Joan Mitchell is unsatisfied with her suburban, domestic Pittsburgh life with her hard working businessman husband and hippie daughter. Maybe witchcraft will revitalise her life.

Whilst this sounds like a horror film because of its dalliances with the occult, it’s really a very interesting character study and feminist critique of the day.

In fact, I was getting seriously proto-Martin vibes with this movie. It is to witchcraft what Martin is to vampirism (but not on the same level).

I’m also loving the link between the ancient and mystic and the modern and capitalist. The scene involving the American Express card is a great touch.

This is further proof that the films in between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are very interesting indeed and worthy of your attention. There are also techniques used here which reminded me of the Nouvelle Vague and Cassavetes.

Season of the Witch was cut by its distributor (Romero was having trouble getting it distributed) and renamed Hungry Wives to appeal to the Dirty Mac brigade. It’s thought the original cut has been lost forever but if the one copy of the longer black and white version of Martin can resurface then so can this.

4 out of 5 stars