The Wicker Man (1973)

While it could very well be the "definitive cult movie," as Mark Kermode described it, the first time I ever heard of The Wicker Man was, yet again, on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, where it was featured at No. 45. At first, I wasn't quite sure what to make of the clips that segment threw at me, which were of Sergeant Howie's increasingly frustrated investigation and his outrage at the blatant, sexual acts taking place around him, but when it got to the actual scary moment, the legendary ending, I was like, "Whoa." I was especially taken aback when I saw the actual Wicker Man and, even though it was a major spoiler, I thought the shot of Howie singing Christian hymns inside the statue as it burns was quite striking. And with that, it became another of the many films from that special that I knew I had to check out one day. I was further incentivized to do so when I learned Christopher Lee was in it, something the special didn't make clear, save for one brief image, and that he considered it the best movie he was ever in. Plus, I will admit that the idea of seeing him briefly in drag was compelling as well. (Little did I know that the title would soon be associated with Nicholas Cage punching people while wearing a bear suit and screaming about bees. I actually learned that remake was in production when I was looking up on info the original but had no idea how horrendously bad it would turn out.) But, I didn't see it until 2011, when I bought it on DVD while at the Texas Frightmare Weekend convention in Dallas, and when I did, even though I knew the twist and the ending, I still thought it was an interesting film and my appreciation for it has grown with each viewing. I especially knew it would make for a really good entry in this year's October Fest and intended on doing it as soon as I came up with the theme. Then, at the last moment, I learned it almost rivals Blade Runner in the number of different cuts there are, and the only version I'd seen up to that point was the theatrical version, which is often described as being truncated, with a different chronology of events. So I decided that, in order to do the film justice, I had to see the more complete versions, particularly the 94-minute one, often called the "Final Cut" (yeah, speaking of Blade Runner). After watching that cut, I must say that, while I already liked the movie from the theatrical version and don't think anything major was lost, including the crux of the story, the reinserted scenes and different chronology do make a difference, with things making a little more sense and the characters having a bit more depth to them. 

Sergeant Neil Howie of the West Highland Police, a man who's just as devoted to his Christian faith as he is his duty, journeys via seaplane to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of Rowan Morrison, a twelve-year old native. But despite having received an anonymous letter mailed personally to him, along with a picture of the girl, Howie is told that she doesn't live there. Moreover, when he meets Rowan's supposed mother, May, she insists that her only daughter is a nine-year old named Myrtle, while the landlord and those who frequent the local inn, the Green Man, also deny any knowledge of Rowan. During his time on the island, Howie is quite disturbed by how the entire community is devoted to Paganism and the ancient Celtic gods and have no reservations whatsoever in matters relating to sex, as he sees couples fornicating out in the fields, women standing about naked, the men at the inn singing a lewd folk song about the landlord's daughter, Willow, and Lord Summerisle himself bringing Willow a young man meant as a sacrifice for Aphrodite. He becomes absolutely incensed when he learns the young children are involved, as they're taught the phallic symbolism of the maypole in school and only know of Christianity as a "comparative religion." Like everyone else, the schoolchildren and the teacher, Miss Rose, deny any knowledge of Rowan, but when Howie checks the school register, he finds both her name and her supposed address. Miss Rose then tells Howie that to them, Rowan doesn't exist anymore, as her life force has returned to nature. Alluding to her being dead, she directs Howie to a de-consecrated churchyard, where he does find Rowan's grave, although there's no record or death certificate. He also becomes suspicious about a missing annual harvest festival photograph, which always show a young girl dressed as the May Queen. Now suspecting murder, as well as conspiracy, Howie meets with Lord Summerisle and gets his permission to exhume Rowan's body and take it back to the mainland for a pathology report, only to find the corpse of a march hare in the coffin. Later finding evidence suggesting that Rowan is not actually dead but held somewhere in order to be sacrificed due to the previous year's crops having failed. Now, with his seaplane mysteriously inoperable, Howie must find and save the girl himself.

In many ways, The Wicker Man was conceived as the anti-Hammer horror film, as Christopher Lee became involved early on in order to break away from the studio and his typecasting as a horror actor, while screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, who'd written both the original play and screenplay for the film of Sleuth, as well as Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy, wanted to make a film that was centered around an old religion, as opposed to the traditional horrors of Hammer, and also wasn't overly violent or bloody. Ostensibly, it's an adaptation of a book by David Pinner called Ritual, which itself was originally meant as a film treatment. Lee and Shaffer bought the rights in 1971 but, in writing the screenplay, the latter decided to use the novel's story as a basis for the film rather than directly adapt it. Above all else, Shaffer and everyone involved wanted it to be as accurate as possible, so he did extensive research on Paganism, as well as made sure the movie incorporated authentic music and took place in a down-to-Earth, contemporary setting.

The film's director, Robin Hardy, was someone who'd known and worked with Shaffer for thirteen years, having co-founded a company with him, for which he directed commercials and educational films. The two of them worked together extensively in the development of The Wicker Man, which Hardy would later publish a novelization of, along with several other novels during his lifetime, as well as founding a production company for producing historical dramas. He doesn't have many film credits after The Wicker Man, save for writing and directing the 1986 film, The Fantasist, writing and producing 1988's Forbidden Sun, and, most notably, a sort of sequel to this called The Wicker Tree, adapted from his own novel, Cowboys for Christ, in 2011. Though Shaffer had written a treatment for a direct Wicker Man sequel in 1989, called The Loathsome Lambton Worm, Hardy was never approached to shoot it and said he never read it, as it completely contradicted the ending of the first film and was much more supernatural and fantastical in nature. After The Wicker Tree (which features a cameo by Christopher Lee), Hardy had intended to do a third installment in this loose trilogy, The Wrath of Gods, but it never got off the ground. Hardy died in 2016 at the age of 86.

