In terms of social consciousness,
Romero always thought big. In his horror films, he was skewering culture,
government, militaries, communication, and societal responsibilities. He was
always thinking and depicting things on a grand scale. With Season of the Witch (also released as Hungry Wives), a much more
intimate film than even Night of theLiving Dead, he’s turning an eye to the life of domesticity among the woman
half of a relationship, and is doing so through the eyes of exactly one bored
housewife: Joan.
Romero regretted his inadvertent
portrayal of women in Night of the
Living Dead as weak-willed shrews either babbling incoherently on a couch,
being bossed around by her domineering husband, or running brainlessly out into
the thick of danger only to explode. Season
of the Witch, an entirely female-centric satire on housewife culture, is
obviously a direct response to that, but it also threatens to go a bit too far
in that direction. Joan’s husband is a dismissive, angry, and demeaning man far
more interested in his job then in being a loving partner to her or a patient
father to their daughter. When Joan later meets another potential suitor,
Gregg, a sort of free-spirited pot-smoking rebel, he does challenge her
philosophically and provide to her the quasi sexual awakening she didn’t know
she’d been seeking, but he still treats her dismissively and with a detectable
air of pity. The men are broad representations of stifling male archetypes,
which, sure, enables Joan’s transformation from victim to victor, but it’s
handled in just a bit too heavy handed of a notion.
Season of the Witch is more engaging as a character study than as a
horror film (it’s probably the least horrific of all Romero’s films while still
being cataloged as a horror film), but it also plods along at its own pace,
occasionally lapsing into sequences where the film can feel like it’s stopped
altogether.
Season of the Witch has been described as a companion piece to Romero’s]
vampire-esque drama horror film Martin,
a film in which a young and confused man so identifies as a vampire that he
begins attacking people and drinking their blood with the help of a razor
blade. Both films are about lonely souls looking to reinvent themselves as
something more powerful in order to escape the mundaneness of their
unfulfilling lives, and while Martin
has gone on to maintain a fairly loyal cult following, Season of the Witch has fallen into obscurity, likely thanks to its
less horrific atmosphere and somewhat discomforting environment.
