The Wicker Tree (2012) Reviews

With 2010's The Wicker Tree, the long discussed but not exactly awaited not-quite-sequel to The Wicker Man - Special Edition Director's Cut (2 disc set) [DVD] [1973], only the third film in his 39-year career as director, Robin Hardy shows some technical improvement over his more rough-and-ready work on The Wicker Man and the silly and dreary The Fantasist [1986] [DVD] but is hobbled by the fact that as a screenwriter he's no Anthony Shaffer even if he is still relentlessly ploughing the same furrow four decades on. Where Shaffer's Wicker Man screenplay had black wit to compliment its twists and unsettling setting, Hardy's a more obvious scribe telling a less interesting story that would struggle to fit a half hour episode of Tales of the Very Much As We Expected. This time instead of a Christian copper it's a pair of American evangelists, aw shucks cowboy for Christ Henry Garrett and born again Britney Spears-type Brittania Nicol, who are lured to a Scottish village as part of their mission to convert the godless heathen people of Scotland, and naturally the villagers have their own reasons for welcoming them. This time it's not just their crops that have failed: since an accident at the local Nuada nuclear power plant the population has been rendered infertile and some much-needed new blood is the solution...

Pitched as a `filme fantastique' rather than a horror film, it plays out more like an episode of Tales of the Bleeding Obvious en route to its now overfamiliar ending. Even if there had never been a Wicker Man this wouldn't have made much impact because, unfortunately, this time round there's surprisingly little weirdness, mystery or threat as it just ambles flatly along, rarely descending into awfulness but just as rarely threatening to rise above mediocrity. Despite the best efforts of Graham MacTavish in Ben Kingsley-lite mode, it sorely lacks a figure as commanding as Christopher Lee's Lord Sommerisle to lift its spirits (an ailing Lee was long scheduled to play the part until an injury ruled him out). Even Lee himself can't do much with his brief compensatory cameo as an `elderly gentleman' in a flashback scene, exchanging the blasphemous bon mots of the earlier film that wittily picked away at its examination of the nature of faith and sacrifice with bland dialogue that you've heard a million times before, half of them probably in a class room while you were staring out the window. Honeysuckle Weeks fills in the Britt Ekland-ish role this time, but her sex scene is played more for laughs than eroticism, complete with comedy mugging that wouldn't be out of place in a Robin Askwith film. Unsurprisingly laughs, intentional or otherwise, are in as short supply as surprises or chills.

On the plus side the film does a decent job of integrating Keith Easdale's folk songs into the film (with John Scott filling in the gaps in the underscore) and there's a hint of a good scene when the local laird dismisses environmentalists concerns about his power plant by pointing out how much deadlier the sun is or his admission that religious conviction is often driven by which faith best fits your current needs, but the film is pretty much a one-time-only viewing for hardcore fans of the original. Where The Wicker Man haunted many who saw it for decades, this one is probably best forgotten. Still, at least it doesn't have Nic Cage in a bear suit punching women and screaming about bees...

Unlike most Anchor Bay DVDs there are at least some extras - a 12-minute making of featurette made up of very rough and jerky footage that looks like it's been downloaded off the internet, 9 deleted scenes and a surprisingly effective trailer - as well as a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer.