Midnight Horror Review: Season of the Witch

Rated R; 89 minutes; AMAZON

Despite the fact that I have an Amazon Prime subscription, I hardly watch any of the movies or television series included with the service. I didn't realize until tonight that there were so many older horror flicks on there. Not being able to sleep and with nothing else to do, I decided to watch 1972's Season of the Witch.

Directed by the late great George A. Romero, the film is a weird horror drama centering around a bored suburban housewife named Joan Mitchell (played by Jan White). She has an abusive, controlling, workaholic husband, Jack (played by Bill Thunhurs). Their daughter,  Nikki (played by Joedda McClain), is a nineteen-year-old college student, who no longer has any need for Joan, besides for room & board. Joan has strange recurring nightmares that her psychotherapist believes is caused by her husband.

After meeting Marion Hamilton (played by Virginia Greenwald), a new neighbor who claims to be a witch, Joan becomes interested in learning about witchcraft. She buys a book full of spells and casts a spell to make her daughter's lover, Gregg (played Raymond Laine), sleep with her.

As Joan continues to casts spells, she starts having nightmares about being attacked by a man wearing a Satanic mask, which ultimately leads to her fulfilling her own dark destiny.

Final Thoughts

No offensive to anyone who actually likes Season of the Witch, but this is the dumbest witchcraft flick I have ever seen. Considering George A. Romero wrote the screenplay and directed the film, my expectations were a little high for it. Maybe that's why I was so disappointed with the slow, soap opera-like mess.

I'm well aware the original cut was over two hours, until it was heavily edited by the producers down to the official 89-minutes cut, so maybe that's why the film has choppy scenes with crappy music. There is way too much talking in the first half of the film, where basically nothing happens. The second half gets somewhat interesting when Joan decides to cast a spell, but my attention span quickly disappeared within a few minutes due to the godawful dialogue.

The main character, Joan, has an affair with a college student, but the actor playing him looks older than her! Talk about some bad casting!

Overall, Season of the Witch was a complete waste of time for me. It's the worst movie directed George A. Romero. Yes, even Survival of the Dead is better!