George A. Romero's SEASON OF THE WITCH (1972)

Horror master George A. Romero’s underseen, woozy feminist psychodrama of ’70s suburban discontent, witchcraft, and occult liberation. A KIND OF HUSH: Cinema of Ambient Dread October 9th-27th It’s in the air…a shadowy footstep behind a locked door, a stranger’s dead-eyed stare, a glimpsed figure at the edge of an empty lot, a whisper from the other room. Something felt before it is seen. Something not quite right. There’s an uneasy stillness that settles over a certain strain of horror, where the slightest sound, movement, or suggestion of a presence can become almost unbearable. This October, 7th House presents A KIND OF HUSH: Cinema of Ambient Dread, a six-film series devoted to movies that unsettle less through shocks than through atmosphere: quiet rooms, empty streets, unfamiliar landscapes, troubled dreams, and the uncanny feeling of being not quite alone… Spanning the ghostly memory palace of THE CHANGELING (1980), George A. Romero’s occult portrait of suburban disquiet SEASON OF THE WITCH (1972), the grief-haunted isolation of FULL CIRCLE (aka THE HAUNTING OF JULIA, 1977), the somnambulant seaside nightmare MESSIAH OF EVIL (1973), the rain-lashed Gothic fever dream of NEXT OF KIN (1982), and the hypnotic pastoral dread of LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971), these are films saturated in an atmosphere of gentle dread, where unease lingers long before frights are delivered. Join us throughout October for six singular excursions into the quieter reaches of horror, where silence draws us closer, shadows beckon, and the waking world slips into nightmare. As part of their October series A KIND OF HUSH: Cinema of Ambient Dread, 7th House proudly presents George A. Romero’s SEASON OF THE WITCH (1972), a woozy plunge into suburban discontent, occult fascination, and psychological unraveling, in which one housewife’s encounter with witchcraft opens the door to a radical—and increasingly unsettling—reimagining of herself. Jan White (in a remarkable performance) stars as Joan Mitchell, an affluent Pittsburgh housewife adrift in a comfortable life that has begun to feel like a trap. Her husband is frequently away, her daughter is pulling away, and Joan finds herself increasingly haunted by dreams of confinement, aging, and erasure. When an encounter with a practicing witch introduces her to the occult, Joan begins experimenting with witchcraft herself—and discovers in it not simply the promise of supernatural power, but a means of imagining herself anew. Made at the height of the women’s liberation movement, Romero’s film locates horror in the quiet desperation of domestic life: empty afternoons, cluttered rooms, casual male cruelty, sexual frustration, and the creeping realization that the identity you have inhabited for years may never really have been your own. Like an occult precursor to THE ICE STORM, the film captures a moment of free-floating suburban discontent in which old social arrangements are coming apart and no one seems quite certain what will replace them. For Joan, the answer is the esoterically empowered allure of witchcraft, becoming at once rebellion, self-invention, erotic awakening, and perhaps genuine supernatural force, while Romero leaves the boundaries between her psychic life and the world around her tantalizingly porous. Less a conventional horror film than a woozy, disquieting occult feminist psychodrama, Season of the Witch transforms the American suburb into a landscape of free-floating unease, where liberation and danger seem to arrive hand in hand. An essential, still-undervalued work from one of American horror’s great filmmakers. Dir. George A. Romero, 1972, 90 mins, USA, English, Unrated (Adult Audiences), Digital. Tickets: $12 (All Screenings Are In Person Only) Please email [email protected] or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions. ADVISORY DISCLAIMER With some exception, The Philosophical Research Society’s 7th House Screenings does not typically provide advisory warnings about potentially upsetting content or subject matter, as sensitivities are particular to each viewer. Please be sure to read event listings, research on the web, or visit Common Sense Media, IMDb, and DoesTheDogDie.com for thorough info on content and age-appropriateness. 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