Horror amateurs will look at the career of George A. Romero and will automatically assume that the years in between 1968 and 1979 were only made up of two things: "Night of the Living Dead" and "Dawn of the Dead." What they will be missing out on is the fact that within those years, Romero brought us movies that, while not performing well at the box office, also stand out in their own field of horror sub-genres and thankfully are now referred to as classics in it of themselves. Movies like "Martin" for instance, probably the best psychological look into vampirism, and "The Crazies," a super paranoid virus film with some great low budget gunplay, are perfect examples of classics that eventually found their audience. And we all can't forget about the breathtaking Romero directed documentary "O.J. Simpson: Juice on the Loose."

To me, 1973 is a great year for Romero movies. Along with "The Crazies," he also brought us this masterpiece of sexy cinema and witchcraft. Released as "Hungry Wives" in a 130 minute version, it was later butchered down to 89 minutes and given the title of "Season of the Witch" (from a Donovan song that appears in the movie). It was released on video shortly after "Dawn of the Dead" came to theaters and I'm pretty sure the box cover led one to believe that this movie was made afterwards. I love those silly old box covers like that. They make me laugh as much as movies with quotes from Jeff Craig on them.

I was hooked on this film right from the start of the opening credits, and let me explain to you how. Okay, not only is this, I think, the first film that actually has the "special thanks to" in front of it (so I can hear about dry cleaning and watch a movie!) but the first few minutes of this film are so whacked out that I thought I had bumped by head on the vent that rests right above my couch. It's easier than you think. The movie opens with housewife Joan Mitchell (Jan White) walking aimlessly through the woods. She is walking right behind her husband who is simply reading and pushing branches in Joan's face causing little cuts. She passes by a baby that is just randomly laying in the dirt, and also sees herself swinging on a swingset, hanging out of nowhere. Cut to another part of the dream and Joan is being led on a leash by her husband and put in a dogcage because he is going out of town.

I did not take my eyes off the screen once during this movie. If something is going to have an opening that surreal and that far out, the it should not have an intermission. I couldn't even get up to go outside and have a cigarette. I loved this film. I loved every single minute of it. I think it's a fascinating look at 70s feminism combined with the curiosity of witchcraft and a character study on a woman who is near going over the edge if she doesn't do something different with her life. Of course, I could have been all exited during the movie because of the nicotine fit that I was having, but nonetheless, "Season of the Witch" hooked me, gutted me, and served me for dinner.

A lot of advertising indicated that this would be a horror film. It really isn't. This movie works best as a psychological drama. Joan is a woman who is fed up with her current life, she seems to be going through a sort of midlife crisis. She is smart, incredibly beautiful, and is good with words, but for some reason is married to a conservative snot who actually slaps her around in a scene where their daughter runs off. After a scene like that, you want Joan to go "I Spit On Your Grave" on this creep. But no no, she does thing much more subtle.

Instead, Joan gets very curious about the art of witchcraft after discussing it with friends and even going to a tarot card reading. She goes into town, buys different manuals on witchcraft and some items as well, like black candles, knives, the works, to which the cashier replies "far out!" While her husband is thankfully out of town, she does a little bit of experimenting. She creates a spell that would cause her daughter's young college professor Gregg (certainly an opinionated man) to want to go to bed with her. It works. Well of course it works, look at Joan. She is more beautiful than probably 80% of the girls who go to Gregg's college.

Joan and Gregg continue to have an affair, even after Gregg learns that Joan has become a witch. Gregg still tries to find a logical and skeptical aspect on Joan's motives for becoming a witch. Not that he's a bad guy at heart, but he's one of those characters who thinks that he knows more about psychosis than any woman could possibly know. In the case of Joan, he's wrong.

The movie is intercut with a lot of surreal scenes involving Joan's dreams. In them there is always this figure dressed in black and wearing a ghoulish mask. The person is attacking her and it's like no matter what she does she can't stop him. The figure is a metaphor for something. Is it normal society's stress coming down on her mentality, or is this ghoul actually her bastard husband and the dreams are teaching her that she needs to get rid of the real monster to make the dreamlike monster disappear? I prefer to think of it as the latter. At the core, this really is a movie about feminism and how this woman takes control of her life and makes it more meaningful, more lifelike, and just downright better than her husband or even Gregg could make it.

What I absolutely love about "Season of the Witch" is that it gets away with scenes that probably would not work in another movie if a: the script wasn't as good, or b: the actors weren't up to par. This movie probably has the best acting of any Romero film, right next to "Dawn of the Dead." There is a scene in the film where Joan, her friend Shirley, Gregg, and Joan's daughter are having this little get together which ends with Shirley getting drunk and spouting off all kinds of statements about her own insecurities. Gregg wants to make it better by slipping Shirley a fake joint and see how she reacts. The scene goes on for about 10 minutes I think, and it really doesn't have much to do with anything except for setting up the Joan and Gregg relationship, but never are those 10 minutes boring. The actors play it like it is an actual conversation going on, with some of them interrupting other and even two or more people talking at once (in another party scene, I think there are three conversations going at the same time). It makes you feel like you're a fly on the wall which makes it utterly brilliant what Romero has done. You're no longer looking at this as a movie, but you feel like you are witnessing actual events taking place.

Of course, with that said, I'm sure that some people just looking for exploitation thrills will certainly hate this film. Don't hate this movie, look at it through my eyes! Just give them back to me afterwards of course. I don't think I've seen any other movie deal with the subject of witchcraft so realistically and so psychologically as this film does. That, to me, makes it more frightening than a movie with a pointy hat wearing witch taking children and boiling them in a pot of soup. Maybe not as funny, but more frightening.

When you go to look for this movie (please do, please do) make sure you are getting the version that doesn't say 89 minutes on the back of the box. You want as much of this film as you can get, trust me. I believe in foreign releases it is called "Jack's Wife" and is the same running time as the current VHS and DVD release. Seek out "Season of the Witch" and you'll see that Romero can bring us any kind of classic, not just living dead, not just vampires, and not just cartoon skeletons reading comic book horror stories.

Recommended: Yes