Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward), a devout Christian, receives an anonymous letter telling him of a missing girl on Summerisle. Going to investigate, he finds the inhabitants, led by Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) himself, somewhat uncooperative. Worse, they are all pagans. Howie is led to believe that the missing girl is being held captive and is to be sacrificed to the islanders gods. What he does not realise, of course, is that the whole thing is a set up and that he is the intended victim…
I assume that the above synopsis won't spoil The Wicker Man for anyone. Though initially buried by its distributors, it's subsequently gone on to become one of those cult favourites.
And that, I think, is part of the problem.
While I like the film, I do have issues with its being the only British horror film acknowledged in in that lazy Cliff's Notes version of the cinema all too often purveyed, the five-minute bluffers guide variant that says "see this film and you've covered this director/genre/movement/whatever".
The problem is that The Wicker Man is such an atypical piece of Brit horror that using it as a representative example both misrepresents the movement as a whole and does an injustice to its more conventional product.
As is well known, Schaffer and Hardy developed The Wicker Man as a sort of anti-Hammer, taking the well-worn elements of that studio's early-mid period horror product (later Hammer horrors being more diverse) and consciously inverting them.
Plus, of course, they added musical numbers…
As a result, trying to understand British horror of the period c.1956-73 through The Wicker Man alone is perhaps akin to studying classical economics through reading Capital – it'll sort of work, but won't give you a familiarity with the originals.
Accordingly, I would recommend watching The Wicker Man in the light of Terence Fisher's The Devil Rides Out , taking that film as perhaps the best summation of the world-view of Hammer's most influential director. Where The Devil Rides Out delineates good and evil, savant and monster clearly and establishes the reality of supernatural forces, The Wicker Man prefers ambiguity and an agnostic bracketing. Where The Devil Rides out draws a committed performance from Christopher Lee in an against-type role as the hero, The Wicker Man draws an equally enthusiastic performance in a role that exploits Lee's genre baggage as the monster/villain of so many Brit horror productions.
I've never been that keen on The Wicker Man's direction, finding it to be flat and somewhat zoom-happy, with a definite preference for the careful precision of a Fisher. The more one learns of the production of the film, however, the more one is inclined to be more generous and think that just getting the film in the can was achievement enough.
Script-wise, Schaffer's writing is superior to every Hammer script. But, then, Schaffer wasn't having to deal with the hog-butchering line approach that the writing credits of many a Hammer film would imply. As their key screenwriter Jimmy Sangster's autobiography wryly put it, "Do you want it good or do you want it Tuesday?"
Some critics have suggested that Schaffer plays fast and loose with his mythology by putting English figures like Mr Punch in a Scottish context. I don't find it that way, feeling it to be believably syncretic and a credible piece of bricolage by successive Lord Summerisles.
In terms of performances, it's a tie. When Lee is committed to a role he's usually very good. If he isn't – as was the case with many of the later Hammer Draculas, for instance – he sleepwalks through. One can only wonder how Peter Cushing would have done in the Edward Woodward role originally earmarked for him.
To summarise, then, by all means go see The Wicker Man. It's a good film and deserves its cult reputation. But please also recognise that, if the makers of The Wicker Man proverbially saw further, it was only by standing on the shoulders of the giants at Hammer and elsewhere. Don't think that The Wicker Man is the alpha and omega of Brit horror and take in some of the films it was responding too as well. Doing so will enrich your cinematic horizons.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
Rating:
3.5 / 5
(2 votes)
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