George Romero is a very talented filmmaker and I wanted to take something away from this movie. I really did. I even rented it twice more after my initial viewing, hoping I'd see something that I missed the first time. No, I wasn't anticipating a straight horror film; I was ready to accept "Hungry Wives" on its own terms. But I could never figure out what this film was about--and neither could Romero, unfortunately. After the enormous success of "Night of the Living Dead" he wanted to avoid being stereotyped as a horror director, but both of his post-"Night" attempts to branch out ("There's Always Vanilla" and this film) were unqualified duds, and Romero returned to the horror genre shortly thereafter with "The Crazies". While it's obvious from the cinematography and the menacing atmosphere of certain scenes that a genuine talent was at work here, the end result was a royal mess. "Hungry Wives" is confusing, badly dated, and full of surrealistically unsympathetic characters (though Jan White had some charisma as 'Joan'). Sorry, George :(
Review of Season of the Witch