I've read that Christopher Lee personally offered Peter Cushing the role of Sergeant Howie but he was unable to take it due to scheduling conflicts. Personally, as much as I really love Cushing, I think it would've gone against the filmmakers' intention for this movie to be far removed from the Hammer films, as it would've been yet another film with him and Lee together. Plus, I think Edward Woodward did a more than capable job in the role, coming off as a rigid, stern man who's all about his business as a policeman and his devout faith to Christianity. As such, Summerisle proves to be absolute hell on Earth for him, in more ways than one. The minute he arrives in his seaplane, he finds resistance from the locals. The harbormaster is reluctant to send a dinghy to bring him ashore because it's private property and he has to make it clear that he's arrived on police business in order to get him to do so. None of the locals seem to recognize the photograph of Rowan Morrison, which was personally mailed to him, along with a letter saying she'd disappeared. Even Rowan's supposed mother, May, denies that she exists, insisting her only child is nine-year old Myrtle. The same goes for Miss Rose, the local schoolteacher, and the children, but then, Howie finds Rowan's name in the school register. He's further aggravated when Miss Rose attempts to skirt around the notion of Rowan being dead, saying they instead believe her life-force has returned to nature. Finding a grave that's said to be hers but finding no record of her death or a death certificate, Howie speaks with Lord Summerisle himself, hoping to get his permission to exhume her body and take it to the mainland for a pathology report. He's granted just that, but when he opens the grave, he's angered to find a dead hare inside the coffin. Confronting both Summerisle and Miss Rose about this, he declares that he now believes Rowan was murdered as part of the island's pagan rituals, which infuriates and appalls him even more than how the residents appear to be obstructing justice.

Though it becomes clear very quickly in the theatrical version regardless, the longer versions open with Howie attending church with his fiance and taking communion, as well as acting as a preacher himself, and we also later see that he says his prayers before going to bed. So when he gets to Summerisle and is faced with the locals singing a very crude song about Willow, the daughter of the Green Man Inn's landlord, Lord Summerisle himself bringing Willow a young man to have sex

with in the name of a sacrifice for Aphrodite, people having sex and women running around naked in open areas and in broad daylight, and kids being taught the phallic symbolism of the maypole, including through song, he is horrified, to say the least. The fact that the schoolchildren are taught nothing of Christianity and the churchyards have been de-consecrated especially angers him, as he sees the dead hare found in Rowan Morrison's grave to be absolute sacrilege (at one point, he

creates a makeshift cross and puts it on a grave). By the end of his second day on the island, after having been confronted with all this and learning of its history from Lord Summerisle, Howie is convinced that all the inhabitants are completely insane, that they've murdered Rowan in their rituals and are covering it up. However, despite all his convictions and faith, he faces temptation when Willow dances around naked in her room, which is right next to his, beckoning him to come to her in song. Having taken a vow of celibacy before he

and his fiance are to be married, it's likely he's been feeling the urge from time to time, and this performance of Willow's does test him. During her song, he almost goes out the door to her, and though he does manage to stay in his room, he still reaches for and presses up against the wall she's on the opposite side of, sweating profusely. It takes every ounce of willpower he has to push away from the wall and go back to bed.

He finds evidence supporting his theory about Rowan when he manages to develop the negative of the previous year's harvest festival photograph, which was missing from the Green Man, and sees her standing amidst a virtually nonexistent harvest. He then does some research on pagan rites in the public library and learns that, in the event of a failed harvest, a human sacrifice was made to appease the goddess of the fields. Though he says to himself, "Dear God in heaven, even these people

can't be that mad," he suspects Rowan is being held hostage somewhere in order to be sacrificed. He tries to get back to the mainland and report this, only to find that his seaplane suddenly won't fly and the radio doesn't work. Thus, he takes it upon himself to find Rowan, when he overhears Lord Summerisle and the others planning the ritual. Horrified by both this and May's apathetic attitude to her own daughter being sacrificed, Howie decides to search the entire village for Rowan, but finds little more than interference from children, as

as well as some very strange things. Frustrated, he goes back to the Green Man to get some rest, only to overhear the landlord and Willow discussing using a sort of incense to put him to sleep to keep him from "interfering." Thus, he manages to incapacitate the landlord and take his costume, that of the Fool, in order to infiltrate the parade that's part of the May Day celebration. But, while he does find Rowan, he soon learns the horrifying truth behind everything: he's been the target all along.

Having been a major proponent behind the film from the beginning, you can tell Christopher Lee absolutely relished the role of Lord Summerisle, as he plays him with an energy and exuberance missing from his latter films for Hammer, especially the Dracula ones. When he first meets with Sergeant Howie around the halfway point, he's all smiles, asking him if the sight of "young people," i.e. some girls dancing naked around and bounding over a fire, refreshes him, and when Howie is outraged at their being naked, Summerisle matter-of-factly answers, "Naturally. It's much too dangerous to jump through the fire with your clothes on." He also expresses confidence that Howie is wrong about Rowan Morrison having been murdered, insisting they wouldn't do such a thing due to their religious nature. Howie, of course, scoffs at this, but Summerisle explains that, on this island, the old gods are still alive and well, adding in regards to the Christian god, "He's dead. He can't complain. He had his chance and, in modern parlance, blew it." He goes on to explain how the island came to be what it is, that in 1868, his grandfather, a Victorian agronomist, bought it and began growing a new strain of fruit he'd developed that would flourish in the environment and climate. To get the starving islanders to work for him, he encouraged the belief that the old Pagan gods would make the barren land bountiful once more. When his new strain proved very successful, the islanders fully embraced Paganism again, prompting the Christian ministers to flee. Summerisle goes on to say, "What my grandfather had started out of expediency, my father continued out of... love. He brought me up the same way. To reverence the music and the drama and the rituals of the old gods. To love nature and to fear it. And to rely on it and to appease it where necessary. He brought me up... A heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one."

Throughout the movie, Summerisle is continually portrayed as a very upbeat, happy-go-lucky man, like when you next see him, where he's playing the piano and singing a duet with Miss Rose. He's not fazed when Howie confronts him with the corpse of the hare he found in Rowan's grave, commenting on how Rowan loved March hares, and when he demands to know where Rowan is, he calmly notes, "I think that... you are supposed to be the detective here." Howie then declares that he

believes Rowan was murdered and threatens to go back to the mainland and demand a full inquiry into the island, to which Summerisle says, "You must, of course, do as you see fit, Sergeant," before ringing for his servant to show Howie out and getting back to his singing. The next day, as he and the others are preparing for the May Day celebration, Summerisle is seen dancing about while wearing a bright yellow sweater and a purple dress thrown over his shoulder, before playfully

asking MacGregor, the landlord, if they're going to have to let out his costume again. During the parade across the island, Summerisle is dressed in drag and dancing as he walks out in front, when he notices "MacGregor's" (the disguised Howie) lackluster performance and exclaims, "What's the matter with you, MacGregor?! Do you call that dancing?! Cut some capers, man! Use your bladder. Play the fool. That's what you're here for! I suppose you've been getting drunk at your own bar!" He gleefully takes part in the rituals

throughout the day, pulling "MacGregor" into the one where the participants stick their heads up through a sun symbol made out of swords and cracking open a barrel of ale and pouring it into the waves to appease the god of the sea. And during the finale, where it's revealed Rowan was in on the whole thing, Summerisle happily commends her on her performance, before telling Howie that he was always the target: "You have come of your own free will to the appointed place. The game is over... The game of the hunted leading the hunter. You

came here to find Rowan Morrison, but it is we who have found you and brought you here and controlled your every thought and action since you arrived." He goes on to reveal that, just as Howie himself read up in the library, they're going to perform a human sacrifice to ensure their crops don't fail again like they did the previous year, and that sacrifice is him, as he fits the necessary criteria for the most effective one possible.

