Ranking George Romero’s Ten Non-Zombie Movies

Taking stock of the beloved director’s flicks sans appearances by the Living Dead.

By: Jimbo X
JimboXAmerican@gmail.com
@JimboX

The world of horror no doubt lost a genre titan when George A. Romero passed away earlier this year. Unquestionably his greatest legacy is his contribution of the modern zombie construct to pop culture. Without Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, forget it; there would be no Walking Dead, no Resident Evil, no 28 Days Later and NONE of your favorite ‘80s splatter flicks, running the gamut from Return of the Living Dead and Re-Animator all the way to The Evil Dead and The Beyond.

In his roughly 40-year career, Romero directed a grand total of 16 feature films. While six of them were formal entries in his signature Dead series, he also gave us quite the eclectic mix of non-zombie-focused genre movies, virtually all of them save two traditional horror flicks. While Romero will always (and rightfully) be remembered for his living dead epics, that’s not to say his flicks sans zombies aren’t worth your time and effort, either. Below you’ll find a quick summary of all ten of Romero’s non-zombie movies, ranked in order from least noteworthy to most significant - including quite a few that are undoubtedly unsung genre masterpieces.

10. The Crazies (1973)

A lot of fans like to call The Crazies something of an unofficial bridge between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. While the movie does share some similarities with both films, the execution here is nowhere near as effective as it was in either Night or Dawn, eschewing the sociocultural undertones that made those movies genre masterpieces in favor of a far more rudimentary sci-fi/horror premise. The military accidentally infects a small town with a chemical weapon that turns the locals into stark-raving, homicidal maniacs and it’s up to a bunch of gun-toting federal agents in HAZMAT suits to contain the spread of the insanity-causing virus. While thematically similar to his zombie films, this one just doesn’t deliver the strong character development or over-the-top violence of Romero’s canonical living dead opuses; it has its moments, but the glimmers of George’s genius we see in his other works are unfortunately few and far in-between here.

9. Two Evil Eyes (1990)

For starters, this is only half a Romero movie, seeing as how the flick is split into two roughly hour-long vignettes based on Edgar Allen Poe stories. A very, very loose adaptation of The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, Romero’s half of the film revolves around two nefarious lovers (one of whom is played by Adrienne Barbeau) who get more than they bargained for when they steal the corpse of an extremely wealthy man. The weird, metaphysical yarn feels like an uneasy mixture of Creepshow and From Beyond, with the hypnosis and necromancy subplots dragging on for far too long. On top of that, the special effects really aren’t that impressive and the climax is especially unexciting. That Romero’s segment is followed by a much better adaptation of The Black Cat by Dario Argento only serves to make the outing even less memorable than it already is.

8. The Dark Half (1993)

Seeing as how Romero went into semi-retirement after this film was released, it’s probably not a surprise that The Dark Half is one of the director’s lesser offerings. Based on a novel by Stephen King, the film revolves around a famous horror author (Timothy Hutton) who decides to symbolically bury his nomme de plume, only for the physical embodiment of his alter ego (also played by Timothy Hutton) to rise from his grave and start killing people close to him. Naturally, the police think the author is the one behind the crimes, and it’s only a matter of time until Romero hits us with one of the lamest plot twists in horror history - one so weak, it completely sucks your interest in the remainder of the movie right out of you. And the less said about the movie’s preposterous climactic duel to the death - complete with a gaggle of deus ex machina sparrows making the save - the better.

7. Bruiser (2000)

Depending on your perspective, Bruiser is either the worst good movie Romero directed or the best bad movie he ever helmed. This straight-to-video B-movie focuses on the exploits of a dejected, alienated businessman with an unfaithful wife who is so fed up with his existentially pointless life that he contemplates committing suicide. Then, one morning he wakes up with a mysterious, featureless white mask grafted over his face, effectively making him totally unidentifiable and unrecognizable to those near and dear to him. And from there, the body count doth grow exponentially. Thematically comparable to stuff like Fight Club and American Psycho, Bruiser may not have the aesthetics or the acting to compete with its “revenge against the post-postmodern world” contemporaries, but it’s nonetheless an interesting little potboiler. And if nothing else, it’s noteworthy for being the last non-zombie movie Romero ever directed.

