The Wicker Man

Plot synopsis:
Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) journeys to the remote Hebridean island Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison (Gerry Cowper), about whom he has received an anonymous letter. Howie, a devout Christian, is disturbed to find the islanders paying homage to the pagan Celtic gods of their ancestors. They copulate openly in the fields, include children as part of the May Day celebrations, teach children of the phallic association of the maypole, and place toads in their mouths to cure sore throats. The Islanders, including Rowan's mother (Irene Sunters), appear to be attempting to thwart his investigation by claiming that Rowan never existed.
While staying at the Green Man Inn, Howie notices a series of photographs celebrating the annual harvest, each featuring a young girl as the May Queen. The photograph of the most recent celebration is suspiciously missing; the landlord (Lindsay Kemp) tells him it was broken. The landlord's beautiful daughter, Willow (Britt Ekland), attempts to seduce Howie, but he refuses her advances.
After seeing Rowan's burial plot, Howie meets the island's leader, Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), grandson of a Victorian agronomist, to obtain permission for an exhumation. Lord Summerisle explains that his grandfather developed strains of fruit trees that would prosper in Scotland's climate, and encouraged the belief that old gods would use the new strains to bring prosperity to the island. Over the next several generations, the island's inhabitants fully embraced the pagan religion.
Howie finds the missing harvest photograph, showing Rowan standing amidst empty boxes. His research reveals that when there is a poor harvest, the islanders make a human sacrifice to ensure that the next will be bountiful. He comes to the conclusion that Rowan is alive and has been chosen for sacrifice. During the May Day celebration, Howie knocks out and ties up the innkeeper so he can steal his costume and mask (that of Punch, the fool) and infiltrate the parade. When it seems the villagers are about to sacrifice Rowan, he cuts her free and flees with her into a cave. On exiting it, they are intercepted by the islanders, to whom Rowan happily returns.
Lord Summerisle tells Howie that Rowan is not the intended sacrifice — Howie himself is. He fits their gods' four requirements: he came of his own free will, with "the power of a king" (by representing the Law), is a virgin, and is a fool. Defiant, Howie loudly warns Lord Summerisle and the islanders that the fruit-tree strains are failing permanently and that the villagers will turn on him (Lord Summerisle) and sacrifice him next summer when the next harvest fails as well; Summerisle angrily insists that the sacrifice of the "willing, king-like, virgin fool" will be accepted and that the next harvest will not fail. The villagers force Howie inside a giant wicker man statue, set it ablaze and surround it, singing the Middle English folk song "Sumer Is Icumen In." Inside the wicker man, a terrified Howie recites Psalm 23, and prays to Christ. He curses the islanders as he burns to death. The wicker man collapses in flames, revealing the setting sun.

Tags: revenge, cult, murder, flashback

Review:
I haven't seen the original, but just wanted to drop a quick note to anyone who happens to scroll down this far: Wicker Man is the worst movie I've seen this year.
If you're reading this, there's probably a good chance you may have seen a YouTube video that has become very popular: a collection of "highlights" from the movie, including Cage running around in a bear suit, and of course, the infamous "AAGHH!!
I have no doubt that I was seeing a suffering man up there but it was Nicholas Cage fully aware of the fact that he was in the worst movie of his entire career..
The original, as campy as it looks compared to today's standards, has a lot to be proud of in the 1982 remake with Kurt Russell (my all time favorite horror movie).
"The Stepford Wives" anyone?) Classic symptoms from men who are afraid of what may happen if women got their sh*t together and were truly equal citizens.The problem with the man-hating female society is that it makes uninteresting movie viewing and creates unintentional humor when Cage starts knocking women out.
Anyone not aware of the 1973 original British Lion movie ' The Wicker Man' would,no doubt, have left the cinema with the impression 'Poor' and 'Peurile'.As a devotee of the original I left with the impression Purely Poor.From the grim reality of haggle toothed inbreds drawing the force of law and order into a web of paganistic barbaric ritual on a remote Scottish island, named Summerisle(the original) to a near Amazon-ic colony off the Maine coast of the US, named Summersisle, the remake hardly hits the spot.This is, quite sadly, a case of what 'could' have been a classic remake of a classic being tampered with to cater for a simple minded public.
