(1973) Written and directed by George A. Romero; Starring: Jan White, Raymond Laine, Ann Muffly, Joedda McClain, Bill Thunhurst, Neil Fisher, and S. William Hinzman; Available on Blu-ray and DVD
Rating: ***½
“The film and the character of Joan grew out of the time, I think. I mean, it just grew out of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, when it seems as though women were wanting to break out. This is not career stuff – it’s not the glass ceiling or anything like that, it was just a woman’s role at home and a woman is less than a compete citizen of the world, of a marriage, or a relationship, and it just seems like that was happening… There was a lot in the press back then… It was women’s lib… and all the beginning rumblings of that, and I just thought it would be a good topic for a film…” – George A. Romero (from 2005 Anchor Bay interview)
After the runaway success of his independent debut feature, Night of the Living Dead (1968), fans of the film likely expected Pittsburgh-based filmmaker George A. Romero to continue in that vein. Instead, he chose to focus on character-driven dramas, starting with the fractured romance, There’s Always Vanilla (aka: The Affair) (1971), followed by his third feature, Season of the Witch.* Shot in 16 mm for a budget of only $90,000,* Season of the Witch failed to make much of an impact with audiences or critics (much like its predecessor), dying a quick death at the box office. Although it might be stretching things a bit by stating the movie has enjoyed a second wind, it’s long overdue for a much-deserved reassessment.
* Fun Fact #1: Romero shot and directed several short documentary-style segments for another famous Pittsburgh-based production, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. His most noteworthy effort on the show was the 1971 segment, "Mister Rogers Gets a Tonsillectomy," which Romero joked was the scariest film he ever made.
** Fun Fact #2: The original title of the film was Jack’s Wife, which distributor Jack H. Harris rejected. The film was subsequently edited down from 130 to 90 minutes, re-titled Hungry Wives, and marketed as a softcore movie. Years later, in an effort to cash in on Romero’s horror legacy, it was re-titled Season of the Witch.
*** Fun Fact #3: The movie was originally budgeted at $250,000,
but when the original financer went belly up, Romero was left with a fraction
of that amount.
From the opening dream sequence (the first of several), we learn all we need to know about Joan’s relationship with her husband Jack. She walks several steps behind him, while tree branches smack her in the face. Along the way, she sees a baby on a blanket,* before catching up with her husband to provide his morning coffee. When he discovers her sitting in his car, he smacks her with a newspaper and leads her around by a leash,** before locking her in a dog kennel. Joan’s real life isn’t much better, with a husband who’s constantly gone on business trips, and a 19-year-old daughter she barely sees. When Jack is home, their bed is someplace to sleep, nothing more. Now entering middle age and stuck in a perennial malaise, she’s trapped in a domestic cage of lonely servitude. To make matters worse, she’s haunted by recurring nightmares of a menacing intruder in a mask, *** who attempts to break into her house.**** But life is about to change for Joan, in ways she could scarcely imagine…
* Fun Fact #4: While never expressly stated in the movie, Jan White confirmed in an interview that the baby was supposed to be Joan’s son, who died during infancy.
** Random Observation (MILD SPOILER ALERT): Compare this sequence to a scene towards the end of the movie, when Joan is led around with a red rope (which matches the color of the leash) during her witch’s initiation ceremony.
*** Fun Fact #5: The intruder is played by Bill Hinzman (best known as the graveyard ghoul who pursues Barbra in Night of the Living Dead), who also served as Romero’s assistant cameraman.
**** Fun Fact #6: Joan’s suburban Pittsburgh house belonged
to the parents of Christine Forrest, who would eventually become Romero’s
second wife.