6. Monkey Shines (1988)

The most memorable thing about Monkey Shines has to be its box art. Featuring a clapper monkey toy with a mouthful of incisors holding a bloody straight razor, it might just be the most horrifying VHS cover for anything ever. Alas, the film itself has absolutely NOTHING to do with that, instead giving us a halfway decent flick about a quadriplegic who receives a helper monkey named Ella. This being a horror movie and whatnot, naturally the monkey has had some major genetic experimentation tested on it, so it’s only a matter of time until the monkey becomes extremely jealous and starts poking the rest of the cast with needles full of deadly chemicals. The hard, hard genre shift halfway through the movie is pretty awkward, but as long as you can suspend your disbelief and tolerate a plethora of cheese - the movie’s final jump scare is basically cinematic fondue - you might actually enjoy it.

5. There’s Always Vanilla (1971)

Yes, George Romero followed up Night of the Living Dead with - what else? - a light and frothy romantic comedy. Although Romero himself went on record describing this as his worst movie, it’s nowhere near as bad as he makes it out to be. The movie is about a former military-man turned roustabout named Chris who returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and knocks up a woman he randomly meets on a train. As the case with all romantic comedies, fate tears them apart and our leading man has to decide what he’s going to do with the rest of his life - does he listen to his heart and try to win his gal pal back or does he listen to his brain and take over his father’s business instead? All in all, it’s a surprisingly enjoyable movie, and the ending - believe it or not - might actually get you to shed a tear or two.

4. Knightriders (1981)

After Dawn of the Dead Romero decided he wasn’t quite done making movies that prominently feature motorcycles, so we ended up with this unorthodox drama about a bunch of transient bikers that make a living jousting on their hogs. Ed Harris does a really good job portraying the ringleader of the Renaissance fair troupe, and you just have to love Tom Savini’s campy performance as the villainous head of a rival motorcycle jousting faction. An extremely subplot-heavy movie - complete with one of the earliest non-judgmental depictions of a homosexual relationship in a mainstream-ish American movie - at times the pace gets a little stilted, but Romero’s sure-handed direction never lets things get too boring. With practically no gore or supernatural hokum, this is probably as close as Romero ever got to making a “normal” movie as a big-time director; the end product isn’t a total success, but it certainly makes you wonder how Romero could’ve grown as an auteur beyond the confinements of the horror genre.

3. Season of the Witch (1973)

It might take awhile to get going, but Season of the Witch is undoubtedly an entertaining (and atypical) supernatural horror flick. A sort of proto-Stepford Wives, this early ‘70s flick revolves around a bored housewife who is slowly sucked into a coven of suburban witches. From there we’ve got a lot of subplot about adultery, a whole bunch of hallucinations featuring some of the worst demonic masks you’ve ever seen in a movie and, naturally, gratuitous use of the Donovan song “Season of the Witch” on the soundtrack over and over again. Of course, this being a horror movie somebody’s gotta’ die at some point, and without giving it away, let’s just say the movie does an excellent job setting up - and delivering - its climactic showdown. In an era utterly inundated with ultra-campy, semi-feminist sex-horror-farces, Season of the Witch remains one of the decade's better subgenre offerings; if you’re looking for a new guilty pleasure favorite, you need to track this one down pronto.

2. Creepshow (1982)

What more can be said about quite possibly the greatest horror anthology movie ever? George Romero teamed with Stephen King and Tom Savini for this loving homage to E.C. Comics’ line of 1950s horror titles, and the end result is one of the most memorable (and beloved) creature features of the 1980s. Everybody has their favorite vignette - the one where a zombie comes back to life to kill off all his annoying kinfolk, the one where Big Steve himself plays a rube that turns into a moss monster, the one where Leslie Nielsen buries people up to their neck in the ocean, etc. - but probably the most famous one of ‘em all is the closer, where E.G. Marshall has thousands upon thousands of cockroaches explode out of his skull. Outside of his feature length zombie flicks, this is probably what Romero will best be remembered for - and rightfully so.