A scene that only appears in the longer versions, where Lord Summerisle delivers a young man to Willow at the Green Man, suggests that he may have genuine contempt for Howie and his strict Christian faith. As he watches a pair of snails nuzzling on a leaf, he gives this soliloquy: "I think I could turn and live with animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their... duty to God. Not one of

them kneels to another or to his own kind that lived thousands of years ago. Not one of them is respectable or unhappy, all over the Earth." This speech is intercut with him looking up at the Green Man and shots of Howie praying by his bed, so I have a feeling that, despite his meeting all the requirements necessary for the sacrifice, Summerisle also chose Howie because he loathes his devout faith and trust in Christianity. And yet, by going through with such a sacrifice to appease the Pagan gods, he's being a massive hypocrite,

especially since he should know that, as Howie himself says, the previous harvest's failing had nothing to do with their gods but because fruit is not meant to grow in such a climate. Howie gives him a chance to admit it, as well as warns Summerisle that, should the harvest fail again, he himself will likely be the one sacrificed the following year. Summerisle's grave expression at this shows that he knows this could be true but he keeps up the facade and insists Howie's sacrifice will work. Thus, Howie is put inside the Wicker Man and burned alive, as Summerisle and the other islanders sing the folk song, Sumer Is Icumen In.

The film is full of a number of memorably bizarre and quirky characters who make up the residents of Summerisle. When Sergeant Howie visits the local school, he's not only aghast at how some kids are taking part in decorating a maypole to the tune of a sexually-charged folk song but at how the teacher, Miss Rose (Diane Cilento), is teaching her students the phallic symbolism of the pole. When he confronts her about it, she flippantly answers, "I wasn't aware the police had any authority in matters of education." Like everyone else on the island, including the children, she denies knowledge of Rowan Morrison's existence, and when Howie finds her name in the school register regardless, he calls all of them liars and threatens to charge Miss Rose with obstruction if she continues lying. Speaking with Howie outside, she explains what they mean when they say Rowan doesn't exist. Rather than say she's dead, she explains that, "We believe that when the human life is over, the soul returns to trees, to air, to fire, to water, to animals. So that Rowan Morrison has simply returned to the life forces in another form." She continues giving him this verbal runaround when he asks where Rowan's body is. Asking if it's in a churchyard, she answers, "In a matter of speaking," and when he demands she explain plainly, she says, "The building attached to the ground in which the body lies is no longer used for Christian worship, so whether it is still a churchyard is debatable." Later, she's seen performing a duet with Lord Summerisle at his manor, when Howie confronts them with the corpse of the hare he found in Rowan's grave. Though Howie calls it sacrilege, Miss Rose counters, "Only if the ground is consecrated to the Christian belief. Personally, I think it makes a very lovely transmutation. I'm sure Rowan is most happy with it." When Howie, again, demands to know where Rowan is, she insists it is the hare, at least in terms of her physical remains. During this scene, Howie tells her that he's not going to be made a fool of indefinitely, a statement that comes back to haunt him when he's captured at the end, as she tells him, "You are the fool, Mr. Howie... For you have accepted the role of king for a day. And who but a fool would do that? But you will be revered and anointed as a king. You will undergo death and rebirth. Resurrection, if you like. The rebirth, sadly, will not be yours, but that of our crops."

Though she only has a small role, and her voice is dubbed (supposedly; there's debate over whether or not she actually was), Britt Ekland's appearance here as Willow, the Green Man landlord's very sexy daughter, is totally unforgettable. As soon as she's introduced, the men in the bar begin singing a lascivious song about how she's the object of all their desires, and that very night, Lord Summerisle, seeing her as the human embodiment of Aphrodite, brings her a young man to have her with way with (I find it odd, though, considering Aphrodite is a Greek deity). She takes an interest in Howie when he arrives, saying suggestive things to him such as, "Some things in their natural state have the most vivid colors," and, "Food isn't everything in life, you know." Then, on his second night there, she goes all out by singing and dancing around her room completely naked, pounding on the walls, smacking the furniture, and slapping her supple body, while beckoning him to come to her like a siren. Though seriously tempted, he resists, and when she sees him the next morning and he explains that he's engaged, she asks, "Oh, does that stop you?" (Given their ultimate plan for Howie, you have to wonder what she would've done if he did give in to his sexual desires.) When Howie, after failing to find where Rowan has been hidden away, comes back to the Green Man and lies down for a rest, he overhears Willow talking with her father about lighting up an incense to put him to sleep and keep him from interfering. This, however, turns out to be a ruse to trick Howie into knocking out the landlord, taking his costume, and joining the celebration, leading to his ultimate doom, which Willow takes delight in.

Another familiar actor to horror fans, Ingrid Pitt, has a small role as a librarian whom Howie deals with when trying to find Rowan's record of death. She tells him that he needs permission from Lord Summerisle before he can look at the index of deaths but, when he threatens to have her arrested, she reluctantly gives him the index, looking at him with a rather aggravated expression. Looking through it, he notes two people named Benjamin and Rachel Morrison and how their names are from the Bible, to which the librarian replies, "Yes. They were very odd." Unlike just about everyone else, she does acknowledge Rowan's existence and her image in the photograph, but denies any knowledge of her death. During the finale, she, like Willow, takes part in preparing Howie for his sacrifice. (Initially, I thought Pitt never gets naked here, which is surprising, given how there was no shortage of her flesh in the horror films she's best known for, but I now wonder if she's a woman Howie, at one point, walks in on while she's bathing.)

