"Gimme That Ol' Time Religion.."

Author's Rating:

Pros: "But they're naked!" "Naturally! It's much too dangerous to jump through a fire with your clothes ON!"

Cons: Folks might think contemporary Pagans really DO this.

Author's Review
Award Winner 1974 Best Horror Film - Academy of SciFi,Fantasy and Horror

Researchable - and therefore, provable - facts always add to the tantalizing mystique of "what if" when a movie claims to be based on reality. So it is with The Wicker Man. The producers begin with a thank-you to the real Lord Summerisle and the folk of his island off the west coast of Scotland for "this privileged insight into their religious practices and their generous cooperation in the making of this film." I researched the folk songs at my library and found them in an old cloth-bound volume on Irish, Welsh and Cornish folk songs - same lusty lyrics, strong references to all manner of fertility. And if you open any encyclopedia worth its pages, you will find at the entry for Wicker Man a brief history and, often, a line drawing of a tar-and-sapling structure you wouldn't care to see on fire --- especially if you were caged inside.

This movie is full of eerie, evocative glimpses into a culture so dependently interwoven with green, growing things that everyone on the island is named for some flower, herb or tree. Wheat- and corn-dollies, old fertility symbols, hang everywhere. If you peer attentively over the shoulders of the schoolmistress and the police officer harassing her, you'll notice the semesters are named after factual Pagan seasonal celebrations instead of numbered. Coming-of-age sexually is recognized and communally celebrated. And the "chemist" is a hoot - you would rather suffer what ails you than have -him- stir up your prescription! Read some of the labels on his jars & bottles.....shudder!

The viewer is treated to a beautiful, mysterious landscape, one whose remoteness suggests an explanation of what kept this place apart from the 20th century.

I give Wicker Man five stars for continuity and integrity of research...and for Christopher Lee's portrayal of Lord Summerisle. Not many men can don a dress and woman's wig and still be threateningly masculine. This movie also has the finest Maypole I've ever seen, and I've danced a few in my day. Lusty and disturbing, this is NOT a movie for children, even though it has children in it.

Christians will be offended. Pagans will be amused. But no one will be unaffected by this dramatic window opened on a fertility cult where ancient gods rule, and where their anger must be appeased.