The Wicker Man

"When a young girl mysteriously disappears, Police Sergeant Howie travels to a remote Scottish island to investigate. But this pastoral community, led by the strange Lord Summerisle (a brilliant performance by the legendary Christopher Lee), is not what it seems as the devout Christian detective soon uncovers a secret society of wanton lust and pagan blasphemy. Can Howie now stop the cult's ultimate sacrifice before he himself comes face-to-face with the horror of The Wicker Man?"

Edward Woodward stars as a bewildered police sergeant, Neil Howie, in this highly original cult classic. The police sergeant travels from the Scottish mainland to the remote island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl called Rowan Morrison, and discovers a community of pagans whose practices conflict with his position as a police sergeant and his devout Christian principles.

During the questioning of some of the islanders about the disappearance of Rowan, they maintain that they do not know of her. It is as though she had never existed. His investigations lead him to uncover some clues that, contrary to everything he has been told, such a girl called Rowan had recently lived on the island and that they had all effectively been lying to him. With the islander's obvious unhelpfulness and somewhat taunting disregard for his position, coupled with his own strong religious principles, Howie becomes outraged. As time goes by, he witnesses more and more weird and openly sexual pagan practices, all of which makes him dig his heals in harder to get to the bottom of what is really going on at Summerisle, and what has become of little Rowan, culminating ultimately to The Wicker Man's hellish finale.

The Wicker Man was shot with limited time and on a low budget. Maybe these restrictions helped capture a quaint peculiarity in this unique off-beat drama, which could so easily have been lost in a higher budgeted production. More time and money does not necessarily make a better movie, instead it can lead to overworking certain aspects and lose the raw edginess of a film. What does help make a good movie is a good script which Anthony Shaffer most definitely provided, along with good direction by Robin Hardy. The music by Paul Giovanni brings a flavour to the proceedings that are just right for the material, the haunting Willow's Song, the bawdy The Landlord's Daughter are a couple of exceptional pieces. Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward, both strong characters, play their parts exceptionally well (Lee himself has remarked that he thinks it was his best performance).

All together an unforgettable and haunting movie.

Reviewed: 23/01/07

15 minutes of extra footage added to the director's cut make it the longest version available. See The Various Versions of The Wicker Man for a fuller explanation of the changes.

More Images
Memorabilia
Trivia

The Various Versions of The Wicker Man
The Wicker Man - Settling the Score
Did the Celts and Druids perform human sacrifice?
Wicker-Man.com (Excellent Site)

• Movies

Demons of the Mind (1972)
The City of the Dead (1960)

• Literature

Ritual, David Pinner (Allegedly Inspired The Wicker Man Script)