Other notable characters on Summerisle include Alder MacGregor (Lindsay Kemp), the innkeeper at the Green Man, who's not at all bothered by the sexually-charged folk song the patrons sing about his daughter and whose place Howie takes in the May Day celebration; the harbormaster (Russell Waters), who's initially reluctant to send over a dinghy to pick up Howie when he first arrives by seaplane, as the island is private property, starts up the song about Willow, and denies any knowledge

of who tampered with the plane later on, suggesting that Howie could have one of the locals row him to the mainland, remarking, "You'd be back in a week,"; the weird-looking gardener and gravedigger (Aubrey Morris) who plants trees on the graves, complete with strips of flesh from the corpses (he says the one on Rowan's corpse is, "The poor wee lass' navel string,"), and laughs at Howie when he finds a hare inside Rowan's coffin; T.H. Lennox (Donald Eccles), a photographer and

chemist who runs a shop that sells some very peculiar items, including foreskins and skinned hares, and who takes the annual harvest festival photographs, though he, conveniently, no longer has a copy or the negative of the most recent one missing from the Green Man, as well as can't recall if Rowan was the focus of that photo; Oak (Ian Campbell), a big, Bluto-like guy who participates in the song about Willow, wears a hobby horse costume during the May Day celebration, and restrains Howie when they prepare to sacrifice

him; and the school master (Walter Carr), who leads the kids in singing the song as they decorate the maypole. Also, May Morrison (Irene Sunter), comes off as rather unsettling in how smiley and flippant she is about her supposedly missing daughter and how, when Howie confronts her about how Rowan is, seemingly, going to be sacrificed, she tells him to go back to the mainland and stop meddling in things that don't concern him. Instead, he tells her of how he intends to search every house for Rowan and threatens to have her arrested as an accomplice to murder if she interferes. Her response: "You'll simply never understand the true nature of sacrifice." And finally, her young daughter, Myrtle (Jennifer Martin), is the first one to identify Rowan as being a hare, telling Howie that she tends to frolic in the fields.

In terms of filmmaking, Robin Hardy seems to have, for the most part, taken a documentary sort of approach, as it has that raw, fly-on-the-wall feel, with a fairly muted color palette, nighttime exteriors that were, for the most part, actually shot at night, and isn't particularly showy in its presentation, though it does open with some wide, lovely shots of the Scottish isles as Sergeant Howie flies his seaplane to Summerisle. There are a number of memorable cutaway close-up shots, such as when Howie first arrives and the villagers

watch him from their windows and behind their doors, as well as a number of low-angle, tilted shots of the bar patrons as they sing their song about Willow, but it's only during the third act when it becomes more overt. You get tight close-ups of the swords forming the symbol of the sun, memorable shots of the actual sun in the sky, and some tight zoom-ins, such as on Howie's horrified face when he first sees the Wicker Man. Despite the mostly realistic presentation here, there are some scenes that, by their very nature, have a

dream-like feel, and the film itself emphasizes it. Most of these are in the depictions of the villagers' blatant sexual expression and fertility rites, like when Howie comes across the couples having sex out in the fields, which is gradually revealed by the light streaming out from the Green Man's front door, as the film briefly goes into slow-motion, or the scene where the naked women are dancing and leaping over the fire, which is shot in moments of soft-focus and slow-motion and edited in dissolves

intercut with shots of the women wandering through a spot with small, blossoming trees, which truly makes it feel like an erotic dream/fairy tale. And speaking of erotic dreams, the presentation of Willow dancing and smacking about her room while naked really comes off as one, particularly with her siren-like beckoning to Howie.

From the outset, the main community of Summerisle looks like any other Scottish village you could find on both the mainland and the many islands off the coast, but when Sergeant Howie arrives and begins his investigation, that veneer slowly begins to be peeled away. First off, you may notice that, for a Scottish isle, there are an awful lot of palm trees to be found there. Second, in a time-honored trope, as Howie walks through the streets, people watch him from their dwellings, and when he enters the Green Man Inn, the patrons all

stop what they're doing and turn to look. In spite of its unusual name and sign, and the songs sung by those who frequent it, the Green Man is a pretty normal-looking, quaint country inn and tavern, with photographs from the annual harvest festival lining the back wall and a rather small dining room and bedroom for rent. The same also goes for the public library, which Howie visits to read up on Paganism and harvests, and the office for the register of births, deaths, and marriages. The first real sign of this place's peculiarities is when Howie

goes to the candy store that May Morrison runs and you see how unusual and eye-catching some of the sweets are, namely the ones shaped like people and animals, such as hares, turtles, and pigs. Then, that night, as he walks about the grounds around the Green Man, he sees couples having sex out in open fields in the moonlight and, behind a stone wall, a cemetery where a woman is sitting at a gravestone, sobbing. When he goes to bed that night, he has to endure the sound of Willow and Ash Buchanan, the

young man Lord Summerisle brought to her, making love in the next room. The next day, he goes to the school and finds that, as normal as it seems, the children are being taught some rather adult subject matter. He then visits the graveyard again, finding it to be dilapidated and rundown, as well as de-consecrated, with epitaphs that read, "HERE LIETH BEECH BUCHANAN, PROTECTED BY THE EJACULATION OF SERPENTS," and small trees on the grave adorned

with strips of flesh. And when he visits T.H. Lennox at his shop, it's revealed that he sells numerous bizarre items like foreskins, rat brains, snake oil embrocation, brains and hearts (no other specifics are mentioned), and dead animals like a mummified kitten with two faces, beetles, and skinned hares.

The film was shot almost entirely on location in Scotland, specifically in various towns and villages in the Galloway area, but one of the most striking locations, that of Lord Summerisle's huge mansion, is actually Culzean Castle in South Ayrshire. Howie's trip to the mansion is hardly unmemorable too, as he passes by interesting topiary pieces (one of which is quite phallic) and a Stonehenge-like structure where, around a fire-pit, the naked women perform the dance meant to make themselves more fertile and which is also

the site of one of the May Day rites. Going back to the castle, it's a magnificent building on an equally amazing piece of land, one featuring gardens where the fruit is grown (actually the Logan Botanic Garden near Port Logan). Though we don't get to see much of it, the inside of the place is incredible, with a foyer that seems to be dedicated to hunting, with various weapons and trophies decorating the walls, while the sitting room is absolutely enormous, with a huge organ on one wall, big paintings (some of them absolutely massive),

swords, and flags decorating much of the wall-space, a grand piano across from a lovely fireplace, a dressing screen, and a big window looking out at the spot that resembles Stonehenge. And during the third act, we get to see much more of the island's beautiful countryside, such as its fields and, in the climax, its rocky shoreline, where they pour ale into the waves in order to appease the god of the sea. This, as well as the outside of the cave where Howie spots Rowan, is Luce Bay in Galloway,

while Wookey Hole Caves in Somerset served as the inside of the cave when Howie attempts to escape with her. Finally, Burrow Head on the Isle of Whithorn served as the setting for the finale where you see the Wicker Man itself, which is definitely a striking and iconic structure, despite not appearing until the very end (I would wager more people know of it and the ending than have seen the entire movie).

