Thursday, October 30, 2014

2014 Horror Countdown: Season of the Witch (1973)



Season of the Witch (1973), dir. George Romero, the Latent Image

Shot under the title Jack’s Wife and then changed for the initial release as the softcore Hungry Wives, George Romero’s Season of the Witch asks “where does one go after redefining the zombie genre?”; the answer, in a weird direction.







After doing a romantic comedy There’s Always Vanilla, Romero dipped his toes back in the horror genre, this time focusing on witchcraft. We open with a surreal scene of salary man Jack Mitchell (Bill Thunhurst) leading his wife Joan (Jan White) around on a leash before locking her up in a kennel.

When Joan wakes up, it seems her dream wasn’t so much subtext as text. Jack isn’t putting a chain on her neck, but he does everything short of that. When Joan complains to her therapist Dr. Miller (Neil Fisher), the good doctor insists that the dreamer is usually the least reliable source of information when it comes to dreams. She’s also been having dreams where she is attacked by a strange figure in a devil mask.

Joan goes out with some friends when Jack leaves on another trip. Hanging out with the new arrival, Sylvia  (Esther Lapidus), Joan and her friend Shirley (Ann Muffly) meet with the newcomer, who claims to be a witch. Joan also meets with Greg (Raymond Laine), who teaches at her daughter Nikki’s (Joeeda McClain) school. Nikki and Greg have been sleeping with each other, but Greg insists they are not dating. 

When Nikki runs away from home (after her mother catches her with Greg), the teacher has no problem turning his attention to the mother. Joan begins to delve deeper in the occult, casting love spells and other attempts at necromancy. She also blows her husband away with a shotgun when he attempts to enter her room in the same manner as the devil masked figure in her dreams.

Honestly, this film is a hot mess. The film was cut up by the producers and turned into a softcore romp, with supposedly key scenes explaining things were removed. Dream sequences drag on and slow the plot down, the characters mostly just sit around and talk, sometimes with their clothes off, and to cap it off the supernatural elements seem tacked on. This was considered a lost film and it probably should have stayed that way.



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