YKWIM #63: Forget About It Friday - Season of the Witch (1972)
Must be the season of the witch
Trigger warning: This movie contains depictions of witchcraft, murder, domestic violence, and existential pains of a suburban existence in the ‘70s.
Hi, hello, and Happy Halloween! Hope you’re able to enjoy something, even if it’s only the discount candy on November 1.
To round out the end of spooOOOookyy season, today we have something witchy. Thanks to my pal Matt for bringing this one to my attention.
Just to be clear, it’s not the Nic Cage movie, nor the weird Halloween movie where kids turn into worms, nor this other Season of the Witch. It’s George A. Romero’s oft-overlooked ode to the occult and suburban ennui, produced by his first wife (he met his future second wife on the set). This movie is like, what if a homemaker was given a spell book instead of The Feminine Mystique?
Filmed in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, it’s the only movie he ever wanted to remake with a bigger budget but never got the chance. It definitely has more symbolism and depth than most of the other movies I’ve covered so far (sorry, Chopping Mall).
Season of the Witch (1972)
Provided description, typos and all: A bored suburban housewife gets mixed up in witchcraft and murder in this grimy, close-quarters horror movie from legendary zombie filmmaker George A. Romero.
Where to watch: Free on Tubi or Amazon Prime
We start out with a gong of a clock tower on a sunny day while a couple walks on a dirt road through the woods. It’s springtime in Western Pennsylvania which means the grass is bright green and there are even some flowers poking out but the trees are still bare and it’s probably still pretty chilly. He’s reading a newspaper while sipping from a coffee cup, oblivious of anything else, and she’s always a few paces behind him in this fantastic jewel-toned caftan. She gets cut by tree branches following him deeper into the woods. Things get more and more surreal, and it’s all very trippy, lots of electronic sounds and sound effects, like a beating heart followed by a ticking clocks.
She wakes up and she’s safe in her bed, no fantastic caftan, just a boring white nightgown. Her husband, Jack, is getting ready for work and he’s all, "oh hey,” in the way that couples who are drifting apart can be to each other.
Jack leaves, and instantly, she’s sitting in a car next to him in that fantastic caftan. He tries to get her out of the car, she resists, he hits her with a newspaper, and then leads her on a leash and collar to a dog pen. A doorbell rings, dogs bark, and Joan wakes up again. The first thing she does is sit down at the vanity and examine her face. Mirrors play a big part of this movie. Lots of symbolism on aging and beauty expectations.
She meets with a pipe-smoking analyst who lays out Joan’s life for the audience: Her daughter is nearly grown, her husband is successful and busy at work, and Joan is feeling empty and stuck. “The only person imprisoning Joanie is Joan,” he says, puffing on the pipe.
“She’s a witch! An honest to god witch!” That’s Shirley, one of Joan’s friends, at a party. They’re gossiping about Marion, a woman in their social circle who is apparently an honest to god witch. The clothes and decor are just *chef’s kiss*.
It’s worth noting that only now, almost 10 minutes into the movie, do we finally hear Joan speak. There’s a guy going around with a game of Mad Libs and when he asks Joan for a noun, she stutters, “Oh… god.” “Okay, God,” he says, writing it down to her protests. She smiles at Jack across the room, laughs along with everyone else, but you can sense how hollow she’s feeling.
Another freaky dream, and this one ends with Joan facing down her sad, elderly self.
There are lots of close up shots of lamps, figurines, and tchotchkes around the house. It repeats throughout the film and creates such a creepy, claustrophobic feeling.
Joan and Shirley head over to Marion’s house and in the car, Shirley jokes about cheating on their husbands while Joan seems to be joking about witchcraft. “I don’t know, I guess I’ve thought about it,” Joan says in an anxious, non-committal tone.
Marion is deeply tan and wears a beautiful purple dress. She’s pretty much like, yeah, I’m a witch, so what. Marion talks to them about tarot and tells the ladies that it’s not really much different from their card games. Marion gives Shirley a tarot reading while Joans reads through a book literally called ‘To Be a Witch: A Primer,’ which she takes with her.
They get back to Joan’s house and her daughter, Nikki, has a friend over, Gregg. Joan and Gregg immediately recognize each other. They’re not sure where they know each other from, but we know that Gregg popped up in one of Joan’s freaky dreams.
Shirley gets wasted and talks about how bored she is with her life. While she’s off in the bathroom, Gregg grabs a cigarette and twists the ends. He wants to trick Shirley into thinking she’s smoking weed. Joan is like, ugh, stop, don’t humiliate her, yet she also plays along and lights the ‘joint’. At first, Shirley thinks she’s high and having a good time but soon breaks down in tears over her boring life. Joan gets pissed at Gregg and Gregg gets mad that the joke is ruined. Shirley lashes out at Joan in the car, that someday she’ll barely recognize herself too, and you can tell Joan is worried about the exact same thing.
