When I look over my shoulder (what happens then?)
What do you think I see?
--Donovan, "Season of the Witch"
In fact, when I look over my shoulder, I see at least four films entitled Season of the Witch. Viewers will find significant variance in tone, effect, and quality-- sometimes within the same film.
1
The first and best of the lot was made by George A. Romero in 1971. The studio, uncertain about the results, re-edited and released it in '72 as Hungry Wives!, suggesting in the marketing that it was softcore porn. This must have disappointed certain viewers, since it features only a couple of very brief, non-graphic sex scenes and some fleeting nudity during a ritual. Romero's edit was restored a year later and it was released as Jack's Wife, hardly a BO-generating title. Much later it received distribution as Season of the Witch. It's that version I am reviewing here.
Joan Mitchell (Jan White) is unhappy. Her husband, a local businessman, rules the household and will resort to intimidation and even (if rarely) violence if necessary. Her daughter, now nineteen, has started her own life. Mrs. Mitchell experiences nightmares of being controlled and pursued, has an affair with her daughter's professor, becomes involved with witchcraft, and grows increasingly paranoid. Reality and fantasy begin to merge.
These trends reach a memorable ending.
The film draws upon the specific flavour of occultism that was popular in the era and feminist concerns of the time. Parts of the film both echo and directly reference Rosemary's Baby and The Graduate.
Romero makes the most of a limited budget. I give him credit for making a suburban house looks scary, through the use of colour, angles, and lighting, and the juxtaposition of the garish wallpaper typical of the era with creepy lamps and statues (and, oddly enough, the same teapot that my mother had). Significant stretches, unfortunately, just look cheap. The fact does not work nearly so well here as it does in Night of the Living Dead.
The occult rituals are campy but effective and appropriate. If you're familiar with the manner in which neoPagan witchcraft had entered the pop culture of the era, and how media (especially of the less-respectable sort) depicted magick, you will see what Romero is doing.
The leads are fine, particularly Jan White, who is on camera most of the time. The others vary quite a bit in their acting. A few are just bad.
There's also a cat. The feline really comes through with her performance.
The film is slow and very talky, more of a suburban drama with some thriller elements, but it has an effective finale and a chillingly clever epilogue that make the viewing worthwhile.
It's not the greatest film of the early 1970s, but I found it worth viewing and it does help one understand its era. As regards movies entitled, Season of the Witch between 1970 and 2011, it will be a downhill slag.
This SotW is also the only one (thus far) to use Donovan's song.
Written and directed by George A. Romero
Jan White as Joan Mitchell
Bill Thunhurst as Jack Mitchell
Joedda McClain as Nikki Mitchell
Ray Laine as Gregg Williamson
Virginia "Ginger" Greenwald as Marion
Ann Muffly as Shirley Randolph
Neil Fisher as Dr. Miller
Esther Lapidus as Sylvia
Marvin Lieber as Jerry Randolph
Dan Mallinger as Frazer
Robert Trow as Detective Mills
Jean Wechsler as Gloria
Charlotte Carter as Mary
Lynda Marnoni as Patty
S. William Hinzman as The Intruder
A black cat as The Cat
2
The next hit the screen about a decade later. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) has a slightly divergent title, so reviews appear there.
3
Our next Season of the Witch came in 2009 after, apparently, considerable delays. It appears to take place in the 1970s.
If you decided to sell, say, all of your clothing, you would probably have the budget to finance a film similar to this one.
A woman returns to her childhood home to clean out the old house, and she brings along her children. The local vicar says "howdy" and begins showing an unholy interest in Alice's teenage daughter, Mary. Needless to say, all is not as it seems, in either the village or the good Reverend's mind.
This Season has a promising start, with credits and a (seemingly) deliberately bad performance that suggests we're going to see a parody or pastiche of Hammer Horror and other past Halloween fare. What follows is not a deadpan parody, but that's probably the best way to watch this film.
