DVD Review: The Wicker Man (1973 Version)



According to the trivia page for the original 1973 production of The Wicker Man at the IMDb, lead actor Edward Woodward was accidentally urinated on by a goat during the filming of the movie's final scene. Apparently, the footage of the goat peeing on the star was cut from the final print of the film. I don't have the slightest idea why. A scene featuring a goat peeing on the main character would have made every bit as much sense as every other scene that was actually left in this garish mess of a film.

I'll warn you now that this review WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS… although I also think it's fair to say that the movie's posters, cover-art and promotional material are all full of spoilers, too. In fact, the very NAME OF THE MOVIE gives away the ending. It's as though The Sixth Sense had been titled Bruce Willis Is A Ghost. There isn't much more to this movie than what appears on the surface, and if you have any interest in watching it, I honestly don't believe that knowing the story will effect your appreciation of the film one way or the other.

A new version of The Wicker Man arrives in theaters this week. I have been curious about the film because it's director, Neil LaBute, has made a few good films. First, though, I wanted to see the original. I've heard it said that the original version of The Wicker Man is one of the scariest horror movies ever made… and as a film buff and a fan of good, scary movies, I've wanted to see it for ages.

Trouble is, it hasn't been available to rent anywhere in these parts. So when Wendy found it available to check out at the library at college, we were both thrilled. Finally, we'd get to see this mysterious so-called "masterpiece" of horror. We couldn’t wait.

Having now seen it, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to say about it. I'll say this much confidently, though. This is not a horror movie. It isn't scary, it doesn't seem to want to be scary, and I can't imagine why anyone would consider it scary. No, horror is not the genre wherein to classify this movie. I suppose it deserves the invention of it's own genre: musical soft-core pagan murder mystery. If I had to describe this film, that's exactly what I'd call it. The Wicker Man is a musical soft-core pagan murder mystery.


Here's a summary of the plot: A detective from the Scottish mainland (played by Edward Woodward who members of my generation might remember as The Equalizer) travels by private plane to a small isle off the coast of Scotland to investigate the case of a missing young girl. Soon after he arrives on the island, the locals begin to behave strangely. First, they tell him that he isn't wanted there. He insists that he has the legal right and jurisdiction as a police officer to be there. The detective begins questioning the locals about the missing girl and ends up going to the local inn to get a room. While he's checking in, the local men gather around and sing a raunchy (I suppose) song about the inn-keeper's daughter, who is played by model Brit Ekland. After he checks into his room, the inn keeper's daughter goes into the bedroom next door and takes off all of her clothing and starts singing an odd folk song while pounding on the walls and then goes to sleep. Really. It's one of the most gratuitous nude scenes I've ever seen in a movie… and although I won't pretend that it offended me, I did find it very odd. More of a Cinemax After Dark kind of thing then something you'd expect to see in a horror movie.

It was at this point that I began to doubt that The Wicker Man was really a horror movie after all.

The next morning, the detective goes around the town asking questions about the missing girl. During his travels he sees a May-Pole dance (with accompanying song) an odd nude fertility dance/ritual (with, of course, it's own song) and he eventually finds a grave marked with the name of the missing girl in the local cemetery. By this time the detective is convinced that the island folk are witches of some sort, and a trip to the local library turns up a book about human sacrifices and blood rituals. Soon after, he meets the island's patriarch, Lord Summerisle, played by the legendary Christopher Lee.

The detective revels himself in his conversations to be a devoutly Christian man, and he's quite taken aback by the pagan practices of seemingly everyone on the island. Lord Summerisle tells the detective that the residents of the island have been pagan for at least a couple of generations, and that their pagan faith is peaceful and honorable and that they'd not have murdered the little girl or anyone else. All the same, the detective insists that he be allowed to exhume the girl's body. Once he and the cemetery grounds keeper dig up the coffin, they find a dead rabbit inside. The detective takes the dead rabbit to Lord Summerisle's home and throws it at his feet, pronouncing that he's now sure that the young girl is still alive and that the locals plan to sacrifice her in a spring ritual the next day. He says that he plans to leave in the morning and come back with a full garrison of police officers, but it turns out the next morning that his plane has been sabotaged.

At this point the locals begin emerging from their homes in odd costumes; dressed as animals and monsters, etc. Christopher Lee then shows up in drag, looking like Cher on a bad water-weight-gain day. The detective mugs the inn-keeper and takes his costume and joins the festival anonymously, where he finds the young girl being brought out of a cave. Presuming that the girl is about to be sacrificed, the detective reveals his identity and runs to the girl, grabs her hand and has her lead him on a right merry chase around the island. Eventually, she leads him back to the gathered townsfolk, who inform him that the real reason he's on the island is because they plan to sacrifice him to their pagan gods. They inform him that they'd faked the girl's kidnapping to lure him to the island, and that they'd wanted him because they'd figured out that sacrificing a deeply religious virginal authority figure would guarantee them a bumper crop. They then take him up the hill to a giant… you guessed it, wicker man, which is made up of many chambers filled with various animals. He's then forced into the main chamber in the torso, where he's peed on by a goat (off camera) and burned alive. The entire time he's screaming various and assorted things at the townsfolk, sometimes cursing them and other times praying to God and other times making threats and sometimes just screaming. As he burns up the townsfolk sing yet one more weird song, swaying their arms in the breeze the whole time like pre-school kids doing a couple of verses of "Bingo Was His Name-O." Then the end credits roll. You can see the film's perplexing final ten minutes here.

I can't think of a single movie that compares to The Wicker Man. Wendy and I turned to each other with expressions of "What the hell?" more times during this film than any other film we've ever watched together.

As far as plot intricacies go, there were about a million holes. How had the islanders known that they'd end up luring a deeply religious virgin to the island to investigate the missing girl? What if the cop that had come had been a hard drinking, hell-raising Scottish equivalent of Popeye Doyle? How would they have dealt with him on the island, roughing up Scottish pagans and asking them if they'd ever been caught picking their feet in Poughkeepsie? Do you think that kind of cop would have sat idly in his room while Brit Ekland sang naked, pounding on the walls in the next room? A cop like that would have gone next door, nailed the inn-keepers daughter, and then spent the rest of the visit drinking ale and punching pagans.

Come to think of it, that might have been a good movie. Watching Gene Hackman beat the tar out of the drag-queen Christopher Lee would have worked much better. I can just hear myself yelling "Yeah! Kick him again!"

And, by the way, why had they tried so hard to get him to leave the island when he first got there if they'd wanted to lure him there to sacrifice him? What if he'd responded to their insistence that he didn't have the right to be on their private property by saying "Oh? Alright, then. Very well, goodbye!" What then?

The movie doesn't really work as an examination of culture clash, either, since it's impossible to take anything on the island seriously. These people weren't believable as pagans. Morons, yes. Oddballs, sure. Potheads, even… but the idea that there was a soul among them capable of actually planting or tending a field or caring for livestock was laughable. There's just no time to get that kind of work done when you spend every waking moment jumping around naked in the cemetery.

Still, I'm giving The Wicker Man a star and a half for pure originality. I've never seen anything like it… and I hope to never see anything like it again. I'll be skipping Neil LaBute's remake. My gut instinct tells me that if he changes the story very much he'll tick off the original's rag-tag band of hard-core fans. And, if he doesn't change the story radically, he'll tick off everyone else. I'm just not willing to invest an hour and a half finding out.

Trailer For The Film:

  ¶ 7:56 PM