The Wicker Man (1973)
Country: GB
Technical: col 86m
Director: Robin Hardy
Cast: Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento
Synopsis:
A devout police sergeant investigating the disappearance of a girl in a remote Scottish community meets with a disconcerting web of denials, half-truths and disarming candour on the part of the islanders. He also finds his Christian precepts tested to the limit by the paganistic embrace of the life force that is encouraged by the Lord of Summerisle.
Review:
One of a number of horror films to be steeped in Britishness rather than gothic influences, The Wicker Man hails from an era when Christianity was a quaint irrelevance alongside more deeply nurtured local cults and customs. Hence Woodward's at once competent and naïve figure is both foiled detective and unwitting victim, his prudishness and decency his undoing. Hardy is content to leave us bemused by folksy musical interludes and veiled menace before going for the jugular with an aptly conceived, and visually stunning, immolation at the end. The irrelevance of assaying an American remake was borne out some thirty years later. A Director's Cut restored some telecine footage of appalling quality which served principally to drag the film's pace down, establishing his priggishness rather heavily from the outset via a mainland prologue, and adding some graveyard coupling by moonlight to the list of the islanders' outrages.
Country: GB
Technical: col 86m
Director: Robin Hardy
Cast: Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento
Synopsis:
A devout police sergeant investigating the disappearance of a girl in a remote Scottish community meets with a disconcerting web of denials, half-truths and disarming candour on the part of the islanders. He also finds his Christian precepts tested to the limit by the paganistic embrace of the life force that is encouraged by the Lord of Summerisle.
Review:
One of a number of horror films to be steeped in Britishness rather than gothic influences, The Wicker Man hails from an era when Christianity was a quaint irrelevance alongside more deeply nurtured local cults and customs. Hence Woodward's at once competent and naïve figure is both foiled detective and unwitting victim, his prudishness and decency his undoing. Hardy is content to leave us bemused by folksy musical interludes and veiled menace before going for the jugular with an aptly conceived, and visually stunning, immolation at the end. The irrelevance of assaying an American remake was borne out some thirty years later. A Director's Cut restored some telecine footage of appalling quality which served principally to drag the film's pace down, establishing his priggishness rather heavily from the outset via a mainland prologue, and adding some graveyard coupling by moonlight to the list of the islanders' outrages.
Country: GB
Technical: col 86m
Director: Robin Hardy
Cast: Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento
Synopsis:
A devout police sergeant investigating the disappearance of a girl in a remote Scottish community meets with a disconcerting web of denials, half-truths and disarming candour on the part of the islanders. He also finds his Christian precepts tested to the limit by the paganistic embrace of the life force that is encouraged by the Lord of Summerisle.
Review:
One of a number of horror films to be steeped in Britishness rather than gothic influences, The Wicker Man hails from an era when Christianity was a quaint irrelevance alongside more deeply nurtured local cults and customs. Hence Woodward's at once competent and naïve figure is both foiled detective and unwitting victim, his prudishness and decency his undoing. Hardy is content to leave us bemused by folksy musical interludes and veiled menace before going for the jugular with an aptly conceived, and visually stunning, immolation at the end. The irrelevance of assaying an American remake was borne out some thirty years later. A Director's Cut restored some telecine footage of appalling quality which served principally to drag the film's pace down, establishing his priggishness rather heavily from the outset via a mainland prologue, and adding some graveyard coupling by moonlight to the list of the islanders' outrages.