1. Martin (1978)

Throughout his career, Romero arguably made three truly transcendent genre classics. While Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are universally recognized as two of the best horror movies ever, Romero’s other genre masterpiece remains one of the most criminally underappreciated fright flicks of all-time. Martin is a film about a young man with two core obsessions in life: calling up a radio station late at night and pretending he’s a vampire and killing random individuals with barbiturates and razor blades. There are at least two scenes in this movie that are among the greatest ever filmed in a horror movie; a sequence where the titular character snags some prey on a train and one of the most chilling home invasion scenes you’ll ever see in a motion picture. It’s a weird and ethereal film that, at the same time, feels impossibly true to life and brutally realistic; it’s unquestionably one of the best horror movies of the 1970s and - in many ways - exemplifies Romero’s stylistic brilliance even more than his beloved zombie epics.

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The ORIGINAL Day of the Dead (1985) Script!

What was going to be the third installment in Romero's revered zombie trilogy was very, VERY different from the movie we actually saw in 1985. And yeah, it would have been WAY more awesome, for sure. 

By: Jimbo X

JimboXAmerican@gmail.com

@Jimbo__X

In hindsight, there was really no way Day of the Dead (the 1985 version, not that atrocious 2008 straight to DVD "remake") could have been anything other than a big old disappointment. I mean, after the one-two knockout combination of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, how in the world were George Romero and pals supposed to outdo themselves? The expectations for the third installment of the epic zombie opus were sky high, and it is downright ridiculous to assume they could catch lightning in a bottle three times in a row. 

Still, it's pretty hard to look back at the 1985 trilogy-capper and consider it anything other than a big letdown. I think everybody was expecting, essentially, Dawn of the Dead 2, especially in the wake of the spectacular Return of the Living Dead (which, really, did more to shape our cultural perspectives on the zombie archetype than even Romero's first two Living Dead outings.) So when Romero eschewed the wider, more open-ended atmosphere of the ’78 flick for a darker, danker, and more claustrophobic movie more reminiscent of the ’68 film, a lot of people were mighty - and understandably - miffed.

The thing is, Day of the Dead was originally plotted out as a much different movie. The characters were entirely different, it had a new locale, it introduced different villains and the entire zombie mythos was carefully rewritten to make the creatures a little less brain-dead than they were in the first two Romero films. The scope of the film was much more ambitious, but the backers of the film were hesitant to pump so much cash into a production that was almost certain to get an X rating. So, ultimately, they gave Romero an ultimatum: they would give him all the moolah he needed to make his vision come to life, but only if he scaled back the gopher guts and exploding heads. Naturally, Romero told them to take a hike, so he wound up reworking the script into its scaled back cinematic incarnation we recognize today.

Thankfully for film historians such as ourselves, it's not too hard to go out there in Internet-Land and retrieve Romero's original script. While it bears some resemblance to the 1985 movie, it is nonetheless a drastically different movie, which all things considered, almost certainly would've resulted in a much better motion picture than the one George and pals actually wound up producing. Wondering what could've been? Well, wonder no more, cretin and degenerates, as The Internet Is In America takes a look at the ORIGINAL Day of the Dead screenplay ... 

All right, so the film proper begins in the year of our lord 1987 in the great state of Florida. It's been five years "since the dead first walked," the pre-title crawl tells us. There are gators everywhere in the city streets, with human skeletons (including skeletal children, still locked in their car seats) strewn all about. A hanging, rotting corpse falls from a tall building and shatters on impact with the sidewalk below. 

Now we meet five "guerrilleros" named Sarah, Chico, Miguel, Tony and Maria from somewhere in the Caribbeans (I'm guessing Cuba, but the script never describes which country, exactly, they hail from.) The show up in boats and try to siphon gas out of all the stationary vehicles, on land and on water. Naturally, they wind up getting into a gunfight with fellow survivors down by the docks. One is bitten by a zombie so his comrades hack his arm off at the elbow and torch the wound to keep zombie mania from running wild in his cerebral cortex. Another gunfight breaks out and one of the pirates is mortally wounded. He comes back as a zombie and eats Maria, leaving Sarah, Chico and one-armed Miguel to hit the high seas until they locate what they think is an uninhabited island of the main peninsula. 

