris and re-titled Hungry Wives! on its initial release in 1973.[2][5] Several cuts were made to the film, reducing its original runtime of 130 minutes to 89.[9] The film was promoted as a softcore pornography film and failed to find an audience on its initial release.[5] After the success of Romero's Dawn of the Dead in 1978, the film was re-released under the title Season of the Witch.[5]

Both the original film negative and Romero's original cut of the film are lost.[5] Parts of Romero's original version have been found and re-edited into home video version of the film which currently runs 104 minutes.[10] Anchor Bay released the film under its Season of the Witch title in 2005 on DVD at its partly-restored 104 minute running time.[11] The DVD contains featurettes on the film, other works of Romero and promotional material and Romero's earlier film There's Always Vanilla.[11]

Reception

In 1980, Vincent Canby of the New York Times gave Hungry Wives! as a negative review, stating that the film "has the seedy look of a porn film but without any pornographic action. Everything in it, from the actors to the props, looks borrowed and badly used."[12]

In a review of the Season Of The Witch home video, the A.V. Club, compared the film to Romero's Night of the Living Dead stating that the film "looks significantly less impressive [...] Where Night Of The Living Dead sandwiched some undistinguished, talky bits featuring actors of widely varying skill between the zombie horror, Season Of The Witch is nearly all undistinguished talky bits featuring actors of widely varying skill. Frankly, it’s kind of a slog."[13] Slant Magazine gave the film a four out of five star rating, calling the film Romero's Belle du Jour.[14] Online film database Allmovie gave a mixed review for the film noting poor production quality, "wildly uneven acting", and that the film is "burdened both by its directness and its talkiness".[15] The review went on to note that "this is as effective a film as the director has made, in many respects years ahead of its time, assuming a position more extreme than The Stepford Wives or even, for the most part, Thelma and Louise."[15] TV Guide gave the film one star out of four, referring to the film as "One of the most problematic entries in George Romero's filmography", noting cheap production and poor acting.[16]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Muir, 2002, p. 121
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Hungry Wives". American Film Institute. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Hungry Wives". British Film Institute. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  4. 1 2 Williams, 2011. p. 61
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Williams, 2013. p. 47
  6. ↑ Williams, 2011. p. 27
  7. ↑ Williams, 2011. p. 37
  8. ↑ Williams, 2011. p. 38
  9. ↑ Williams, 2011. p. xii
  10. ↑ Williams, 2013. p. 48
  11. 1 2 "Season of the Witch - 1973 - Releases". Allmovie. All Media Guide. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  12. ↑ Canby, Vincent (December 12, 1980). "Hungry Wives (1973) THALIA TWIN BILL". The New York Times. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  13. ↑ Phipps, Keith (April 26, 2012). "George Romero's '70s feature Season Of The Witch might feature witches, and might not". AV Club. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  14. ↑ Henderson, Eric (November 3, 2005). "Season of the Witch". Slant Magazine. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  15. 1 2 Phipps, Keith. "Season of the Witch - Review". Allmovie. All Media Guide. Retrieved September 3, 2014.
  16. ↑ "Hungry Wives Review". TV Guide. Retrieved September 3, 2014.

See also

References

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