Save your time and money!!!Nicgolas Cage was biking down hills, swimming in murky water and rolling down hills while being attacked by bees but yet his suit was still perfectly pressed and shirt crisp white until the very last scene.Although a good cast with Ellen Bernstein and Cage the acting was just as unbelievable as the movie itself.
But unlike the original, which the weirdness in that adds to the film's strange qualities about it, this one does weirdness in such a way that makes it enjoyable to watch, just not in the way the director intended.So the plot, a cop troubled with the death of a mother and child via truck that he was partly responsible for, he is sent a letter by an ex-girlfriend that reports her missing child on the island she lives (kind of outside his jurisdiction, really) that may or may not be his.
It was a pointless remake of a classic British film starring Nicholas Cage and re set in the States.The first question I find myself asking is why did I watch this?
On a Sunday night.The Original film is slowburn with a quirky offbeat kinda feel.With a remake, all of the unknown plot points and twists from the first film would be apparent to the audience, so surely the impact would need to be replaced and the tension built through another means?Wells sadly in this film having Nic Cage run around punching women in the face whilst dressed as a bear is about as tense as it gets.Yes, that's right - he punches women whilst dressed as a bear.Dear me.Avoid..
In the case of the 2006 remake of the 1972 cult classic The Wicker Man however, it made me think that this new Wickerman is about as scary as the South Park character, Scuzzlebut, the friendly forest monster with TV's Patrick Duffy for a leg and a celery stalk for an arm who's favorite hobby is weaving wicker baskets.3 years ago a friend of mine in Hollywood told me that he heard that Nicolas Cage was going to do a remake of the film.
Like many of the countless Hollywood remakes we have been inundated with lately this feels like we are watching 4th graders on a playground "playing Wickerman".The original film takes place on a remote Scottish Isle where a Scottish police officer is lured there to find a missing young girl named Rowan Morrison.
Nicolas Cage's character had me in stitches in so many places, because his acting in this movie is SO bad its hilarious!
In the recent vogue of remaking movies at a fair clip, writer-director Neil Labute has decided to turn his eye to the early 1970s minor cult classic The Wicker Man. The original has developed a following over the years and is generally well regarded.
While not a terrible film, The Wicker Man is nevertheless not great by any imagination, occasionally sliding into the realm of unintentional self-parody.The film opens on police officer Edward Malus (Nicholas Cage), a motorcycle cop who is witness to a horrific traffic accident involving a young girl and her mother.
After some investigation, Malus becomes more and more convinced that not only is Rowan still on the island, but she may be the eventual subject of a ritualistic sacrifice to the naturalistic gods the people worship.The Wicker Man falls apart in a number of different ways, but no more detrimental than in the performance of Nicholas Cage.
A few of its "revelations" are so difficult to swallow that it is hard to even believe the whole of the structure of the film.Even so, The Wicker Man has a sometimes atmospheric setting , there are some occasional bits of creepiness and the ending will most likely leave you a bit taken aback.
Being a life time horror movie fan, and having (obviously) seen the original, I was interested to see what this new school would bring to the story.
I think that the important thing to remember here is that it's a movie- a brief distraction from real life whose purpose is to entertain- NOT a commentary on paganism.This "remake" actually manages to stand on it's own as a new entry into the horror archives.
The rest of the cast didn't do any better, and the direction was formulaic; a *big* mistake in a remake of one of the most original and seminal films of the seventies.Anthony Shaffer and Robin Hardy can rest easy, this turkey won't be remembered for more than five minutes, and only that long because of how truly awful it is..
Neil La Bute should hang his head in shame for this remake of the 1973 cult film The Wicker Man. While I've not seen all of the original Anthony Shaffer scripted film starring Christopher Lee (I can't remember it very well, but certain images and the overall manic Scottish-folk aspect stick out in my mind), I could imagine it at least being a somewhat original story.