Joan gets back to the house, finds the Witch Primer on the table, and hears Nikki and Gregg hooking up. Joan was supposed to stay at Shirley’s house, and her daughter is soooo embarrassed at her mother being home that she runs away. I thought the daughter was in college, but apparently she might be a teenager??? Which is especially concerning because Gregg is a college professor (!!!??!), corduroy turtleneck and all. He goes on a whole tangent about how their generation can’t be tied down, blah blah blah.
Throughout the film, Joan keeps having reoccurring dreams of a masked intruder breaking in through the back door of her house and trying to get her. With each subsequent dream, she fights back more and more, always in that fantastic caftan.
Finally, my favorite part:
Joan takes a drive into the city and buys some equipment while Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” plays in the background. She casts a few spells, but puts it all away before Jack gets home. Just as he’s pulling in the drive way, Joan rubs some soot from the fireplace on her forehead. At first I was like, is this a witch thing? No, it’s an Ash Wednesday thing. She became a witch on Ash Wednesday. Jack then says the most Catholic sentence ever: “I gotta get some ashes. Jesus, I hope that church isn’t crowded.”
He goes out of town again, so she has a week all to herself. Her usual card club comes over and it highlights how different she is now from her other friends. She puts a spell on Gregg under a full moon and because she’s having her own mid-life crisis, they hook up. Later, she goes to visit Marion about joining the local coven.
And I have to say, once Joan became a witch, it did wonders for her hair.
Joan has another intruder dream and in this one, she makes her way to a hunting rifle in the basement and almost gets the gun ready but drops the bullets.
Gregg comes over again, she tells him about the spells and asks for his help. Of course, a guy like that is only over to hook up again, which they do, under the gaze of her creepy ass lamps. He finally leaves and she conquers up some spells. She’s found her purpose.
Jack gets back from a work thing, can’t find his keys, and goes around back. Joan has retrieved the hunting rifle and fires at the back door intruder. Except this time… it’s not a dream. Even though she’s wearing that fantastic caftan she always wears in her dreams, it’s real life. She shot Jack.
The scenes flash back and forth from Joan’s official initiation into the coven to Jack lying in the rain, covered in pink blood. The coven scenes are all women, while the other consist of men’s voiceovers, the officers who responded at the scene. “Damn women. They get everything. Poor bastard.” Meanwhile, at the initiation, a red rope is tied around Joan’s neck, just as it has happened in one of her dreams.
The very end of the movie, Joan is back on the party circuit with the ladies again. They’re all chatting, talking over each other. Joan’s just straight chillin’ and her hair is sky high. Someone comes up to her and is like, “You’re the… you’re the…. ” and it’s Joan’s turn to be like, yeah, I’m a witch, so what. She gets a far away look in her eye as in the background, one of the women talks about Joan as “you know, Jack’s wife.” THE END.
Highs
Ohhhh, the costumes! The decor! The creepy little figurines! A mid-century modern masterpiece as far as production design is concerned. All courtesy of Gimbels, a major department store in downtown Pittsburgh at the time, thanked in the opening credits. If you were like, “Andrea, what’s a corner of the internet that you have wasted hours of your life?”, I would have to say, “Well… the list of defunct department stores in the United States, of course,” which is where you can now find Gimbels.
Okay, riddle me this. Usually, the last billed actor in the credits is a smaller part played by a famous name. In this movie, the last billed is “Virginia Greenwald as MARION,” the witchy friend. Except I’ve never heard of this woman before and this movie is her only credit on IMDb. What I found instead was her obituary from 1998, where it turns out, she was the mother of poet Lucie Brock-Broido. And in her obit (LBB died in 2018), it says she wrote a love letter to her dead dad on my birthday: “When she was 12, her father died, on July 4, 1968. By noon the next day she was writing a love letter to him, she told Poetry magazine.” This still doesn’t answer WHY Virginia Greenwald gets such high billing. If anyone knows, please let me know!
This movie has the distinction of not just one, two, but three titles. Originally written as Jack’s Wife, it was reedited and released as a softcore movie under the name Hungry Wives, and then a few years later as what we know today, Season of the Witch.
Buckets and buckets of blue eyeshadow were used in the making of this movie.
Lows
Look, let’s be real, of course it’s dated.
The girl who played the daughter is not a good actress.
I wish Romero could have remade this. I’m really curious what he would have changed. This would have been a very different movie in the 80s or 90s.
Final verdict
I liked this one and if you’re intrigued, you should check it out too. It actually creeped me out! Those trippy camera angles.
Thank you for coming along on this witchy ride! Whoops to any typos, weird spacing, or grammar mistakes. Links to my social and website can be found below. You can buy me a cup of coffee here or here, if you wish. Any questions or comments, feel free to send them along— andrea.laurion@gmail.com