The Wicker Man is many things. A horror film. A suspense-thriller. A mystery. And, to the surprise of many first-time viewers, a musical. Music and song play a large role in the story, as there are not only songs on the soundtrack but also a number of scenes where the characters actually sing and dance around to various folk songs, written by Paul Giovanni, who also did the few instances of plain score. However, unlike with most musicals, the songs don't come out of nowhere and interfere with

the reality of the film; rather, they're sung by the inhabitants of Summerisle either for their own enjoyment or as part of whatever Pagan ritual they're taking part in. For instance, the song sung by the patrons of the Green Man, The Landlord's Daughter, is a rather lewd song about how everyone on the island yearns for Willow. The harbormaster starts it off with, "Much has been said of the strumpets of yore/Of wenches and bawdy house queens by the score/But I sing of a

baggage that we all adore / The landlord's daughter!", and the chorus joins in with, "You'll never love another," while Oak sings, "Although she's not the kind of girl/To take home to your mother." As if it weren't already sexual enough, the next lyrics are, "Her ale it is lively and strong to the taste/It is brewed with discretion and never with haste/You can have all you like if you swear not to waste/The Landlord's Daughter," and, "And when her name is mentioned/The parts of every

gentleman do stand up/At attention," with one guy arching his arm up in a suggestive manner to that last part. And finally, two other guys sing, "O, nothing can delight so/As does the part that lies between her left toe/And her right toe," before putting their feet together and swinging them back and forth.

Later, before and when Lord Summerisle brings the young man to Willow, Paul Giovanni himself performs a song called Gently Johnny, which is very soft and peaceful, done only to some guitar strumming and a gentle beat behind it, yet is also quite passionate, with suggestive lyrics such as, "I put my hand on her thigh/And she says/Do you want to try? I put my hand on her belly/And she says/Do you want a feely?" (This song was removed from the theatrical version, which is one of my biggest complaints with it.) When Howie

heads to the school, he passes by the school master and some kids decorating a maypole, as they sing and perform a little song that hammers home their religion's connection between life, death, and reproduction. After a beginning where the man sings about a tree in the forest, he and the kids sing, "And on that tree there was a limb/And on that limb there was a branch/And on that branch there was a nest/And in that nest there was an egg/And in that egg there was a bird.And from that bird a feather came/And of that feather was/A

bed," and then, "And on that bed there was a girl/And on that girl there was a man/And from that man there was a seed/And from that seed there was a boy/And from that boy there was a man/And for that man there was a grave/And from that grave there grew/A tree." Following that, the lyrics loop around and around, just like the cycle that's being sung about. Similarly, when the women are dancing around and jumping over the fire-pit in the one sequence, they sing a similarly looping song:

"Take the flame inside you/Burn and burn below/Fire seed and fire feed/To make the baby grow. Take the flame/inside you/Burn and burn belay/Fire seed and fire feed/To make the baby stay. Take the flame inside you/Burn and burn belong/Fire seed and fire feed/And make the baby strong." Once you've heard them, both of those songs will be looping in your head for hours. And as I said, Howie comes in on Lord Summerisle and Miss Rose singing a duet of a song called Tinker of Rye, and while it's just another sexually-charged song that has no significance to the story other than to show how open they are about this subject, Christopher Lee's deep, rich baritone voice is a real joy to listen to.

Just like the character herself, Willow's Song is definitely one of the most memorable pieces of the soundtrack, as well as scenes in the movie. As she torments Sergeant Howie with temptation by parading around naked, smacking and pounding on the walls and door, and gyrating and slapping her body, she sings in a manner that's not only beckoning but also has a feeling of longing and melancholia about it: "Heigh ho. Who is there?/No one but me, my dear/Please come say, How do?/The things I'll give to you/A stroke as gentle as

a feather/Heigh ho! I am here/Am I not young and fair?" Obviously, I can't show much from this scene but, trust me when I say how he was able to resist her is beyond me. Of course, music and song play a big part in the May Day celebration, with the islanders playing instruments and dancing throughout their procession and rituals. The procession itself is played to a simple horn piece, accompanied by other, low-tech instruments, all done to the melody of the old Scottish "murder 

ballad," Fause Foodrage, whereas the rite they partake in called the "head-chopping ceremony" is set to an old English nursery rhyme called Oranges and Lemons, which is played on the bagpipes. An eerie lullaby is sung, supposedly by Willow and the librarian, when, after he's been captured, they prepare Howie for the sacrifice, and as he's dragged to the Wicker Man, you hear an ominous, constantly pounding drum from within the crowd. And finally, they all sing the 13th century folk song, Sumer Is Icumen In, at the very end as they watch the Wicker Man burn.

What's remarkable about the depiction of Paganism here is that the filmmakers don't pass judgement on the inhabitants of Summerisle for what they believe, which is exactly what Anthony Shaffer and Robin Hardy intended. While their behavior, habits, and rituals could and do come off as strange and, indeed, shocking to outsiders, especially Christians, they're not hurting anyone but, rather, are just living out their lives on their little island. In fact, while some are a bit suspicious of him, others, such as May Morrison and Myrtle, come off as

smiling and welcoming to Sergeant Howie, and you get the sense that they would act the same to anyone else who came to visit them (provided they had permission to do so, since the island is private property). And in spite of their evasiveness and suspicious attitudes about Rowan, Howie's defaming of their practices and beliefs, which he calls "fake," to the point where he creates and places a cross on a grave in the rundown churchyard, comes off as horribly intolerant, not unlike the mindsets you find in many devout

Christians in the world (especially in the American South, which I know from experience). Also, like many modern day Christians, Howie doesn't recognize the Pagan aspects of his own faith. When he questions Lord Summerisle about what could be learned from jumping over fires, he answers, "Parthenogenesis... Reproduction without sexual union." Howie then asks if the island's children have never heard of Jesus Christ (despite having already been told by Miss Rose that they're taught

of Christianity as another comparative religion) and Summerisle responds, "Himself the son of a virgin, impregnated, I believe, by a ghost." But, that's not to say the Pagans don't have their own prejudices towards Christianity. As Miss Rose tells Howie, "The children find it far easier to picture reincarnation than resurrection. Those rotting bodies are a great stumbling block for the childish imagination." May Morrison advises Howie to stop interfering with matters he doesn't understand. And let's not forget Summerisle's speech about how animals are superior to man in that they don't care about sin or any devotion to a higher being.