Season of the Witch is at once a snapshot of the time
it was made, as well as a sign of the social revolution that was about to take
place in American society. Like many marriages from their generation, Joan and
Jack’s relationship isn’t based in compatibility or love, but a social contract,
reinforced by societal expectations. Jack fulfills the stereotypical male role
of the time, boorish, laconic, and guided by thoughts rather than emotions. They
don’t have dialogues, just parallel monologues. As the self-ordained
breadwinner, Jack goes off on his business trips, leaving Joan to handle the
household, which includes keeping an eye on their 19-year-old daughter Nikki (Joedda
McClain). When Nikki unexpectedly runs off, he lashes out at Joan, slapping her
because she failed to do what he considered to be her parental duty. Meanwhile,
he doesn’t take any accountability for raising Nikki (the depth of his
parenting advice is “You kick some ass!”). Instead of shouldering the blame for
any perceived parental shortcomings, he condescendingly addresses Joan like a child
who misbehaved. Both are conditioned by society to accept their stereotypical
gender roles, with Joan embodying the outdated, misogynistic, hetero-centric
view that the woman must dutifully sublimate her dreams and desires for the man
in her life.
The soul of Season of the Witch is Jan White’s* courageous, naturalistic performance as the beleaguered housewife Joan. We see the turning point in Joan’s life in the scene where she regards her reflection in the mirror, and to her horror sees a much older, withered version of herself staring back. This nicely contrasts with another scene in which Nikki compliments her mother on her nice figure – Joan might be older, but she’s not dead. Another catalyst in Joan’s transformation arrives in the form of smug college professor Gregg (Raymond Laine), who challenges her staid notions of domestic life. Even though he’s never meant to be more than a fling, his bluntness provokes something inside her. Ultimately, it’s not a man that ignites her passions, but the siren call of witchcraft. While Season of the Witch is arguably not a movie about witchcraft, it plays a pivotal role for Joan, representing a means of asserting herself as an individual with agency over her life Whether she really evokes the supernatural isn’t important – it's her belief in herself that matters most.
* Fun Fact #7: Jan White was initially reluctant to accept
the role because it required nudity. She relented after Romero assured her that
extra sex scenes were added to the script only so he could attract funding for
his movie. A body double was provided for the film’s penultimate scene, when
she’s initiated into a coven.
George A. Romero commented that of all his films, he would like to have done a remake of Season of the Witch, because he didn’t feel he was mature enough to tackle the subject at the time, but that seems to be selling himself short. It’s a vast topic that could never be contained in one film, but while the results are sometimes rough around the edges, Romero handles the subject matter with sensitivity and compassion. Romero focused on one particular character, Joan, and her personal struggles for autonomy and significance in a society where she was effectively a second-class citizen. Romero’s character-driven film likely baffled audiences expecting another horror flick. Instead, it was neither erotic nor horrific enough (at least from a surface glance) to please viewers expecting these elements. Instead, we were treated to a thoughtful drama with horror-adjacent elements. Rather than an outlier, Season of the Witch fits neatly in Romero’s filmography, including themes he would explore again and again: criticism of the status quo, performative religious practice, and infuriating authority figures. As much as I’d like to say Joan’s domestic prison is a relic of the past, this attitude has somehow managed to persist in modern society like a virus that refuses to die. Unfortunately, due to lazy marketing, the film failed to connect with audiences. As a title, Jack’s Wife was perhaps too generic to capture anyone’s attention, while Hungry Wives was simply misleading. Season of the Witch was probably the best title, since it wasn’t entirely inaccurate, but whatever you care to call the film, it’s a significant achievement in Romero’s filmography.
* Fun Fact #8: According to film writer Travis Crawford, this was the first of Romero’s movies to feature a tracking shot (in the scene where Joan shops for tools of the witch’s trade).
Sources for this article: “Digging up the Dead: The ‘Lost’
films of George A. Romero,” interview with George A. Romero (Anchor Bay, 2005);
“The Secret Life of Jack’s Wife,” interview with Jan White; Arrow Blu-ray
commentary by Travis Crawford; “This ‘Mister Rogers' Neighborhood’ Segment Was
Directed by a Horror Icon,” by Andrew McGowan, Collider (June 30, 2023);
“George Romero on Zombies & Season of the Witch Remake?” by Ammon Gilbert,
JoBlo (2010)