So our trio of survivors eat coconuts and almost shoot a gator while Miguel is slowing going nutzoid from the zombie bite. They find a giant elevator to an underground military base where zombies, apparently, are being trained to be soldiers. You see, the humans use these cattle prods to keep 'em in line and feed them human remains out of ice chest as rewards for good behavior. We are then introduced to the Sergeant Barnes and Sergeant Elias of the film, the sadistic Captain Rhodes and the bleeding heart researcher Toby Tyler. The normal zombies attack the pirates, so Rhodes sends his "red coat zombies" to investigate. Miguel keeps screaming "kill the priest, burn the church" over and over again when he is confronted by Rhodes, who pushes a button on his belt to signal his zombie troops, whom promptly kill Miguel by shooting him in the heart. Rhodes captures Chico and leaves him hanging from a giant rope, demanding he tell him if anyone else followed him and where his base is. Rhodes lets us know that he feeds dead soldiers to zombies, and to demonstrate his sick streak, he stuffs a grenade in a disobedient zombie's mouth and cackles with glee when his head explodes. Chico's body falls from the rope - looks like somebody mercifully shot him in the back of the head. Of course, Rhodes thinks Toby did it, so he's put on "trial" for his misdeeds. 

Meanwhile, Sarah encounters yet another gaggle of survivors. They include John, a black man from the Caribbean who speaks in jive talk that only white writers thinks exists; a whiskey-drinking mechanic named Bill (who reminds me of that guy from Jade Empire who was always drinking wine, for some reason) and a small deaf woman named Spider, who is described as being "armed to the teeth" at all times. The tribe refers to zombies as "bees" and they tell Sarah the island is actually called Gasparilla, named after a pirate who sailed the waters near Florida hundreds of years ago. Oh, and the states's head honcho, Governor Dickerson, has assembled his own private army and set up a fortress compound there. The quartet make their way through underground caverns littered with zombies, with John telling Sarah to not worry about the "bees" just as long as they are wearing the same uniforms they are (you see, they've been conditioned to not shoot or eat people wearing uniforms with giant circles on them.) After a zombie gets macheted to death, John and Sarah have a discussion about the root cause of ZombieMania '87, with Sarah stating it's a parasite infection and John believing it's some kind of biblical curse. This offends Sarah, so she says "fuck you Moses, I'm outta' here" (no, for real) and runs off into the night. 

Of course, Sarah falls into alligator and snake infested waters immediately and is attacked by a zombie with a pole sticking through its gizzards and one of its eyeballs dangling out of its skull. Big John saves her before she gets eaten, though, and takes her back to his underground refuge. From there, we travel to the subterranean military base, where there are TV monitors and old-ass computer equipment everywhere. The undead are being shown videos of people in orange vests not being shot, so they "learn" to not go after their superiors. Enter scientists Julie Grant and Mary Henried. Rhodes walks into a zombie jail cell with a bag of severed heads, and we meet a gaggle of the living dead troops. They have names like Tonto, Fatso, Samson and Bub because ... well, take a guess. Rhodes rolls one of the zombie heads on the floor and the shit is still blinking and breathing and moaning. So he shoots it and freaks the hell out of the female researchers. By the way, Rhodes keeps bragging about having sex with Julie this one time, and keeps referring to her as "Miss Science."

So Julie is walking around the underground fortress, evaluating all of the debauchery going on. There are hookers fist fighting each other, dudes shooting up heroin and snorting coke, and even one guy running around with a dildo glued to his head. Meanwhile, Toby is sentenced to Stalag 17, where a pregnant woman solicits him for sex and a drunk fat dude pukes on him. Then, we're introduced to Dr. Logan, a brain surgeon with some expertise in zombie-neurology. John and the gang come up through the planks and get some ammo (and whiskey refill) from his office. Then they go down to the underground hospital (where people are having sex and doing drugs in the waiting room) and we watch Tonto and Bluto eat human brains with forks. You know, because they are becoming more civilized and whatnot.