But, as objectively and accurately as this modern Pagan community may be presented, there's undeniably something unsettling going on beneath the surface, what with how Howie has come to investigate the case of a missing child and yet, everyone either denies she ever existed or gives him the runaround as to what became of her. As the movie goes on, it becomes possible that the islanders may be deliberately hiding Rowan, especially when Howie learns of the tradition of human sacrifice following a poor harvest, and have

sabotaged his seaplane to keep him from informing the mainland authorities about it. Also, while it is just part of their religion, there's no denying that some of their customs and paraphernalia, like those animal masks they wear, Oak's hobby horse outfit with its dragon-like head and snapping mouth, and some of the items they sell in their shops, are naturally off-putting and kind of eerie. Besides the obvious, some of the things they do come off as senselessly cruel to animals, like when May puts a toad in a girl's mouth for several seconds to cure

her of a sore throat or when Howie opens Rowan's empty desk at the school to find a beetle tied to a nail by a thread. The little girl sitting next to it, Daisy, gleefully explains, "The little old beetle goes 'round and 'round. Always the same way, you see, until it ends up right up tight to the nail. Poor old thing," to which Howie asks, "'Poor old thing?' Then why, in God's name, do you do it, girl?" Daisy has no answer to the question. And finally, there's the ultimate revelation that Howie was lured

to Summerisle in order to be the sacrifice. Again, it's presented objectively and as part of their beliefs, but it's still horrifying to think they would go to the lengths they do, including manipulating and leading Howie around during his time on the island, just to ensure a bountiful harvest. They come off as truly cruel and sadistic in how they then proclaim him to be a fool and tell him that, once it's over, there will be no traces, meaning no one who comes looking will ever know. And it's also just downright scary how they rationalize their committing murder through their faith.

And the kicker is that, as only Howie and Lord Summerisle know, the community's entire faith is predicated on a lie begun by Summerisle's grandfather over a century before, one that, as Howie warns, could cost Summerisle his own life should the crops fail again. Yet Summerisle, despite having obvious reservations about this, says nothing, either to keep his people's trust in him or in hope that his own personal faith in his religion is justified, rather than be proven wrong by the follower of a faith he has contempt for. Just like

devout Christians when they're told their faith is a bunch of bull, the islanders pay no mind to Howie's warning that there is no sun god or goddess of the fields, that fruit is simply not meant to grow on the island, and killing him is not going to bring it back. Through it all, he continues to denounce their faith and sing the praises of his own, declaring, "No matter what you do, you can't change the fact that I believe in the life eternal, as promised to us by our Lord, Jesus Christ." To that, Summerisle says,

"That is good. For believing what you do, we confer upon you a rare gift these days: a martyr's death. You will not only have life eternal, but you will sit with the saints, among the elect." And the movie concludes with the two faiths clashing to the bitter end, with Howie, locked up inside the Wicker Man, yelling about how God will punish them for their heathen acts, while Summerisle and the others pray to the sun god and field goddess, and with Howie singing Christian hymns while the islanders sing Sumer Is Icumen In as the statue burns.

The first half or so of the film is a leisurely-paced mystery, as you watch Sergeant Howie search for answers as to Rowan's whereabouts while also being appalled at what he sees taking place on the island. It's when he opens Rowan's grave, only to find a dead hare, and breaks into T.H. Lennox's store and develops the missing harvest festival photograph depicting Rowan that things start to pick up. The next day, when he reads up on Pagan rites and theorizes that Rowan may soon be

sacrificed to ensure the harvest doesn't fail again, he attempts to make it back to the mainland to report his suspicions and bring back more police officers for a more thorough investigation. But, after the harbormaster rows him to his seaplane, he finds it doesn't work, nor does the radio. Now stranded on Summerisle, he decides to find Rowan himself. Back in the village, he follows after Oak, who's wearing his hobby horse costume as he walks through the alleys; Oak, however, seems to

know he's being followed and appears to be attempting to lure Howie. Ultimately, Howie follows him to a spot where many of the villagers, including Lord Summerisle, are cheerfully preparing for their May Day celebration. At one point, Summerisle stands on a higher spot and makes a speech to them: "We shall all reassemble outside the town hall at 3:00 sharp, and then process through the village and the countryside, down to the beach, below the stones, by the route which has become sacred to our rite. This year, at

the procession's end, as has already been proclaimed, a holy sacrifice will be offered up jointly to Nuada, our most sacred god of the sun, and to Avellenau, the beloved goddess of our orchards, in order that we may furnish them with renewed power to quicken the growth of our crops. Hail the queen of the May!" Hearing this, Howie runs to May Morrison's shop to tell her and asks her to reveal where Rowan may be. When May, however, acts as flippant and nonchalant about it as she did before, suggesting that Howie go back home and forget about things that aren't his concern, the sergeant loses his patience and says he's going to search every house in the village for Rowan.

Storming out of the shop, growling, "Heathens! Blood heathens!", he goes to the nearest house and rings the bell. Two children wearing cat masks peek out the second-story window, initially refusing to take off their masks when he tells them to. When they do, their mother comes to the door, demanding to know what's going on, and he says he must search the house for a missing child. He goes into a bedroom, throws back some curtains, and finds a small opening in the wall to a stairwell

that spirals downward. Looking on the bed, he sees two dolls put together like they're having sex. Disgusted, he knocks them off to look under the cover. He then searches a larger, stone house, then forces his way into a smaller house and finds what seems to be a covered body inside a box, only to throw the cover back and find it's just a doll. He opens another door to find a woman bathing herself and he quickly ducks back out, apologizing (she doesn't seem to mind, though). Next, he investigates another house, when a young child

appears to fall out of a wardrobe, dead, with blood around her mouth. But when he pushes her hair back to look at her, she looks at him, smiles and giggles, then gets up and runs out of the room. He walks in on a woman who's doing some sewing, and while he finds no clues, he looks out the window in the back, which overlooks a bay, and sees a large ship filled with empty apple crates. He decides to investigate it, but finds nothing, save for a fish mask. Back on the island, Howie goes into a bakery, where a baker pulls a human figure made

of bread out of the oven, calling it, "The Life of the Fields. John Barleycorn." He then has another man, a fishmonger, open up a wardrobe in his home to reveal his costume: the Salmon of Knowledge. He has no luck at a butchery either, although the butcher does show him part of his costume: a bull mask. Finally, while investigating the coffins at the undertaker's, Howie opens up one to find, what I assume is, a corpse, with a bloodied, bandaged left hand and coins covering the eyes.

