COOKIE: The late 60s/early 70s were so wild, weren’t they? All that balling and grass. All those “dirty” Mad Libs games. Not to mention the rampant witchcraft so prevalent among naughty housewives! I mean, I get it. I really do. The original title of this Romero flick was Hungry Wives — and boy are they starved! Hungry for youth and kicks and good sex and power and CONTROL. At the same time, deeply disturbed by aging, Catholicism and rampant, raging rape fantasies.
Have things really changed that much?
This flick is visceral and choppy and, yes, some would say painfully obvious and silly. Those people would probably be (mostly) men. Apparently, even Romero wasn’t happy with the end-result.
Joan (played by a rather masculine, sexy Jan White with long, precise fingernails) is a lonely housewife. She’s tormented by nightmares and surrounded by assholes. Like her husband Jack (your typical workaholic brute), her indifferent daughter, and her young egomaniac lover (a cross between Benjamin Braddock and Isaac from Children of the Corn). No wonder this woman is driven to witchcraft and murder!
If you were a teen witch in the late 90s, you’ll dig this movie. The big event then, of course, was when The Craft hit theatres. A movie so influential it bred an entire generation of young aspiring Wiccans. Witchcraft books flew off the library shelves and girls called the corners wearing candy necklaces, waving their fathers’ best steak knives.
Of course, Season of the Witch is more Satanic. It smells of Anton LaVay’s brand of Satanic witch. By 1996, I think the line between witchcraft and Satanism was clearly drawn (Wicca in practice, and Satanism for rocking out Antichrist Superstar-style). Thinking back, I could have done with more powers of persuasion and less herbs and incense. (Especially when that incense accidentally burned down a house. But that’s another story.)
Girls and women will always be drawn to dark arts. Or white arts. “It’s fun. It’s scary. And who gives a shit,” said Nancy Downs (the one we all wanted to be). It quenches the thirst for power. It gives us better things to do on Friday nights than get date-raped or wait for the phone to ring.
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