This new version, however, is cluttered with boring procedural business that is made all the more yawn-like (or befuddling, take your pick) by how Nicolas Cage's character- a cop who has no jurisdiction in this enclave of SummerIsle he's at- bungles from one place to the next looking for a little girl.And what does Neil LaBute do to make it more accessible to audience's today, those who might have found the original film too Scottish or weird or done practically as a witch-gazing musical?
cruel, kind of, which apparently has been running around in LaBute's catalog of work (while not as strong in Nurse Betty, In the Company of Men has been charged with it).One might consider it too ridiculous to seriously critique as nothing more than a below-average Hollywood-ized remake of another movie that fans hold so dear the only way to pay it tribute is to spend millions on a piece of quality, mediocre BS.
So much of this is just procedural crap, stuff of asking boring questions and boring (or just befuddling) scenes of inquiry or 'wacky' peril involving the bees, which by the (alternate) ending becomes the whole reason to see the movie.Certainly it's not for Cage, who doesn't even have the good graces to make it an awesomely-bad ride like he did with Ghost Rider.
Even if you're not familiar with the original Wicker Man, this is poor stuff.I don't think Nicholas Cage is much of an actor at the best of times, but here he is really plumbing the depths.
The Wicker Man. There has been a lot of talk around this movie, most of all about its famous scenes with Nicolas Cage at his worst.
So he goes to Summersilse looking for his ex-girlfriend's daughter, but not everything is as it seems...The director for this film apparently wanted to give it a melancholy and deep touch, but he fails miserably and instead the movie just seems boring.
Nicolas Cage delivers a few hilariously bad lines to save the movie from being rated worse.
The acting in this film, staggers along without confidence or the vaguest amount of skill, it's a sad sight really.Anyway he plays a copper who pulls over a mother and young daughter to the side of the road, after he steps away from the car and looks back a huge truck comes and smashes into the front of it for no reason (I say no reason because, this truck must've been driving NEXT to the road AND going the wrong way) Cage immediately runs to the back of the car and begins smashing away at the rear window to save the completely unharmed and surprisingly apathetic looking young child.
Later on he's lying in bed and has a flash-back, but not of the little girl in the car who was killed, but of the same girl in the ferry being killed by his own daydream!The original Wicker Man is an incredible film (as are the two songs based on it) and remake really is an abomination.
I've always liked Nicolas Cage as an actor, but he has made some terrible movies this year; this being by far the worst one (yet...).I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone who wants to watch an intense story-gripping thriller.
I watched this movie because I like Nicolas Cage and well, I found it strange and completely pointless...
Nick Cage wearing a bear suit and decking an old lady has to be the funniest thing I've ever seen, not to mention the line 'Killing me won't bring back your God Damn honey!' I think the whole audience was holding it's side from lauging so hard.
The remake of The Wicker Man is as bad as the original is good.
As a remake it was all wrong, with the themes and style of the original film completely destroyed.However, more than that, just taken by itself as a modern horror/thriller movie it's awful.
It's bad enough wasting two hours of your life, but it's far worse when those two hours seem like ten.By the time I had started on my second bottle of red wine I began to laugh at some of the ridiculous scenes towards the end of the movie.
This movie is Neil LaBute's first thriller ever and maybe he should leave it this way because this film is at no time at all even the slightest bit thrilling.
The music also sometime seems incredibly inappropriate, even laughable.So if you can stand the bad parts of this movie, and enjoy it as it should be watched, you may find yourself a "Wicker Man" fan.
This film doesn't just do a bad job of retelling the original story it takes everything that was good about it and replaces it with a witless and disjointed story.Nicolas Cage is well cast as a man addicted to some kind of over the counter drugs.
Watching Nicolas Cage mumble his way through the script is quite painful at times, like seeing an elderly dog trying to chase a postman on arthritic legs and not understanding why he can't quite do it anymore.The original story was quite chilling but here it's all kind of a joke.
