#joedda mcclain

N.B. I am mortified to admit that, as I discovered much too late, there’s a pretty good chance that the version of this that I watched for my review was one of the two heavily edited cuts that suffered under producorial pressure. I’ve read several synopses, and I haven’t found anything factual that I may have missed, but there still exists the possibility that I didn’t get the whole picture. My apologies for any important omissions from my analysis here, but I still have some things that I believe are worth saying. - CD

Having succeeded at blending social realism with fantastical violence in 1968′s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and then making an obscure detour into rom-com territory with THERE’S ALWAYS VANILLA in 1971, George Romero made of his third feature film an exercise in experimental psychodrama that would pay off several years later with the cult success of MARTIN in 1978. The latter film, a tantalizingly ambiguous tale about a disturbed young man who claims to be a vampire, is regarded as one of Romero’s finest works by cineastes and genre buffs alike, in spite of (or perhaps, because of) its spare and subdued character. Although MARTIN is still discussed actively today, these conversations rarely mention the similarity between that film and 1972′s inferior but original SEASON OF THE WITCH.

SEASON OF THE WITCH was initially released in a gouged-out version called HUNGRY WIVES, by a distributor who felt that there was no way tot try to sell it as anything other than softcore pornography. This is ironic, considering George Romero’s on-the-record claim that he intended it as a feminist film, with an awareness of the contemporary women’s liberation movement. In fact, Romero had originally titled the film JACK’S WIFE, as an ironic jab at the popular sexist perception of women as no more than an appendage of the spouses. No amount of pressure from producers could compel the director to spice up the sex scenes, and so, with this disconnect between marketing and content, the film was a flop. This is not to suggest that this flawed production is a secret work of staggering genius, but it is a little more interesting than its relative obscurity would suggest, and certainly well worth a watch for anyone interested in feminist horror efforts.

39-year old Joan (Jan White) is a suburban hausfrau whose daily existence alternates between boredom and terror, as she watches out for her husband’s unpredictable bursts of violence, and her personal development stagnates in her cloistered lifestyle. She feels undermined by her co-ed daughter Nikki’s (Joedda McClain) attractiveness and enjoyment of casual sex, especially when the student teacher Nikki is balling, Gregg (Ray Laine), insinuates himself into Joan’s social life, with the apparent aim of humiliating the older neighborhood women. With nothing much to lose, she becomes involved with Marion, a local woman who casually tells fortunes, and leads a secret coven. Joan is piqued and disturbed by her tarot reading, which suggests that her fate is intractably dim, but her capacity for hope will carry her through--even if this hope does not correspond with reality. To make matters worse, Nikki skips town after the frustrated Joan eavesdrops on her daughter and Gregg in bed. Desperate to find some semblance of control, Joan privately experiments with witchcraft, believing that she has magically compelled the promiscuous Gregg to fall for her. Unfortunately, she learns too late that these dark powers are not to be used for petty personal motives, and becomes increasingly fearful of supernatural retribution, possibly involving the still-missing Nikki. She dreams of a demonically-masked intruder stalking and assaulting her. In order to make amends, Joan forces Gregg to participate in a summoning ritual, at the end of which a stray cat slinks into the house, the seeming manifestation of a supernatural being. Joan subsequently hears from the police that Nikki is alive and will be returning home soon. Joan is elated, but while she waits, she has a vision of the masked intruder in her home--and consequently, shoots and kills her husband, who has returned from one of his frequent business trips. The film concludes with Joan being legally cleared of this “accident”, seemingly having everything she desires, including status within Marion’s coven. However, her alienated affect and thousand yard stare at a cocktail party suggest that this whole violent, disturbing episode may not have been as heroically satisfying as she hoped.

While Joan seems to have all the evidence she needs that she’s witch, Romero’s complex and ambivalent film, filled with coincidences and lacking in glamorous special effects, suggests that Joan may simply have fitted mundane events into her evolving personal mythology. One could take this as less than feminist, IF the viewer assumes that in order to have a politically positive message, a story has to be aspirational. The witch is an archetype with a fraught history: Originally, she was an amalgamation of male fears about female autonomy, taking the form of a malicious temptress or a castrating crone. This ghoulish, unsympathetic vision persisted more or less until the advent of girl power, with a few lapses into sitcom territory in which the sorceress takes on the superficial form of a subservient domestic partner. In the 1990s, movies like THE CRAFT and tv shows like Charmed used witchcraft as an allegory for women’s unique strength and independence, reconfiguring the witch as an attractive and often wholesome teenage girl with style and charisma. While I agree that the reclamation of the witch represents an important, and probably inevitable cultural step forward, the obligation toward political correctness and vibrant positivity can be a trap. The unambiguous superiority of a Sabrina the Teenage Witch starts to feel ridiculous and ineffectual when repeated too often; only a more multi-dimensional iteration can endure. No one would envy Romero’s Joan, whether or not she truly has supernatural powers. Her very quest for power is less related to her character, than her predicament. She is driven to it by society; by a violent husband; by a useless and condescending psychotherapist; by shallow youth rebellions that exclude and reject her for what she helplessly represents to them as a housewife; by opportunistic men who tart up their misogynist behavior as free-thinking progressiveness. Joan’s anguish and impotence make her a much more interesting protagonist, with more to say about the social context of SEASON OF THE WITCH--and by extension the context of any historically oppressed person--than any indomitable, flannel-clad gothette could offer. Not all progressive stories revolve around role models. Nor should they.

Bored Housewives (Season of the Witch, 1972)

Originally made as “Hungry Wives” (which sounds more like some sexploitation film), the title of Season of the Witch was chosen to tie in to the Donavon song of the same name (which is used in the film).  It is also a much more apt title. Joan Mitchell’s husband is going out of town on business, and while he is gone, she falls under the influence of suburban witches. Some see this as a feminist…