Mary goes down to the underground shooting range. While all the other "redcoat" zombies have a hard time hitting targets, Bub is nailing the bull's eye like he was John Wayne. In an underground council meeting, we meet Gov. Dickerson, who for some reason, wants to be referred to as "Gasparilla." Romero describes him thus: "He's a fat man with a handlebar mustache that makes him look like Pancho Villa. As an indication of rank he wears a military jacket but underneath is a Hawaiian shirt with a bold flamingo and palm tree pattern. Around his neck, nestled in the rolls of fat there, is enough gold to stake a small business."

All the prosecutors are his golf buddies (Rhodes among them.) They sentence a guy accused of swiping a government radio a year in the stalag for hard labor. Mary walks in and tries to tell the governor that Toby is innocent and Rhodes is doing all sorts of nefarious stuff. The governor promptly tells her to STFU, but not before he invites her to his "secret workout chambers" later that evening.

There, the governor sits in a neon-tube bedecked tanning bed, with topless harem jogging beside him on treadmills. Servers bring them sushi, coke and weed. He's drunk and tries to goad Mary into doing some lesbian stuff and jokes about the hors douveres being brains. Mary says there are signs that some human survivors have made outposts in Philadelphia and Detroit, but the governor remains convinced that his island kingdom is the last remaining homo sapiens stronghold on the planet. He then spits out this maddened monologue: "There's no place like this place. Warm climate. This facility. Christ, there ain't nothin' like this no-damn-where! Even the Feds knew that. That's why they stored so much o' their shit down here. It's all mine now. All mine. Just let 'em try ta come after us down here, which they will some day...take a likin' ta what all we got an' come after us. They'll hafta get past my army! An army that ain't afraid ta die...ha ha ha...'cause it's awreddy DAID! HA HA HA HA...."

For no real reason, Rhodes decides right then and there is as good a time as any to blow away some people on the hospital cots while Sarah, John, Toby, Dr. Logan and the rest of the gang uncover a cache of weapons for a potential uprising. Huh, the luck there, eh? 

The rub there is, Dr. Logan has kind of gone psycho. He's made some synthetic nitrogen and reveals to the gang his plans to hit the facility's reservoir of gun powder, which, I am sure you guessed, means the whole underground fortress will go ka-boom. There's an argument about the attack claiming innocent victims, but after awhile, everybody agrees to disagree and we all sally forth. 

The ragtag band of zombie island revolutionaries find some "daturas," a nightshade type plant they plan on using to knock out some guards. We also learn that Dr. Logan put the nitro inside Spider, and is leading her through the marshlands to be used as a suicide bomber. He is attacked by zombie lugging a steel hook, but he survives (relatively) unscathed. 

Julie helps facilitate the inside job and the gang gets inside the inner workings of the subterranean fortress. They immediately dispatch two guards and a security alarm sounds. The gang enters the main communication room and shut down the control system, so all of the doors to the outside open swing open and redcoat zombies start pouring in. At this point we learn the fortress does have some semblance of being a real society, with families and children all residing in fairly decent underground apartments separate from all of the military happenings and drug-fueled orgies. 

Dr. Logan sounds the "feeding siren," which of course draws pretty much every zombie on the island towards the wide open compound. He offers himself as a "communion" offering to the undead and is literally torn asunder by the zombie hordes. And now it's all out anarchy, with the zombies devouring everybody. Rhodes and his men find themselves fighting a two-front war, with the human rebels on one end and the living dead on the other. And then? The zombies breach the governor's chambers.

Mary runs into Bub, and she thinks he is going to ear her, but he gives her a military salute instead, allowing a gaggle of nurses and children to escape the zombie apocalypse. She then tries to teach all of the "trained" zombies to start shooting people wearing vests with the orange circles. Now Bub and his fellow military corps(e) are in hot pursuit of Rhodes and his men. 

And here's the part when the zombies get a hold of the governor. Let's let Romero himself paint the picture for us, why don't we?