The central premise has more serious potential and I admire how far it gets on an almost non-existent budget. In fact, it features a good horror premise—for a short story or short film. It might have fared well as one entry in an anthology. It has neither the strength nor the budget for a feature film, and the result moves at a slow and painful pace to a passable but underfunded conclusion. The very low production values affect all aspects, including the sound.
The acting is uneven to say the least. Some of the performers are pretty good. Other players would not pass the audition for a small town community theatre.
And some of writer/director Peter Goddard's decisions just baffle. People see Mary and ask why she looks familiar, but it takes them most of the film to realize that she's a near-duplicate of the Reverend's late wife, who died in a horrible accident. That's not what would happen. They would say, "hey, Mary looks like the Reverend's late wife."
This film tries to be an isolated village mystery and a Hammer horror tribute with a bit of The Wicker Man*, but some viewers might require the liquor, man, to get through it. A few neat directorial flourishes appear, but the results aren't good enough to make it a clever horror tribute, nor bad enough to give us the horror-movie equivalent of The Room.
Written and directed by Peter Goddard
Beth Kingston as Alice Blackwell
Tim McConnell as the Reverend Michael Howdy
Nicki Salmond as Mary Blackwell
Dominic Ellis and Rohan Gotobed as Sam Blackwell
Barry Robbins as Harry Price
Daniel Coffey as John Elliot
Andrew Ledger as Tom Hopkins
Claire Randall as Susanna Price
Hannah Cheetham as Kate Elliot
Geoff Kimmings as Dr. Richard Robbins
Rob Talbot as Terry Joplin
Kevin Hallett as Travis Jones
*I refer here to the 1973 original, and not its terrible remake. Nicholas Cage fans can take heart, however; he appears in the fourth and final film by this title that I shall be reviewing.
4
Our final Season of the Witch is the most recent as of this writing (though I believe a documentary by this title also exists). Its budget dwarfs that of all previous Seasons combined.
Alas, money alone does not a good film make.
In Hollywood's version of Ye Middle Ages (complete with wildly anachronistic Plague Doctors), a pair of deserters from the Crusades try to earn redemption by transporting an accused witch, a young woman being blamed for the Black Death, to a remote monastery to perform a ritual that might end the plague.
The film begins with high production values and solid effects. It features some dramatic action sequences during the battles, though less, better scripted, would have been more effective. I also admired the haunted forest, which features harrowing visuals.
Then it reached post-production. Did they run out of budget? Did they field the final effects out to somebody's kids? Did I miss a twist where our heroes wandered into a 90s videogame? The CGI used in the finale is awful.
The performances vary in quality. Some are a bit cagey. Ron Perlman and Claire Foy do the best they can with the script.
We have a passable premise, but something went awry in the filming and editing. The results are chaotic and meandering. Much of the movie slogs through extended prologues with attempted commentary on war and religious fanaticism, before we gather a gaming party and head out on a quest. By the time that happens, some viewers will have checked out.
Also: did APBs exist in the fourteenth century? Most remarkable that Cage and Perlman's characters get recognized so easily while wandering through East Butthole in the Grand Duchy of Nowhere.
The film needed two things to work. Firstly, the script required editing with a Lochaber axe. Secondly, it needed to find its tone. With better-developed characters and focus it might have worked as a serious horror-fantasy. With more humour and a deliberate leaning into its Dungeons and Dragons tropes, it might have made an entertaining action-comedy.
What we get is an occasionally entertaining mess.
Directed by Dominic Sena
Written by Bragi F. Schut
Nicolas Cage as Behmen
Ron Perlman as Felson
Claire Foy as Anna
Christopher Lee as Cardinal D’Ambroise
Stephen Campbell Moore as Debelzaq
Stephen Graham as Hagamar
Ulrich Thomsen as Eckhart
Robert Sheehan as Kay
Kevin Rees as Dying Monk
Andrew Hefler as Jail Bailiff
Róbert Bánlaki as Livery Boy
Barna Illyés as Cardinal's Priest
Kevin Killebrew as Demonic Voice