Joan Mitchell (Jan White) is the 39-year-old wife of a businessman, Jack Mitchell (Bill Thunhurst). They live in suburban Pittsburgh with their 19-year-old daughter Nikki (Joedda McClain), a student. Joan is unhappy and bored with her housewife role. Jack is busy, domineering, and sometimes violent, embarking on long business trips every week. Joan has been seeing a psychotherapist because of her recurring dreams about her husband controlling her. He makes repeated references to needing to "kick some ass"âa colleague's, his own child's, his wife's. Eventually, he strikes Joan in the face.
Joan and her friends learn about a new woman in the neighborhood named Marion Hamilton (Virginia Greenwald) who practices witchcraft. Prompted by curiosity, Joan and one of her friends, Shirley (Anne Muffley), drive over to Marion's house one night for a Tarot reading. Marion is the leader of a secret witches' coven.
Joan and Shirley drive home to Joan's house, where they meet Gregg (Raymond Laine), a student teacher at Nikki's college (with whom Nikki has a very casual sexual relationship). The four drink and talk. Gregg shows an interest in Joan, who rebuffs him. Joan throws Gregg out of her house after he cruelly tricks Shirley into believing that she has smoked pot. After taking Shirley home, Joan returns home to hear Nikki and Gregg having sex. Turned on, she quietly goes to her bedroom and begins touching herself until Nikki walks in on her.
The next day, a furious Nikki leaves without telling anybody where she is going, and soon afterward Jack leaves for a one-week business trip, with Joan feeling more lonely than ever. Joan buys a book about witchcraft. She conjures a spell to make Gregg attracted to her, and soon they are engaged in an affair. She also has increasingly terrifying nightmares, in which she is attacked by an intruder wearing a Satanic mask. As she explores witchcraft further, practicing rituals and researching spells, Joan's world continues to change. The police tell Joan they have found Nikki in Buffalo, New York and that she will be coming home in three or four days. After one last sexual encounter with Gregg, Joan tells him she does not want to see him again.
After another terrifying nightmare involving the masked intruder, Joan shoots and kills her husband, who has unexpectedly returned home early from his trip. Whether this event is accidental or intentional is not revealed. Joan is initiated into Marion's coven in an elaborate and campy ritual. The language used by the women makes reference to treasuring each coven member as part of the sisterhood. Cleared of her husband's death, which was ruled an accident, Joan attends a party with her friends. Prompted by a compliment on her beautiful and youthful appearance, she quietly reveals that she is a witch. She smiles wryly when people around her refer to as "Mrs. Mitchell", or simply "Jack's wife".
Who did Joan Shoot?
her husband