MONTAGE: as ALL OVER THE ROOM THEY STRIKE. This is it, gore fans. The gross finale. The intestine-tugger. THE ZOMBIES GET THEIR SUPPER. THEY FEAST AMONG THE PILLOWS, like Romans at an orgy. MUSIC still plays over the gymnasium speakers, rock-a-billy in a gleeful tempo. GASPARILLA has retreated into his tanning-coffin but a pudgy arm and a leg are dangling outside. ZOMBIES CHEW HUNGRILY on the juicy morsels. From inside the coffin, where ultraviolet glows brightly, come the piercing, agonized screams of the fat general.

Rhodes gets bitten and Bub shoots him a couple of times. The survivors make a run toward the escape boats, with John declaring "Damn you, island, damn you ta' Hell and worse!" 

Bub chases Rhodes down and they have a very wild west-like "gunfight" finale with the zombie beating the sadistic general to the punch. Dramatically, a zombie throws a test tube at Spider right as Rhodes goes down, and ... kablooey. As the walls begin to crumble around him, Bub does a military salute before he is engulfed in a fireball.

The refugees (which also includes a few surviving kids) find a remote island. John baptizes the young ins (get the symbolism?) and they bury one of the fallen military men. John eulogizes him thus: 

"Satan ain't sent this man back. Not yet, anyway. So we all hopin' that maybe he's up there with you, Lord. This might be the first decent soul we been able ta offer ya in quite a few years. That's a fact. We just gonna... pray, Lord. We gonna pray that what seems ta be happenin' here...is really happenin' ... and I'm gonna take the chance and speak these words that I ain't been able ta speak for so long ... May he rest in peace."

And the grand finale? Rather than paraphrase, I'll let Romero describe it in his own words: 

EXT. THE BEACH - NIGHT THE CORPSE lies in the MOONLIGHT. NIGHT CRITTERS SCREECH AND BURBLE in the jungle behind the sand. It's an eerie scene. SARAH is sitting up, her RIFLE ready in her lap, watching the body. JOHN steps in behind and she startles.

JOHN: Just me. I'll take the next shift.  

He settles easily down beside the woman. The two stare together at the shrouded corpse.  

SARAH: How long do we have to watch him?

JOHN: Forever, darlin'. Forever.'Til he turns ta dust and blows away on the wind. 

THE BODY lies silent, rigid under the KHAKI ARMY BLANKET that rises and falls, rises and falls with the Gulf breeze. Suddenly ... A LOUD MUSIC CHORD! A SUDDEN MOVEMENT! It's the movement of RED LETTERS that spin up off the head of the corpse and settle before our eyes. The letters read: "THE END (I PROMISE)"

Oh, George, you kidder, you. Ending the whole Living Dead trilogy with a self-reflexive in-joke that also doubles as an ultra cheap jump scare. Corny scriptwriting of the sort fully explains why you never won an Oscar, but totally makes it clear as day why you were a Fangoria Hall of Fame first balloter.

Romero's original script, without question, was WAY better than the one that was actually filmed. I'm not quite sure if it would've resulted in a genre masterpiece on par with Dawn of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead, but it at least would've given us something that felt a little fresher and more thoughtful than the '85 Day. Of course, quite a bit of stuff from the first screenplay did indeed make it into the final film, but at the expense of nearly half the cast and a whole lot of downsizing. Eventually, we would see some elements of the original script recast in the 20-year-late sequel Land of the Dead, and the whole "militarized zombie" theme was indeed used as the backbone for Return of the Living Dead 3. Still, as ambitious and inventive and gore-soaked and paranoia-gripped as the plot was (remember, this was penned around the same time as nuclear holocaust porn Threads and The Day After), one can only wonder what a bigger budgeted, plot-faithful Day of the Dead would've been like in the mid-1980s. 

Would it have been all-time awesome? Eh, most likely no, but it certainly would have been quite a few degrees more awesome than the Day we did get. Which sort of begs the question: now that zombie-mania is all the rage and studios would give Romero all the money he wants, how come he hasn't taken a stab at bringing this script to the big screen, in all its gory, high-concept glory? 

