Joan and Jane are two women trapped in their lives. Joan is trapped in a cold, dead marriage, and Jane is trapped by the trauma of losing a child. Both traverse their own journeys to self-actualization and liberation through the exploration of the occult. Season of the Witch and All the Colors of the Dark, released within one year of each other, take the audience into the underbelly of the weird and the witchy, probing into the pressures set upon women by their lovers and society, as a whole. Each film is equally profound, yet their epic conclusions lie on opposite extremes.
In George A. Romero’s 1973 psycho-drama Season of the Witch, Joan (Jan White) has grown listless and miserable with her perfect suburban life. Her husband Jack (Bill Thunhurst) no longer satisfies her, neither does the housework. She’s merely going through the motions when we meet her. And she’s having the most terrifying and bizarre nightmares, manifestations of her deep-seated anxieties. Through the film, Joan turns to witchcraft to find freedom from her life, from her husband, and even from herself.
In the opening dream sequence, she’s wandering through a forest with Jack, who appears disgusted and then unconcerned with her. He first lets the branches smack his wife and tear into her skin, and then he snaps on a dog harness and locks her in a cage. It’s all a metaphor, naturally, of how she views her real life. She’s suffocated, and Jack fully believes “we’re doing okay,” as he tells her one night in bed. He nuzzles closer to her breasts, and Joan’s expression is lifeless. Her tired eyes and drooping mouth suggest a life of abandoned dreams, dissatisfying sex, and a husband totally consumed by his ego to see reality. Joan needs a way out.
A friend in town named Marion (Virginia Greenwald) claims to be a witch and invites Joan over one night for a tarot reading. She describes her beliefs as “a religion, really” before regaling how her mother was a witch, as well, and from whom she learned everything she knows and understands about the practice. It never startles Joan, only titilates and intrigues her. It seems witchcraft is exactly the avenue through which she may be able to unlock the conundrum of life. Soon after, Joan compiles all the necessary tools, from smudge sticks to a silver dagger and a chalice, for her own altar and begins tinkering with various spells and incantations. When Donovan’s undeniably catchy “Season of the Witch” kicks into gear, she undergoes a complete personal transformation. Once an exhausted housewife, Joan emerges as a self-possessed woman who knows exactly what she wants and how to get it.
‘Season of the Witch’
When she performs a ritual for sex一or rather to entice her daughter Nikki’s (Joedda McClain) much older boyfriend and professor Gregg (Raymond Laine) into her orbit一Joan gets a first-hand glimpse into the power of witchcraft. “I made this happen,” she tells Gregg after the two hook up in Joan’s living room. Gregg is unbelieving; in fact, he scoffs at the notion that such strange practices had any bearing on what occurs in life. But he entertains her ideas anyway.
All the while, Joan continues having the most peculiar dreams. The latest recurring nightmare involves a man in a hairy mask breaking into her home and attacking her. Jack shrugs them off, of course, leaving his wife exasperated and feeling as though she’s going insane. However, there’s much deeper meaning to the dreams. They’re symbolic of the cracks and chips forming around the edges of their marriage. The fear Joan feels in real life has now invaded her every moment, whether she’s awake or not. She can’t escape it. She can only dive further into witchcraft to free herself and discover a world in which she’s appreciated, acknowledged, and accepted.
It’s only a matter of time before she asks Marion to join the coven. Marion warns that using witchcraft foolishly will result in one being eaten alive from the inside. Joan takes her warning to heart and painstakingly remains vigilant over her spell casting, choosing only to reclaim her own power and unearth the woman she was destined to become.
Season of the Witch centers the story around the importance of womanhood and how a coven symbolizes female companionship, suggesting that women supporting one another is the best defense against the patriarchy. Perhaps, Joan’s nightmare of the masked stalker has always been about toxic masculinity and entitlement, and the idea women have been subservient to men for centuries. In the climax of the film, things don’t particularly end well for Jack, who returns home late one night and tries to break into the house. Unlike her dream, Joan takes charge of the narrative, grabs a shotgun, and blows a hole through his chest. It’s a perfect ending to underscore Joan’s entire character arc in the film. In fighting back, she was finally and truly free from her life.
