The Wicker Man is perhaps one of the best atmospheric horror films ever made. It is never scary, but it sure is frightening and filled with dread.

Director Hardy seems intent to achieve one thing and that is to immerse his audience in an unsettling and bizarre atmosphere and from that atmosphere create all the dramatic tension this story needs. He achieves this by strongly juxtaposing protagonist and antagonist and by using music a lot, always brilliantly.

It is paced slowly and deliberately, accompanying the methodical research of Woodward's protagonist beautifully. It takes a long time to get where it needs to go, which is excellent as it is consistently intriguing. When it finally reaches its conclusion, I was (again,…

Ghoul Britannia - The British Horror Month

In his fantastic mini-series of documentaries, A History Of Horror, back in 2010 Mark Gatiss coined the term 'folk horror' to describe films like The Wicker Man - he also cited Blood On Satan's Claw and The Witchfinder General as two other examples.

As much as I think it's the perfect term for a film like this (I think also something like The Last Great Wilderness could also qualify), The Wicker Man was something different to me. To me it was more about the absurdities of faith both past and present.

Of course, being a major league latecomer to this film, I'm quite sure that multiple essays, articles and reviews have been written…

Robin Hardy's "The Wicker Man" is a slow but rewarding horror film of low-boiling tension and subtly creeping strangeness. It is a horror film about the sinking dread that comes from being in a place that runs counter to a person's own sensibilities and abuses that person's values. The film revels in an airy, decidedly non-horrific atmosphere that belies a gentle, peaceful facade that might be hiding something deadly.

Beginning like any number of police procedurals, "The Wicker Man" follows Edward Woodward's law enforcement officer as he travels to a remote Scottish isle to investigate the disappearance of a child. On the island, he comes in contact with a culture whose values are more relaxed than his own. A staunch,…

Symbolic figure of the law finds himself trapped in pre-symbolic space forced to face his own unconscious fantasy in its inverted, disavowed dimension.

The Wicker man is a crazy movie. It's the bizarrely hypersexualized society of Zardoz and the disturbing cult sensibilities of Rosemary's Baby infused with some of the philosophy of The Fountain and all mixed together with an essentially 70's hippy vibe. I can easily understand how the Nic Cage adaptation got it wrong since there's a delicate balance between the unsettling oddities of this 1973 original and the laughable oddities of the 2006 remake. The tone is a difficult thing to carry when you have things like graves marked "protected by the ejaculation of serpents" and Christopher…

Despite never being released in its original state (the Final Cut release from last year was still missing some scenes) the potency of Robin Hardy’s classic has not affected over the forty years since its release. Back in 1973 it was paired on a double bill with Don't Look Now, which would have been enough to send even the most sane person teetering on the edge of their own reality.

Recreating the horrors of times past from within the British isles strikes an unnerving chord seen through the eyes of the stifled Edward Woodward. To think that many of these practises or ideologies were once seen as common place is what brings the surreal nature of the scenes to life…

The first in tonight's double feature theater experience of 1973 horror classics. I had seen this film once before, but not for a long time, and I had forgotten what an utterly bizarre and fantastical trip it is. I can safely say that I enjoyed the hell out of it, from it's religious commentary to it's strange sense of humor to it's wonderfully horrific ending. This is an atmospheric cult classic that is in my mind without a doubt worthy of its status; I only wish that it would have been as deeply admired during the time of its release as is it today, seeing as the director had to work with a very small budget and the film didn't…

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The Wicker Man does something that a great movie should do, it makes you think.
Its a deep examination of religion, it to me states all religion is merely ritual and noting more. People going through the motions of ceremony, mindlessly with out thought. The policeman's ceremony in a christian church is no different than the pagan rituals of the people of Summerset isle. Are the people of the island evil? They do burn a man alive, but in their minds its the right thing to do, it must be done to bring back their harvest, a crazy concept yes but no less crazy than Howie praying to an imaginary god who is letting him meet a fiery demise.…

When a detective ventures to the remote island of Summerisle to investigate a girl's disappearance, he is alarmed to find that the villagers are overtly paying tribute to a pagan god. The island's leader, played by the legendary Christopher Lee, presides over the celebration activities, which culminate in a grisly and unexpected way.

The Wicker Man is the sort of movie that they just don't make anymore. It's a insane cacophony of musical interludes, double-entendres, murder mysteries, and terror that somehow seems to function in a seamless manner to a gut-punch conclusion. This is a shining example of why I still believe that the 1970s was the most courageous era for cinema. New viewers will be taken for quite a…