George A. Romero’s Season of the Witch is a slow-burn feminist occult drama
Romero spent decades being reduced to the zombie guy, and that reduction did real damage to how we talk about his filmography. A feminist occult drama sitting right between his two most famous horror films is exactly the kind of thing that should make us pause and reconsider the tidy narrative. The slow-burn label matters here because it signals patience, a willingness to let tension build through mood and character rather than scares, which feels almost defiant for a director known for visceral shocks.
What I find compelling is how this reframes Romero as someone thinking about gender and domesticity, not just social commentary through the undead. The occult angle gives him room to explore power dynamics that zombies never quite allowed. I'd want to know more about how the feminist reading actually plays out in the film, whether it holds up as intentional or emerges from the subtext. That distinction often separates genuinely interesting rereadings from wishful interpretations.
It's a good reminder that the margins of a famous career can be more revealing than the center. The films we skip over tend to be the ones that show an artist experimenting before they settle into what made them famous. </summary>