Login
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.
