We start Day One of #31daysofhorror with Season of the Witch (1973) (originally released under the name Hungry Wives.) Either title was bound to grab attention.
Premise: A disaffected house wife finds allure and horror as she dabbles with witchcraft.
What I Liked: I really like horror films that adjacently tackles the horrors faced by women. While Season of the Witch plays with drama as much as it does witchcraft, a really keen viewer can see the elements that make this a horror film as well. So often it’s the male gaze that horror is viewed through. This film might not get aware of from that too much (there’s some nudity and it was released as soft core porn), but the writer and director, George A Romero, tries his best to capture a feminist film.
Our protagonist, Joan Mitchell, played by Jan White, is trapped in her life (albeit a very upper middle class, white female life). The film opens with Joan following and quickly being left behind by who what later find out to be her husband (played by Bill Thunhurst). As she struggles to keep up, nature, brushes and branches whack her in the face, mocking her with metaphors of her changing/fading womanhood. We find out its a dream, but even in it she is a caged animal, a stranger in her own life.
Even her therapist ignores her pleas of distress. Enter another metaphor for ultimate female empowerment and the earliest form of counter culture… the witch… or in this case rumors of a witch in town. This leads to Joan decent or awakening as she changes into something she fears and embraces.
There’s so much metaphors I enjoyed finding them all and studying how they make Joan and this film a bit of feminist horror.
What I Didn’t Like: It’s dated, which can’t be helped. This film was recommended on some site as “must watch horror films.” While it can be viewed as horror, it lacks elements that make it frightening. It’s horror is muted and the viewer is left with dream sequences and haunting statues to fill in the gap.
Verdict: Watch it. It worth the examination, and the ending somehow still caught me off guard. Season of the Witch is currently VOD and streaming on Tubi.
Join my #31daysofhorror. Follow me on twitter at @mjcross. I will drop a review every day until Halloween and my birthday! And if you interested in reading something for the season, how about some godly horror? Read A Still Small Voice available as an ebook on Amazon.