The Wicker Tree (2012)

Nearly four decades after making the landmark and wonderfully innovative folk horror masterpiece The Wicker Man, writer/director Robin Hardy, then in his 80's, made The Wicker Tree based on his 2006 novel Cowboys for Christ. A kinda, sorta sequel to The Wicker Man, only a single performer from the original film, Christopher Lee, returns in this one, and only briefly in flashback and its not even clear if he's supposed to be the same character he played in the first film. So this is really more of a rumination on similar themes to The Wicker Man. The Wicker Tree isn't good, but its honestly not as bad as I thought it would be, when I begin watching I didn't necessarily plan on finishing, but it was intriguing enough to sustain one viewing. The film hits a lot of the same notes as the first movie, though nowhere near as well. Both films are about Christian outsiders unknowingly making their way into stealthily pagan communities in Scotland, in the first film the outsider was a dowdy and pious English cop played by Edward Woodward, in this movie its a once sultry country singer remaking herself as a Christian recording artiest (Brittania Nicol), and her cowboy fiancé (Henry Garrett). The fact that the Christians in this film are more surfaceie and hollow then the one in the original is probably the closest this movie comes to having something to see about contemporary faith dynamics. I wish they had cast a more impressive singer and a better actress though, Brittania is simply servable at best. The whole cast in fact is unimpressive, other then Lee the biggest 'get'  here is probably British TV star Honeysuckle Weeks, whose name is more memorable then her performance. For such a blatant and flat re rendering of the original film I'm surprised I didn't hate this more, but Hardy still has a flair for a subtly creepy air which makes the movie work better then it should. *1/2.