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B-Movie Review: “Season of the Witch” (1972)

If you ever wondered what it would have been like had George Romero scripted “Desperate Housewives,” well…here you go. 

Every now and then, you’ll encounter a movie that really, really straddles that fine line between being a cheesy, amateurish B-movie and a no-budget indie wonder that almost (almost!) accomplishes what it sets out to, despite being filmed for what appears to be five or so nickels.

Well, folks, “Season of the Witch” just so happens to be that kind of movie. Before we begin evaluating the movie in-depth, I must preface this review by reminding all of you that this IS NOT the 2011 Nicholas Cage movie, but rather, a supernatural horror flick directed by George A. Romero from the early 1970s. Outside of having the same title, the movies have absolutely nothing to do with each other - and before you ask, this movie has nothing to do with “Halloween III: Season of the Witch,” either.

As we all know, George Romero is the mastermind behind “Night of the Living Dead” and “Dawn of the Dead,” the two most influential zombie movies ever. The rest of his directorial oeuvre, unfortunately, ranges from incredibly underappreciated (“Martin”) to pretty overrated (“Creepshow”) to EXTREMELY overrated (“The Crazies”) to why-god-why, why-do-these-movies-exist (“Monkey Shines,” “Bruiser,” and “Survival of the Dead.”) “Season of the Witch,” filmed in 1971 and released in 1972, was Romero’s third film, and a movie that clearly suffered from major under-budgeting issues. While most parts of the movie are really cheap and corny looking, it’s also sort of evident that if Romero had more money and a cast that actually gave a shit, this thing could’ve turned out to be a really fantastic little horror flick. As a result, “Season of the Witch” stands out as one of those rare bad horror movies that, at certain junctures, manages to transcend its own campiness and cheesiness, resulting in a movie that, despite all of its shortcomings, is almost enjoyable in a non-ironic manner.

Our movie begins with a middle aged woman walking through a graveyard (not that it’s exactly how “Night of the Living Dead” started or anything.) After awhile, she starts getting assailed by tree branches (think, a “PG” version of the tree attack scene from “The Evil Dead") while some funky sound effects start ringing all over the place. As the scene progresses, she begins following a guy in a business suit, who smashes her in the face with a brick, leads her around on a leash and locks her in a doggy kennel. Of course, it’s the main character of the film having a dream about her husband, which is followed up with a brief psychiatry session shortly thereafter.

From there, the main character - named Joan, by the way - heads over to brunching session with the rest of the housewives in the neighborhood. They gossip awhile about some people they know being witches (that’s kind of important to the plot) and then play a game of Mad Libs. And, uh, the Mad Libs part isn’t as important to the plot of the movie.

I've heard of "branching out" before, but this is ridiculous!

In the next scene, Joan envisions some old hag starring at her in a mirror, while her husband does sit-ups. From there, we’re introduced to their daughter, and gauging from the insane amount of make-up she’s wearing, I’m guessing that about half of Romero’s budget for the film went towards eye shadow expenditures. Following that, we have a brief tarot reading scene, which segues into a scene where Joan, her daughter, her boyfriend and one of Joan’s friends sit around getting sloshed and talking about voodoo. From there, the boyfriend tries to convince Joan’s friend that she’s smoking a marijuana cigarette in a scene that goes on forever, although it’s sort of funny because not only does the boyfriend look a little bit like Topher Grace, Joan’s daughter sort of looks like a blonde version of Donna from “That 70s Show.”

So, Joan’s friend has a freakout, and she confronts her daughter’s boyfriend about that mean-ass prank he just pulled. There’s a brief mother-daughter talk, and Joan gives her friend a ride home. Once she gets back to her house, she starts thumbing through a book called “How to Be a Witch” (remember kids, subtlety wasn’t invented until 1973) and starts listening to her daughter have the S-E-X during a thunderstorm. Joan’s daughter walks in on her being all voyeuristic and creepy, and in the next scene, we’re informed that she was so weirded out by her mom’s behavior that she ran away from home.

