Season of the Witch

To get the most out of 'Season Of The Witch' ignore the horror tag and put Romero's zombie movies out of your mind. This is more of a character study cum social document of an early 70s bored housewife's attempt to find meaning in her life. Faced with dull bourgeois conformity on one side, and a counter-culture that offers no real answers on the other, she eventually finds her own direction. Low budget, variable performances and all, I still found this to be a much more complex and accomplished movie than Romero's most recent effort 'Bruiser'. While it doesn't impress as much as his overlooked vampire gem 'Martin' (which shares certain similarities in approach and theme), it's not to be dismissed. It may not be entirely successful, but I highly recommend it.

Director George A. Romero is a smart guy. His movies usually have a lot more going on in them than what appears on the surface.

SEASON OF THE WITCH is about a bored, disillusioned "housewife" who dabbles in witchcraft. It's also a study of the cataclysmic changes underway in the late 1960's and early 70's. It was a time when the more puritanical structure of the 1950's was collapsing under the weight of personal and social experimentation / freedom.

Jan White's character is willing to accept new -actually, very old- ideas and a liberating lifestyle that will drive her emotionally-absent husband nuts. That is, if he even notices!

This movie explores the sexual revolution, female awakening, and several other topics of its era. Witchcraft has always been a perfect metaphor for female power, causing terror in those who would much rather keep it buried. Too late. The spell is cast...

_hungry wives_ is sorely underrated by all viewers, and commentators here. no, it doesn't come close to equaling the indelible onslaught that is _night of the living dead_ -- nothing else in romero's oeuvre does, after all, not even _dawn_ -- but as a document from its time, it's a strange balance between the films which precede it (this is not, despite what some here have suggested, romero's second film -- it's his fourth!), viz. _there's always vanilla_ and _the crazies_.

strangely calm, and maybe low-key to a fault, this examination of an alienated housewife's numbing existence and slow infatuation with witchcraft is very much a part of the "personal films" movement of its era, and suggesting a glancing similarity to cassavettes is not unfounded. the first-generation feminism is certainly heavy-handed at this point, but the careful eye for detail that distinguishes all of romero's work, his compassion for his protagonist's melancholy (call it western pennsylvania social realism) and the ambivalent tone, notably at the end (not the "surprise ending," but what follows it), give this film as uneasy balance between horror and domestic drama. definitely worth seeing, and with as few expectations as possible. 7/10

Good Gravy! This is an odd movie. It's kind of like the bored-housewives-turn-on schlock released by Something Weird Video, except it's done as a "serious" movie. Plus, it's advertised as a horror movie because it was directed by George A. Romero, he of "Dawn of the Dead" fame. I watched the Anchor Bay special edition of this flick- the name on the video box is "Season of the Witch", the actual movie has the title "Jack's Wife", and in the theatrical trailer included on the tape the movie is called "Hungry Wives". But ignoring all that, I enjoyed most of this movie. The actors are all good, and the movie is packed with great dream sequences. The proof that this movie is above average is that it can use the tired "waking up from one dream only to find that you're still dreaming" device skillfully.

The plot concerns a bored housewife whose husband ("Jack", I guess) occasionally smacks her around, telling her she needs to "kick some ass" (he says that a lot). She's got a super-cute red head daughter who introduces her to a trippy stoner who turns her on to a swingin' life style. This movie's strongest scenes are the ones concerning Jack's Wife's growing hatred of her dull life and friends.

Although Jack's Wife and her booze-guzzling friends go to see a woman who practices witchcraft, but that's not really a big part of the movie. The "Season of the Witch" title comes from the inclusion of a song, performed by Donovan, with that title. This song, played loudly over a throw-away scene, sounds as if it was recorded by one group sans Donovan, and then they played it over the radio and recorded Donovan singing out of rhythm with it. It's very, very bizarre.

But anyway, this was an obscure little gem that I really liked, and it gets bonus points for including a scene with Mad Libs.

Ranks right up there with "The Witch Who Came From the Sea" and "The Stepford Wives" in the obsolete sub-genre of 70's women's lib horror. Arguably George Romero's most unusual and underrated film, this is less a horror film than a sociopolitical bitchslapping of the male-dominated American dream. Although witchcraft does play a part in this, the focus is largely on our leading lady's middle-aged, menopausal anguish...a feeling of solitary confinement in a pseudo-sterile life with an abusive/absent husband, thankless daughter, and a circle of ingenuine, gossipy "friends".

This is a very well done low-budget film, and comes highly recommended...although rigid horror buffs may end up disappointed. 7/10