A very conservative and deeply Christian police Sergeant receives a letter stating that a young girl has gone missing from a small, remote island off the coast of Scotland. He travels there by himself and discovers a strange pagan community where the children are taught about the phallic symbolization of the May Pole, where teenagers dance naked around a fire, and adults openly fornicate in a park in the evening.
The Sergeant, Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) is utterly shocked by all of this, but he’s a dutiful police officer and stays until he gets to the bottom of things. Not only are the villagers engaged in a litany of sins, but they are utterly unhelpful to his investigation. At first, they claim they have never seen the girl in their lives, but then it changes to how she was on the island but died tragically, and then…well it is best not to spoil things.
The Wicker Man has become a cult favorite and one of the premier films in the subgenre known as Folk Horror. It is also a truly strange little film. It is almost a musical as the villagers often break into goofy little folk songs and dance about (often naked). There is a very real sense of dread flooding the film. The camera is often tilted at odd angles making everything just slightly off. The villagers are ever so strange and are led by Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee is one of his most interesting performances) who seems to take glee in making the Police Sergeant feel out of sorts.
There is a scene in which a woman puts a frog inside a child’s mouth to help her with a sore throat. A shop owner has a bottle full of foreskins. Britt Ekland plays the pretty daughter of the pub proprietor and at one point she sings a silly song whilst dancing in her room stark naked as an attempt to seduce the Sergeant. She beats wildly on his wall while he, soaked in sweat attempts to resist.
It is all a bit off-putting at first, but if you can roll with what it’s doing it is a rollicking good time. Not at all scary in the traditional sense, but it creates a wonderful sort of mood.
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