The Wicker Man Reviews

The Wicker Man unspools so slowly and subliminally that you know something is “off” and sinister is about to happen, but you don’t see the trap engulfing you until its too late. Everything is so strange that it becomes like a hallucination that feels so tangible you don’t notice it’s a lie until you try to grasp it like a reflection in a stream. The pastoral symphony of the earliest scenes belies a dark, twisted heart that winds up being something of a cosmic joke.

 

Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Howie is our surrogate into this pagan world. The old ways have returned to this Scottish island, and its insular world is ephemeral in a way that becomes alluring. Howie, a staunch Christian and true believer, recoils in horror to the site of naked girls jumping over a fire and chanting. It isn’t just their nudity that horrifies (and titillates) him, but that they’re performing these actions in service to paganist beliefs and gods.

 

Howie’s incomprehension to what is going on around him becomes something of a reoccurring joke, one that feels built upon a similar foundation as Monty Python. He is continually told to go back where he came from if he’s unwilling to partake in their lifestyle, and his routine interactions with the denizens of this Scottish idyll breakdown into the conservative becoming the butt of the hedonist’s joke. So, it moves until the climatic moments when the humor and general weirdness drops, and the dread starts to pileup.

 

Swimming through all of this is Christopher Lee as the leader of the town. Lee’s stentorian voice wraps around the occasionally ridiculous dialog like it were the best of Shakespeare. His stillness and quiet danger hold the frame in a way that leaves you feeling uncertain and concerned whenever he pauses or quietly looks back. Much like Vincent Price before him, Lee was hardly called upon for restraint but to wrap his distinctive voice around theatrical, hyper-articulate pulpy terrifying figures, so it’s nice to see him dial it back to the bare minimum. He’s never been more threatening or menacingly sexual than he is here.

 

The bait-and-switch finale is laid out in breadcrumbs throughout. The locals warned and provided ample room for escape, so The Wicker Man’s eventual pyre and effigy don’t spring from nowhere. The track was carefully laid and all you had to do was trust that you were being led somewhere. It’s well worth the journey, even if you do get burned.

Gameful, intelligent, provocative, tongue in cheek, shameless about its ridicule songs; open to the public about its clues. Woodward is excellent being rational and puritan at the same time. Great ending.

Based on a text of the prestigious novelist and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer ("Frenzy," "Sleuth") Robin Hardy adapted with a light and carefree approach this unusual thriller features, due in part to have been conceived as a musical director ethnographic , which can either divert the viewer's attention, turn your concentration, or maybe give a breath of fresh air to anyone who wants to see something different from the typical horror film of the era, which had already been explored almost all topics that could offer the genre, everything is ultimately a matter of taste. The truly significant film is its parodic vision of Western society, the comparison of various religious rituals and sexual freedom and lack of decency of the community, a fact that torments deeply conservative and good Christian Sergeant Howie.

This work has all the characteristics of a cult, especially what was achieved with such a tight budget, for example, both the dark and rich Scottish landscapes photographed by Harry Waxman, the folk music of Paul Giovanni, the presence of great performers, including Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee's iconic and beautiful blonde female as Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and. First, future Bond girl, the second ex-wife of 007 himself, Sean Connery.

Quintessential cult film within the horror genre, "The Wicker Man" is still a rare bird that surprises the unclassifiable of its proposal for its unusual mix of genres, the beauty of natural landscapes that are rolled, for the dreamlike photography that gives the hallucinatory and hallucinatory atmosphere and the many small details that enrich his sensational staging. Must see the Director's Cut to enjoy it in its fullness.

SPOILER

Thus, the splendid screenplay by Shaffer has a tendency to ridicule the beliefs sanctimonious Sergeant (it is worth remembering the scene in which Howie is outraged at a ceremony because women are jumping a fire completely naked, to which replies with Lord Summerisle overwhelming logic: "Naturally, it is much more dangerous jump over the fire with your clothes on," or when the latter defines Jesus as "Son of a virgin impregnated by a ghost"), but we finally reached an end that reveals the dark side of some villagers capable of committing the folly of human sacrifice as a sign of offering to the gods save their crops, so that criticism of religion is balanced exacerbated by both parties.

With a dazzling Christopher Lee as master of ceremonies (true patron of the movie, love all the old pagan religions and esoteric cults that enclose the old rituals, always said "The wicker man" as one of his favorite movies) and Edward Woodward giving a strong and credible replica (on paper, though, that only Peter Cushing could have definitely sublimate), the film offers a wonderful crescendo of the plot up to the tremendous climax narrative, giving us one of the most chilling end gender history and leaving behind countless scenes to remember: our retinas will be stored forever, among others, the scene of the sensual dance of a nude Britt Eckland testing the temperance of Sto. Howie and the hypnotic set of masks that infiltrates the protagonist in search of the missing girl (real McGuffin of the film).

Wow. It's hard to think of this as a horror film. Maybe an anti-horror film.