‘All the Colors of the Dark’
Sergio Martino’s All the Colors of the Dark (1972) utilizes very similar conventions, but focuses on a young woman recovering her life after an unimaginable tragedy. After suffering a miscarriage caused by a car crash, Jane (Edwige Fenech) falls into a pit of despair and can’t seem to shake away the darkness. And who could blame her. That sort of misery is a unique experience. Jane is also still recovering from witnessing her mother’s murder when she was a child. All her trauma knots up inside of her and manifests in recurring nightmares of being stabbed to death. Nothing can possibly save her.
Her sister Barbara (Susan Scott) suggests she seek out treatment from a psychiatrist named Dr. Burton (George Rigaud), but Jane’s boyfriend Richard (George Hilton) considers him “a quack” and urges her not to go. Jane takes her sister’s advice instead. ““Your worst enemy is loneliness,” Burton tells Jane during their session. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well and Jane is even more downcast than usual. With no other options, Jane then attends a Black Mass at the recommendation of her neighbor Mary (Marina Malfatti). Jane has misgivings, but she’s willing to keep an open mind. Located on a sweeping estate, the coven’s castle looms large and overwhelming, hinting at something far more malevolent inside its corridors.
When she enters the hallowed space, she witnesses a dog being slaughtered for a ritual, and she’s forced to drink its blood from a chalice. The ceremony abruptly becomes hyper-sexualized, erupting into a massive orgy with limbs and faces popping into and out of frame. As bizarre as it seems, Jane appears tantalized by her experience and continues to partake in the coven’s practices. It appears she has finally uncovered something that makes her feel alive again, and she works through her trauma in the process. All lingering doubts are washed away in a sea of sweaty bodies and heightened orgasms 一 at least for the time being.
Her sexual salvation comes with a heavy price tag, however. During a sacrament, Mary ends up dead, killed as a lamb on an altar. It’s an exchange, one for another, that terrifies Jane most, and she flees in shock and horror. What she’s witnessed can’t possibly be reality, so she heads to Mary’s apartment to confirm that the events were just a delusion born out of desperation. But someone else now resides in the apartment, and they claim Mary has never lived there.
While contending with losing a grip on reality, Jane has been seeing a mysterious wild-eyed man following her. She asserts it’s the same man who’s been killing her in her dreams. It’s initially unclear whether he’s just an illusion, wrought from two life-changing traumatic events, or a real murderer out for her blood. Or perhaps he’s part of the coven and needs yet another sacrifice. In a confrontation, the man reveals to Jane that her mother once committed to the coven and was murdered because she wanted out. It’s not exactly the answer she hoped for, but it does clear up one of the most brutal moments from her life, possibly allowing her to finally find closure and heal.
Later, Richard learns Barbara has been leading the coven the entire time in the hope of taking up her mother’s legacy. The revelation rattles Jane to her core. Betrayal from her own sister couldn’t have been further from her mind. Upon killing Barbara, Richard is confronted by other cult members and nearly murdered himself. He manages to throw one of them off a building and seemingly to his death.
‘All the Colors of the Dark’
In many ways, the nightmare comes to a triumphant end. Not only has the cult been brutally disbanded, but Jane’s psychological turmoil finds healthy catharsis. Her need to seek out healing elsewhere is no longer necessary. Through her sexual liberation, she breaks free from her shackles, putting both her miscarriage and mother’s murder to rest, and discovers renewed strength in her husband. In the film’s final moments, she embraces Richard on the rooftop. While she’s uncovered parts of herself long suppressed, there are still elements of her being that terrify her. Jane then expresses reservations that still linger in her brain: “I’m scared of not being myself anymore.”
That fear circles like a vulture around Joan and Jane. It preys on their minds and their entrapment. Two women lose themselves and rediscover their sexual prowess and strength to reclaim their lives. There are two very different outcomes, of course, but their journeys are quite similar, touching upon the idea that pain can also be brandished as a double-edged dagger. In both instances, men play significant, yet secondary, roles. An oppressor in one; a disinterested lover in the other. Together, they make quite a witchy double feature this spooky season. You won’t regret it.
Double Trouble is a recurring column that pairs up two horror films, past or present, based on theme, style, or story.
The post ‘Season of the Witch’ & ‘All the Colors of the Dark’ – A Witchy Double Feature for Spooky Season appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.