The Wicker Man (1973), The Wicker Man (2006)

Robin Hardy's 1973 film The Wicker Man was a deliberate and in my book very successful effort to make a new kind of horror movie. A rejection of the kind of camp horror that was being produced in mass in England at the time, The Wicker Man is creepy, but creepy in a way I've never encountered before. The wicker man (massive spoiler coming) is a reference to a giant man statue, a cage really in which ancient Celts used to sacrifice animals and even people. This titular object of horror will of course make an appearance before the end of the film, but it is the process of getting their that entrances as much (if not more so) as the main event.

Edward Woodword is Sargent Neil Howie of the West Highland Police, he travels by way of a small sea plane to the isolated island of Summerisle, home of a reclusive community known for their ability to grow fine fruit. Sargent Neil has come to the island because of a report alleging that a young girl on the island has disappeared, when he gets there he finds that the local residents claim that the girl Rowan Morrison doesn't exist. Even the woman who is suppose to be the girls mother and who supposedly sent the request for help claims there is no such person as Rowan Morrison (though her verifiable daughter says the Rowan is the name of a Hare that plays in the meadows).

Sgt. Howie must stay on the island overnight, in part because its gotten too dark to fly and in part too continue investigating the increasingly curious case. A very pious and observant Christian Sgt. Howie becomes disgusted by the behavior of the community members, bawdy songs in the pub, open sexuality including intament displays outdoors and propositioning by the innkeepers daughter (played by Swedish model Britt Ekland). Sgt. Howie quickly discovers that the islanders practice a form of paganism and have little use for Christian rigidity. Around the same time that Howie learns this he also learns that there is in fact a real Rowan Morrison, or to be precise there was, but that she died in a fire last fall (the movie is set in the last few days of April and the 1st of May 1973).

Sgt. Howie is confused by the fact that there is no death certificate for Rowan, and why the islanders at first denied her existence, he stays on to investigate. He has a meeting with Lord Summersile at his palatial manner. Lord Summersile is the of the third generation of community leaders, his grandfather having moved to the island in the 1860's to take up the breeding of special strains of fruit that he had developed. To motivate the locals grandpa Summersile reintroduced pagan practices and traditions to the island, in time they drove Christianity out and his son and grandson continued the practice, and apparently even became believers themselves.

Lord Summersile gives Sgt. Howie permission to exhume Rowans grave, when he does so he uncovers a coffin containing a dead march hare. Howie demands answers, the natives suggest he leave before there May Day celebration, he attempts to leave so as to bring back additional officers, only of course the plane won't start. Having become convinced that Rowan is alive and being held captive so as to be sacrificed on May Day to 'atone' for a poor harvest the year before, Sgt. Howie scowers the island, and attempts to infiltrate the islanders May Day celebrations in a stolen costume.

The end I'll leave out here as an incentive to view this remarkable, strange, and literate horror classic. There is certainly enough heft to the film to support a remake but the one released in 2006 leaves much to be desired. Directed by Neil LaBute and staring the perennial lead of bad movies Nicholas Cage, this version is relocated to the Pacific Northwest and contains a strong feminist slant, not out of place in a movie involving pagan religion. I must admit I was mostly with this movie, which surprised me, but I suspect I was mostly riding on the buzz of having seen the original film the night before. Not as awful as I'd suspected, somewhat flat and the ending just, I don't know lacked that oomph, wasn't realized well. Of course no remake could possibly live up to the original but I think I could have made a film better then this. Skip the limp imitation, but see the remarkable original.


1973: Grade A-
2006: Grade C-