Season of the Witch
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Season of the Witch, also known as Hungry Wives, and Jack's Wife, is George A. Romero's third film. It was filmed in 1971, and released in 1973. It is about a housewife who becomes involved in witchcraft.
Plot
Season of the Witch follows the life of Joan Mitchell (Jan White), a 39-year-old, confident and sophisticated wife of a successful businessman named Jack Mitchell (Bill Thunhurst) whom live together in a large house in suburban Pittsburgh with their 19-year-old daughter Nikki (Joedda McClain) whom is a student at a local community college. But unknown to her friends, Joan is unhappy and bored with her lifestyle as a housewife which includes cleaning the house, getting her car washed, picking up her husband's dry cleaning, and grocery shopping. Jack is so obsessed with his business that he often ignores Joan and leaves on long business trips every week. Joan has been seeing a therapist about recurring dreams she's been having about her husband controlling her and keeping her locked up like a dog, as well as about a miscarriage she had many years ago.
During a social party, Joan and her friends learn about a new woman in their neighborhood named Marion Hamilton (Virginia Greenwald) whom practices witchcraft, they are fascinated to have an "in thing" right in their own community. Prompted by curiosity, Joan and one of her friends, Shirley (Anne Muffley), drive over to Marion's house one night for a Tarot reading where they both observe Marion's ability to deal positively with her life through her absolute faith in what she practices. Marion is also the leader of a secret woman's group which is a coven of witches in which she tells Joan a little about the group and their dealings with life in general.
Joan and Shirley drive home to Joan's house where they meet Gregg (Raymond Laine), Nikki's young professor at her college where they have a pleasant time talking about life, drinking, and smoking dope. Gregg clearly shows an attraction to Joan, who rebuffs his flirting with her.
Over the next few days, Nikki moves out, not saying where she's going to, and Jack makes more business trips, leaving Joan more alone and unhappy than ever. Joan buys a copy of the book, How to Become a Witch, A Primer, and soon practices with witchcraft. She then conjures a spell to make Gregg like her, and soon the young man and older woman are engaged in an affair. But Joan soon begins to have recurring nightmares that become more ominous and terrifying which involve her being attacked in her home by a masked intruder wearing a Satanic mask.
Believing that she has become a witch, Joan begins to sink more deeper into her new lifestyle, until the line between fantasy and reality blurs which leads to tragedy. Nikki phones from Buffalo, New York to say she won’t be coming home. Gregg walks out on Joan unable to stand more of her erratic behavior. And after another terrifying nightmare involving the masked intruder, Joan accidentally shoots and kills her husband as he's returning home from another business trip after she mistakes him for the intruder.
With the last link to her past lifestyle severed, Joan joins Marion's coven of witches and becomes a full-fledged witch. Cleared of her husband's death as an accident, Joan goes back to attending social parties with her friends where she quietly introduces herself as a witch. But Joan still remains lonely when people around her still do not refer to her by her first name, but either as 'Mrs. Mitchell' or simply, 'Jack's wife.'
Title
Season of the Witch was the original title of the Martin Scorsese film Mean Streets (1973), in which the main character, referring to their bar hangout, says, "And I wouldn't call it Tony's Place or Charlie's Place…I'd call it something like Season of the Witch… get it?"The film was the namesake for the later film (1982).
External links
| Films directed by George A. Romero |
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| Night of the Living Dead | There's Always Vanilla | The Crazies | Season of the Witch | Martin | Dawn of the Dead | Knightriders | Creepshow | Day of the Dead | Monkey Shines | Two Evil Eyes | The Dark Half | Bruiser | Land of the Dead |
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