Hungry Wives (1972)

Truly Dreadful Film

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

In the years between his legendary "Night of the Living Dead" and his outbreak thriller "The Crazies", filmmaker George A. Romero was actually trying NOT to get pigeonholed as a horror director. This is one of his efforts from that era. It's not for hardcore horror fans; other than a few nightmare sequences, it barely flirts with that genre. It's more of a sometimes arty, sometimes exploitative drama about a suburban housewife named Joan Mitchell (Jan White). Rather dissatisfied with her lot in life, she begins to think about things such as extramarital sex, and the idea of dabbling in the occult.The performances are better than one might expect for such an independent, regional production. Romero uses his script as a set-up for exploring themes such as self esteem & self expression, female oppression, and the generation gap. For a while, it's likely to cause some audience members to be regularly checking their watches, as it rambles on at too deliberate a pace. It begins to maintain interest more consistently after the one hour mark. Regarding its artistic ambitions, Romero does seem to be enjoying himself coming up with those dream sequences. And in terms of exploitative elements, there is nudity both female and male, but never very much violence or gore."Hungry Wives" is fairly serious, but not totally without humor. Fans of the directors' output may want to see it for completions' sake, but it's not going to be for every taste.Six out of 10.

"Hungry Wives" aka "Season of the Witch". OK there are movies that work better when they are fast-paced, some that work better at a mid-pace, and other films are better at a slow-pace. This film is not slow-paced it's slower than a snail's pace - it's at a dragging-pace, painfully slow.A housewife is bored. She has a husband that is not home most of the time and when he is home it's a stale relationship. She has a daughter that has her own life and really doesn't care about her. She has gossipy friends that are rather a bore as well. So she's alone most all the time and utterly bored so she decides to try witchcraft as a solution - to spice up her life I guess. Well, we finally get about 10 minutes of her witchcraft which doesn't amount to a hill of beans - a love spell of all things - this leads us to adultery which she seems to like more than her new found hobby witchcraft. At the end, she grows tired of her lover. Oh and she starts telling others "I'm a witch".I think the witchcraft is suppose to be a metaphor for real life women's lib movement that was still going on at the time of this film - but was shown as literal witchcraft in this film.There was some stink about the releasing of this film - and was marketed as soft-core porn much to the displeasure of Romero -- so I read somewhere. Makes no sense to me after watching this film... it would barely qualify as soft-core porn if it does at all. And the cut footage was cut to qualify it as soft-core porn in the 70s - do what?! Seems that is what they cut was soft-core porn bits but whatever. I just know there is cut footage that was later found and pieced back to create another release of this film. The film is boring and talky not close to soft-core porn that I can tell.2/10

Season of the Witch (1972)* (out of 4) This notorious film from George A. Romero was at one time considered one of his two "lost" movies but while this one here was easily available in bootleg form, most people didn't see it (or the previously made THERE'S ALWAYS VANILLA) until released to DVD by Anchor Bay. The film tells the story of a bored wife named Joan (Jan White) who is ignored by her husband so she finds some new friends who just happen to be into black magic and sure enough things take a turn for the worse. This Romero film was originally released at 130-minutes as HUNGRY WIVES but when no one went to it it was then shown overseas as JACK'S WIFE with a 104-minute running time. It was then again cut down but the version on DVD now is this 104-minute version but it does carry the SEASON OF THE WITCH title card. No matter what you call it there's no denying that this is a downright horrid film that is just shocking to watch not because of it being scary but because it's rather hard to imagine the same person behind this film also made NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Romero himself has called this a piece of crap but the filmmaker might be too kind with those words. It's said that Romero made THERE'S ALWAYS VANILLA because he didn't want to be known as a horror director and I think this thought has a lot to do with the issues here. It's clear that Romero didn't want to make just another "witchcraft" film so he tried to do something different with the material, which I can appreciate but sadly the end results are just horrid. The majority of the blame has to go towards the screenplay because it just contains one long, drawn-out dialogue sequence after another and you can't help but lose focus of what the characters are saying because the stuff they're saying is just so bland. You'll be watching two of the characters talk but their dialogue just goes in such direction that you can't help grow bored and simply tune out. At 104-minutes the film is way too long and I can't help but thing what torture the original version must have been. The performances aren't very good either with none of them really standing out and there's some really bad editing that doesn't help matters either. SEASON OF THE WITCH probably would have been best served had it remained missing because there's no question that the director is embarrassed by it and he should be.

Excellent! Before Romero got too famous for his Zombies, he gave us this little gem.This was a great find. Good story, great characters, good scares.You also had hippies, drugs, swinger types, and gaudy 70's decor.The best scenes were the recurring nightmares of the prowler trying to break into her house. Every time she had this nightmare it went further. Seeing the shadow go to the side of the house and cut the phone line while she was trying to call for help was CRE-EPY.And did anyone notice there was no music on the soundtrack during these scenes? All you heard was breathing and her voice when she tried to use the phone.One of the scariest scenes of the 70's, and that's going some.This deserves to be as well known as Romero's 'Dead' trilogy. Or at least 'Martin.' See this again.