We get another psychiatric session, and Joan tells her husband about the night before. He responds by slapping her and threatening to “kick some ass.” We’re introduced to some detectives that searching for the missing daughter, but since this is the only scene in which they’re in the movie, it’s not really that important. Joan decides to meet with her daughter’s boyfriend - a dude that works at a nearby college - and he accuses her of trying to “put the make” on her. So, yeah, I guess you know EXACTLY where this movie is headed from here. After that, Joan has another dream, this time one where she’s getting chased around the house by some guy wearing the shittiest rubber mask you’ve ever seen. She wakes up, and surprise! She was just having another reverie about how much she hates her husband.

"Hi, honey, I'm home! And wearing a shitty Halloween mask, just because!"

The next scene is probably the best in the entire movie, a montage sequence where Joan walks around town accumulating spices and herbs for some sort of Wicca ritual while Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” plays in the background. She goes home, rubs some ashes on her forehead, and does this ceremonial thing with a teapot. Her husband comes home and threatens to kick even more ass, while she does some sort of written spell. A few moments later, he walks back towards her, and apologizes for smacking her around the evening prior.

From here, we cut to a bridge game, and then to a scene with Joan walking around under the moonlight, in a bright yellow robe while holding a candle. Apparently, she’s doing some sort of ritual to conjure up her daughter’s boyfriend, but after waiting for a few hours, she decides it’s easier to conjure him up via the phone, instead. SPOILER: when he arrives, they don’t spend the evening playing Boggle.

Who wouldn't want to buy their parsley and sage from a suave fellow like this?

Next scene, Joan is talking to a tarot reader about joining the local coven. She has another dream about the masked dude, which is followed up by a scene in which her daughter’s boyfriend (in a fisherman’s hat and the goofiest red, white and blue jacket you’ve ever seen) decides to come on over for some…uh, company. She tells him that she’s a witch and she convinces him to partake of some kind of conjuring ritual. Her daughter’s boyfriend laughs her off, and suggests that they do some “ballin’” instead. And man, do we need to bring that term back into the American lexicon, or what?

So, Joan does this really lengthy paper-burning ritual, which results in a cat coming into their basement. Her daughter’s boyfriend gets bored, so he decides to force himself upon her instead. We get a series of confusing quick cuts after that, which involve Joan doing some gardening before the shitty mask man makes another appearance in the movie. After pulling a shotgun out of the laundry (isn’t that a line from an Army of the Pharaohs song, btw?) she blows the demon away, but what do you know? The masked intruder was really just her husband. The odds, huh?

Eric Foreman, seen here sporting his most patriotic ensemble.

The movie concludes with Joan officially joining the neighborhood coven, while some cops at the crime scene say misogynistic things. The final image of the movie is Joan (with an absolutely awe-inspiring bouffant ’do) at another women’s meet, just starring into the camera.

So…yeah, “Season of the Witch” ain’t exactly on par with “Dawn of the Dead,” but as far as bad horror movies go, it really isn’t all that terrible. There’s a smidge of suspense as the movie progresses, and the narrative is at least solid enough to keep your interest until the flick concludes. However, there is simply no denying the cheapness of the flick, which is obviously the results of Romero being severely underfunded for the project. Rubber masks, sorcery scenes with virtually zero special effects and especially the hokey acting - this film is a case example of a director being seriously hindered by a lack of project capital, and in virtually every scene of the movie, you can tell Romero was hurting for money.

Eh, Eye will believe it when Eye see it...

Romero has gone on record saying that this is the only movie he’s made that he would like to go back and re-shoot, and after watching the flick, I think that’s something we can all agree upon. While not necessarily being a horrible movie in any regard, “Season of the Witch” is the kind of flick that could’ve been SO much more than what it ended up becoming. At times enjoyable, but stilted as an overall picture, Romero’s movie is a moderately entertaining oddity from the early 1970s - pending you have a taste for the off-kilter, you may find yourself entertained, but at the end of the day? Yeah, you’ll wish Georgie had waited a few years until he had all the resources necessary to make the flick, too.

Two and three-quarters stars. Jimbo says check it out.

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