Frustrated, Howie goes back to the Green Man for a rest, but while he's lying in bed, he overhears Willow and MacGregor as they discuss using something on him called "the Hand of Glory," which is meant to put him to sleep. Despite Willow's fears that it may make him sleep for days, MacGregor presses her to light it up and she strikes a match and puts it to something offscreen. Howie then feigns being asleep as Willow brings the thing in and puts it near him, whispering, "That'll make 

you sleep, my pretty sergeant." She sneaks out of his room, while MacGregor goes to put on his costume for the celebration. Once they're gone, Howie opens his eyes and sees that the Hand of Glory is an actual mummified hand made into a candelabra. He quickly knocks it to the floor, puts out the flames, and then, seeing MacGregor go into the next room, follows him with the candlestick. He knocks him out with it and, spying his mask sitting on a dresser, switches clothes with him. Dressed as the fool Punch, he then joins the

villagers in the May Day parade across the island, leaving MacGregor gagged and tied to his bedpost. He has to be goaded into putting on more of a performance when Summerisle admonishes him for his lackluster dancing, and as the parade continues into the countryside, they pass by some men sword-fighting on the sides of some hills. At one point, Howie has to fend off some women who come running at him with sticks and attempt to swipe him with them, as per their tradition, and also has to take part in it by smacking the girl's rear ends with his wand when they stick them out at him.

The parade makes its way to the spot with the Stonehenge-like rock pillars and stops around the cold fire-pit. Summerisle and Oak stand across from each other on either side of the pit, the latter bowing and shaking the animal part of his costume when Summerisle motions at him and then swaying back and forth. The six swordsmen from before stand around the pit and interlock their swords to form a symbol of the sun. Beginning with Summerisle, everyone runs in and puts his or

her head up through the center of the swords, as they continuously chant, "Chop!", while someone plays the bagpipes nearby and Lennox and some others prepare to photograph the ritual. Standing off to the side, Howie is then pulled into the line by Summerisle, who tells him everyone must take part. Fortunately for him, the swords are lowered around his head without incident and he moves on, but when the next person, wearing a march hare mask, takes his place, the bagpipes and the

chanting stop. Suddenly, the swordsmen appear to lop off the person's head with their mask, horrifying Howie. However, when they examine the apparently headless corpse, they find that the person, a young girl named Holly, was able to escape decapitation through her short height and the tall mask she was wearing. Everyone laughs it off and congratulate Holly on a game well played, with Summerisle helping her to her feet before announcing that their next stop is the beach. Everyone heads down to the rocky shore, where a

horse-drawn cart filled with barrels is waiting for them. Climbing atop the cart and taking an axe, Summerisle proclaims, "Oh, god of the sea, I offer you this ale as a libation, that you may bestow upon us in the year to come the rich and diverse fruits of your kingdom!" He chops into one of the barrels and the others send it rolling off a small ramp by the cart's side and into the waves, as the others hail the god of the sea as well and the water fills up with foam. Summerisle turns to them and says, "And now, for our more dreadful sacrifice, for those who command the fruits of the Earth." Everyone turns and looks to the entrance of a nearby cave as a trumpet blows; there, Howie spots Rowan.

He leaps into action and makes his way up to her, knocking away the trumpeter when he confronts him. He tells Rowan who he is, untying her hands from behind her back. The villagers start towards them, wielding torches, as Howie unties Rowan and they flee inside the cave. Rowan leads him through, saying she knows the way, and they come upon a spot where they climb up to an opening from which daylight is streaming through. They come up through the hole and find themselves atop

a cliff, having apparently eluded the villagers, only to see Summerisle, Willow, and the librarian waiting for them. Then, much to Howie's surprise, Rowan runs to them, asking Summerisle, who has his arms out, "Did I do it right?", to which he answers, "You did it beautifully!", before sending her over to her mother. Howie, realizing he's been tricked, sees himself being surrounded on the hillsides. He walks past Summerisle and Willow to see a sheer drop off a cliff behind them, confirming

that he is trapped. Summerisle then reveals that he was lured there and they'd manipulated him from the start, before explaining how poor their previous year's harvest was, adding, "That must not happen again this year. It is our most earnest belief that the best way of preventing this is to offer to our god of the sun and to the goddess of our orchards the most acceptable sacrifice that lies in our power. Animals are fine, but their acceptability is limited. A little child is even better, but not nearly as effective as

the right kind of adult." Summerisle, Willow, and the librarian go on to clarify that Howie is the right kind of adult they found through their research: one who would come of his own free will, with the power of a king by representing the law, as a virgin, and as a fool. In spite of these threats and his being surrounded, Howie attempts to leave, as the islanders remove their masks. He runs into Oak, who feigns allowing him to pass, only to grab him and toss him, sending him tumbling down the side of the hill. He picks him up and restrains him,

as Miss Rose explains how he is the fool. Oak drags him down to Willow, who's waiting with a knife, as Miss Rose goes on to explain what his death will mean for them. Howie, however, remains defiant, declaring, "I am a Christian, and as a Christian, I hope for resurrection. And even if you kill me now, it is I who will live again, not your damned apples."

Willow then cuts open his fool costume and the librarian strips him of his shirt. As a woman in the crowd plays an instrument, Willow and the librarian clean Howie's face, using the locks of their hair to do so, pour water across his hands, place drops of yellow paint across his chest and on his forehead, and put a long fleece over him. Then, with his exclamations of Christian faith and insistence that his sacrifice won't work falling on deaf ears, he's picked up and placed over Oak's

shoulder, as he yells for them to think what they're doing, his voice echoing across the cliffs. In the next scene, he's led up a hillside by a rope tied around his hands, when he sees the Wicker Man for the first time and yells, "Oh, God! Oh, Jesus Christ!", in horror. His horror is amplified when he sees people with torches standing around its base, as he realizes what's about to happen to him. Despite his struggling and begging, he's dragged up to the statue, and just a few feet from the base, Oak

picks him up, puts him over his shoulders, and carries him up the ladder to the small compartment in the center of the Wicker Man, as the islanders form a semi-circle out in front of it. Oak places Howie inside the Wicker Man and locks him inside, along with the various livestock that are also trapped in the statue. Now totally doomed, he looks out as Summerisle and the islanders begin praying to the sun god and the goddess of the fields, asking them to accept the sacrifice. Undaunted, Howie yells back out at them: "Hear ye

the words of the Lord! Awake, ye heathens, and ho! It is the Lord who has laid waste your orchards!" Even as they prepare to burn him alive, he continues on, exclaiming, "Because the truth is withered away from the sons of men! Desire shall fail, and ye shall all die... accursed!"

