I've heard a lot about this movie over the years. I always threaten to stab people if they ruin the twists and turns of a movie for me though, so I only knew bits and pieces about this movie, I knew it had something to do with a repressed housewife who gets involved somehow with witchcraft. I knew it was GeorgeRomero's first big movie after Night of the Living Dead, and that more than anythingmade me eager to see it, but I kept putting it off forever until years went by and I finally got around to seeing it tonight for the Horror Challenge. so what did I think?
The title card for this movie reads "hungry wives," so I take it that this was the original title for this movie. Consultingg Wikipedia, it appears that the distributor cut everything but the sex scenes and released this movie as a softcore porn gone horribly wrong titled "Hungry Wives," but it didn't do well, so it was re-released as "Season of the Witch." I like "Season of the Witch" much better as a title, though. Anyway, this movie is about a bored housewife whose life spirals into a nightmare after she gets involved in the occult. Why couldn't she just take up gardening?
Jan White plays Joan, the aforementioned bored housewife in this movie. Her kid is grown and her husband doesn't have much time for her anymore, so she decides to take up a hobby to occupy her time. Why it had to be witchcraft I don't know. I guess at first it doesn't seem very dangerous, since it's mostly other bored seeming housewives sitting around reading tarot cards and talking about how their mothers used to practice witchcraft too. Joan and her friends are seen at a party discussing and gossipping about a woman who is supposedly a witch, and Jooan and her friend are curious, so they go to the woman to have a tarot reading (the card reading shoould say "You're a boring person, please get a life before it's too late").
This movie has a lot of trippy dream sequences where our main character has nightmares about a man breaking into her house and raping her. Her husband seems to be violent, as he's constantly threatening to kick someone's ass, whether it be a work colleague or his own wife and daughter. Speaking of the daughter, she's a college student who still lives at home but has so little respect for her parents that she's willing to have loud sex in her room where anyone can hear it. Her mom seems simultaneously horrified and turned on by these sexual encounters. I really didn't like the character of Joan, but I hated her husband more. He's a domineering, overbearing jerk who slaps her to keep her in line. No matter how annoying she is, she doesn't deserve that. This movie kind of rambles along, with Joan finally finding a purpose in practicing witchcraft. I won't spoil what happens at the end of the mvie, but suffice it to say I didn't shed any tears over it. This movie is kind of boring and rambline, and I definitely recommend Night of the Living dead over this one for its biting social commentary and plot and acting (basically i feel that all these things succeed where this movie failed...I guess Jan White isn't a bad actress, but she's not a likeable character, and you're going to wish the two movies would merge so she can get eaten by a zombie. That would be a better ending than the one here). If you want to watch a feminist horror film done right, watch The Stepford Wives instead.
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