The worst film I have ever seen, actually worse than Spawn.I won't bother going into the story line, but needless to say, you will wish that you never wasted your time or money on this title.Seriously, if you ever want to take heed of a stranger's views, start now.
Don't put yourself or your friends through the torture of what will put you in a bad mood for days.My reasons for this are the following; the storyline is poor, acting was mediocre, had potential but was wasted with the poorest of endings.And by poor I mean really poor, this is what put the nail in the coffin.I haven't actually seen the original, but from the other reviews I think that may be worth watching, so looking forward to getting that.
Also there is a constant flashback throughout the movie of the car accident in the first sense of the film but at the end of the flick I couldn't quite see the connection to the other events that go on.I also find it totally unbelievable that Cage starts the investigation on the island all by himself.
I kept waiting for this movie to save itself somehow, but it all just became too predictable, and there wasn't enough done to paint the 'baddies' of the film in a truly menacing or deeply sinister light, surprising indeed given what the actual plot turns out to be -- I never really felt intimidated by them; I just thought they were odd.It wasn't the fault of the actors or actresses who all gave wonderful performances (although Nicolas Cage is somewhat controversial in this regard according to the forums for this film, I have always enjoyed watching him, though this one wasn't one of his best films).
Instead, I lay blame to the screenwriter and the editor - sometimes no matter how much talent you have working on a project, if an editor pieces a film together poorly, there's nothing that can save it, and that's what seems to have happened in this case, which also explains why viewers feel much is missing from the film.It's worth a look on DVD, perhaps, at least because the plot is somewhat interesting for a good part of the movie.
It is only a reason for Hollywood to show that they want to ruin a perfectly good film because they had no part in it being made.The second failing was if they were not going to change the plot, to give it a slightly different twist and to make it 'new', what point is there on watching it.
I absolutely hated the original version of THE WICKER MAN down to the absolute ridiculous plot holes but to give Neil LaBute credit he does at least try to bring credibility to this remake by setting up the story via a policeman receiving a letter from a woman he knew at the community he grew up in many years ago .
Compare this to the completely idiotic way the story is set up in the original and some respect to also trying to rid the original screenplay of its other plot holes like confining the number of crop failures to a mere one in this version I'm afraid that there will be no more praise for LaBute in this short review because managing to salvage something out of a remake of a very poor film is like trying to find something bad to say about Adolph Hitler because this is still a very tedious , poor thriller .
It is made even more so by the fact that it has no reason to be, in that it cannot blame a lack of a budget on such things as bad costumes or acting."The Wicker Man" very well might be the winner of the "Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen" contest.
i generally do not do these comment things on sites but i feel that i must speak up on behalf of the original Wicker Man. don't be put off by this remake, it may not be as good but the original is really very good and definitely worth the attention of both movie buffs and fans of cult films.
Besides the acting they threw in some stupid plot lines that I don't recall being in the original.Then I get to my biggest problem, why in gods name is Nick Cage still being hired to star in movies.
The Wicker Man remake is not a good film, but I actually had fun watching it.
First of all "The Wicker Man" belongs to my list of all-time favourite horror films.When I heard that the remake is coming I was very angry and disappointed,however I decided to give it a chance.Thankfully I saw this piece of garbage for free and I advise you to do the same.In Neil LaBute's awful remake of the 1973 horror classic,Nicolas Cage stars as a sheriff investigating a young girl's disappearance from an isolated,mysterious island off the coast of Maine.The film lacks scares and is ridiculously corny.It's also pretty misogynistic,mainly because in the film's third act Nicolas Cage goes berserk and starts beating the crap out of every woman that gets in his way.At least some scenes are downright hilarious for example Cage going undercover in a full-body bear costume or pointing a gun at a non-threatening woman,demanding she step away from his bicycle.Overall,watch the original first and laugh as hard as you can at the silliness of this turd.2 out of 10..
I mean, who would be so stupid as to try and remake a brilliant classic horror like The Wicker Man?
A lot of people were disappointed with this movie who hadn't actually seen the original film.
But the #1 thing that made the original Wicker Man ending scary was absolutely ignored in this movie.