While we’re on the subject of islands off the coast of England, let’s turn to The Wicker Man. I’ve been talking a lot for the last week about spoilers. In this case, few have seen the 1973 film, but everyone can say in unison, “Not the bees! Blaaarrrrrgh!”
The Nicholas Cage-starring remake of The Wicker Man in 2006 was almost doomed to be a bad movie because it couldn’t possibly capture the feel of the original.
British Police Sgt. Howie arrives at a remote Scottish Island by seaplane, and immediately begins barking orders. He is investigating the disappearance of a local girl, per a letter they have received. Howie is officious and rude, though no doubt some of that is due to the commanding nature of police training. I don’t believe he ever says “please” or “thank you.” He barges into classrooms and erases the text on the blackboard without asking. He chides teachers for what they teach and upbraids the locals for their odd ways. The film intentionally makes Howie a hard hero to love. How easy it would be to make him the hero, but Howie brims with anger from the moment he demands a boat to bring him to shore.
The Wicker Man’s lead antagonist is Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle. Lee is, as always, frightening and imposing, even when he’s playing a dirty hippy. Christopher Lee jumped at the chance to be in the movie, as the well-read actor immediately recognized the ancient religious subject matter from the title alone, and he appeared in the film for free. It is the work of which he was proudest.
Jacket with turtleneck is very 1973 
I am Syndrome!
The island is run by Lord Summerisle, a man whose ancestors rejected Christianity for purely opportunistic reasons: changing the locals to an Earth-based pagan religion with sacrifices to old gods made them focus on the farming of the apple crops that grandpa Summerisle was developing. It doesn’t hurt that this paganism is all about sexual promiscuity and fertility, with a lot of songs about making babies and naked dancing. Lord Summerisle taunts Howie that “God is dead” and that he has no business on the island.
Poor Sgt. Howie is a devout Christian, engaged to be married and saving it for his wedding night. Edward Woodward was 43 at the time of filming, but he’s playing a younger man. Not that young, though. An adult man waiting for his wedding day in 1973 is already something of an oddity, and he knows it, and exhibits both disgust and envy as he watches the orgiastic cavorting of the locals. Taking his dinner at the pub, the locals break out into a rousing song about what an easy little tart the landlord’s daughter is.
Tired after an unsuccessful day of questioning the locals, all of whom insist that the girl Rowan Morrison never existed, he retires to a room above the pub, where the innkeeper’s daughter (Britt Ekland) seductively sings to him to come pay her a visit. (Though topless for this scene, Ekland was pregnant and only shown chest-up. Unbeknownst to her, the filmmakers used a body double for fully naked shots after she’d left.) Howie is a tough nut and doesn’t crack, though the next morning he has lost some of his bluster and shows a rare moment of sensitivity.
At one point, Howie opens a desk to find a large beetle tied to a post. A girl helpfully explains that it will only go in one direction until it is tightly wound to the peg. Sgt. Howie is appalled at the cruelty of this. He misses that it is a symbol of what they’re doing to him.
The movie is about the determination of the law to find the missing girl despite a populace that thinks it’s hilarious to jerk him around with pranks and lies. Behind that, it is about the strong Christian man surrounded by cavorting heathens laughing at him. How this movie plays to you probably depends somewhat on your own opinions of Christianity and hedonism. I’m sure today’s much more secular audience interprets this differently than the 1973 audience, but this film was made when the “make love not war” hippie culture was in full bloom and bearing a lot of resemblance to the cult of Lord Summerisle.
Sgt. Howie begins uncovering enough clues and studying the local religion to reach a frightening conclusion: the people of Summerisle plan to sacrifice the girl for the betterment of their crops.
Oh, by the way: Uptight city cop goes to a reclusive village where all the locals are a little nuts and seem to not care about spilling blood for the benefit of the town. Did I just describe The Wicker Man or Hot Fuzz?
Sgt. Howie is clearly on the side of good, focused only on the well-being of a young girl seemingly about to be destroyed at the whims of these pagans because of a bunch of foolish ideas adopted by the Summerisle family only for convenience. Yet in presentation, Howie comes off as a big meanie and Lord Summerisle seems open-minded, having rejected the strictness of Christianity for a whole lot of fooling around with naked blonde girls. The surfaces and the ideals are at odds.
You’re probably wondering why I’m being so uncharacteristically forward about giving away a lot of plot. Partly, it’s because the plot is secondary to the characterization. I’ve re-watched this movie a number of times, and it’s not like I don’t know how it turns out.
But also, I have to make this intriguing to try to get you to watch this movie, because the title has been so tainted by the atrocious Nicholas Cage version. Videos of him being tortured with bad CGI bees (there are no bees in the original) or montages of all the times he fights women in that movie were viral 15 years ago. Because it was American, and set in modern times, the themes of Church and paganism and a pure man fighting sexual temptation were rejected by the filmmakers, so they made it something else. I’m not sure The Wicker Man can be anything else.
See the original. It’s not a perfect movie. I feel like it needs a final scene or two. But it’s far, far better than the Cage version.