With Howie having said his peace, and the sun setting, Summerisle motions for the base of the Wicker Man to be set aflame. As the fire quickly spreads upwards, the islanders start singing Sumer Is Icumen In, while Howie, watching helplessly from inside, begins singing, "The Lord's my shepherd! I'll not want! He makes me down to lie! In pastures..." However, he stops just as suddenly as he began, and as the flames begin reaching him, engulfing the animals around him (Britt Ekland has

claimed animals actually were killed, something Robin Hardy always denied), he says one final, tearful prayer: "Oh, God. I humbly entreat you for the soul of this, thy servant, Neil Howie... who will... today depart from this world. Do not deliver me into the enemy's hands... or... put me out of mind forever. Let me not undergo the real pains of hell, dear God, because I die unshriven. And establish me in that bliss, which knows no ending. Through Christ, our Lord..." He then gets up and repeatedly screams, "Damn you!", at the top of his lungs, as the fire reaches him and he's burned alive. After several more seconds of burning, the Wicker Man collapses and the movie ends on a shot of the setting sun.

The Wicker Man was the only major film work for American musician Paul Giovanni, who composed and arranged the music and songs, much of which was performed by a group called Magnet that was arranged specifically for the film. While most of it is actually played and/or sung within the film itself, there are songs and pieces of music which feature solely on the soundtrack. In the film's opening, as Howie flies across the Scottish isles in his seaplane, we hear an electronic arrangement of the ages-old, melancholic ballad, The Highland Widow's Lament, which is sung by none other than Lesley Mackie, who appears in the film as the schoolgirl Daisy (amazingly, even though she convincingly plays a pre-teen girl here, she was actually in her 20's at the time). It transitions to another, more upbeat-sounding ballad, Corn Rigs, performed by Giovanni himself and based on another Robert Burns work, Rigs O' Barley. Both of these songs open the movie with an appropriate old-timey feel and also prepare you for the amount of songs and music that proliferate it, with Corn Rigs popping up several more times early on. As far as actual score is concerned, it's very sporadic. The first real example comes when Howie sees the couples having sex out in the open on his first night there, which is played to a very gentle, lovely piece that you later realize is an instrumental version of the song, Gently Johnny. Howie's walk through the old, rundown graveyard is scored to another gentle bit of music, this one a quiet trumpet solo played against a low, constant plunking sort of beat. The moment where Howie realizes something's wrong with his seaplane is played to a bizarre bit that's mainly a gentle guitar but with strange, echoing string plucks to accentuate the bizarre image of the masked islanders watching him as he tries to start his plane up. The scene after that, where he follows Oak in his hobby horse costume, is scored to a playful and even mischievous-sounding string piece, alluding to the notion that Oak is leading Howie. One of the most memorable parts of the score is when Howie searches the village for Rowan, which is played to a constant fiddle and plucking string composition that grows slightly more menacing and electronic-sounding as it goes on; at one point in the midst of it all, you hear a girl recite a line from Baa, Baa, Black Sheep! Even crazier than that is the music that plays when Howie tries to flee the islanders with Rowan, which is an electric guitar bit that feels out of place with the rest of the score. Finally, a simple, solemn trumpet piece plays over the ending credits against the sunset.

Because of how unusual a film The Wicker Man was, and still is, to begin with, both its British and American distributors didn't know quite what to do with it, leading to it being severely cut from its original version when it was released in both territories in December of 1973 and spring and summer of 1974, respectively. By the time filming was completed, British Lion, the troubled and financially insecure studio behind it, was being managed by Michael Deeley. Though Deeley has often been described as having absolutely hated the movie, specifically by Christopher Lee (whom Deeley has described as a "whiner" and having had "paranoia), it was latter corroborated by both Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer that he thought it was fascinating but almost impossible to market, especially given the downbeat ending. He had Hardy cut it down to around 87 minutes from an original running time of over 100 minutes, while in America, Roger Corman was sent a 99-minute version to advise on what cuts needed to be made in order to market it in the U.S. Eventually, Warner Bros. released the theatrical version, which runs under 90 minutes, eliminates the opening with Sergeant Howie on the mainland and the Gently Johnny scene, and moves Willow's song to Howie's first night on Summerisle. A few years later, Hardy, Shaffer, and Lee attempted to restore the film to its original version, but found that the negatives of the deleted footage were lost in England. However, Corman still had a copy of the 99-minute version he was given and, from this, Hardy created a version that ran about 96 minutes. The 99-minute version was released on American VHS in the 80's and 90's and, in 2001, Groupe Canal+ and Anchor Bay released on DVD a hybrid 99-minute version that's about as close to the original, full version as possible without finding that missing material. And then, in 2013, the version known as the "Final Cut," which is akin to the initial restoration in its length of 95 minutes, and is the version I based this review on, was released.

As I said, even though the theatrical version was considered rather truncated in its deletions and rearrangements, I don't think anything vital was lost and I decided from that cut alone that I liked the film. However, I do believe the longer, 95-minute versions flow better. As for the 99-minute version, the main difference is that there's much more business on the mainland, with several scenes of Sergeant Howie returning from another case via his seaplane and, following him at church with his fiance, his receiving the letter from Summerisle

about Rowan Morrison's disappearance. After that, the movie plays out like the 95-minute version and, aside from establishing that Howie's devout faith has prompted his peers at the mainland police station and community to ridicule him, this is all feels superfluous and like fat that would have been naturally trimmed during the editing process anyway.

Even for a genre as well-worn and trodden as horror, The Wicker Man stands out as something rather unique. It's not very often that you find a horror film that's also a mystery, suspense-thriller, musical, religious drama that focuses on the rites of Paganism. It also doesn't hurt that, regardless of what cut you see, the movie is a well-made gem, with focused and precise direction, a screenplay intent on presenting the subject of Paganism accurately and objectively, great acting all around, a very memorable setting, an atmosphere that's quite unlike that of any other movie and is enhanced by the unorthodox soundtrack and music, an engrossing story, and an ending that's become iconic, mostly due to the appearance of the Wicker Man itself. If the badness and laughable nature of the 2006 Nicholas Cage film scared you away from ever deciding to check out the original, trust me when I say that this is infinitely more dignified, intelligent, and classy.