The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man (1973) follows a policeman travelling to an island off the Scottish coast to investigate a missing girl. Nobody on the island admits to knowing her. He is a devout Christian and the islanders are pagan, and which of them is behaving irrationally keeps changing throughout. The film is set in spring and summer, but shooting began in October 1972. The trees were bare, and in many scenes leaves had to be glued onto the branches. Christopher Lee was extremely keen to get it made, and he and others worked without pay through a financial crisis at British Lion. The studio proposed a happier ending in which rain puts out the burning wicker man and the hero survives. That was refused. Director Robin Hardy did, however, cut roughly twenty minutes of mainland material, which disappointed Lee. The original negative was lost during distribution. Alex Cox claimed in 1988 that it ended up inside the pylons supporting the M4 motorway. A print sent to Roger Corman in Hollywood survived and became the basis for later restorations. The first reviews were mixed. In 1977 Cinefantastique called it the Citizen Kane of horror films, and that phrase made its reputation. It runs 93 minutes. Good for: folk horror, suspense that ignores genre habits, and British cinema of the seventies. Less good for: there is almost no blood and no shocks; anyone expecting conventional horror will find nothing. The songs and the nudity break the pace. Several versions of different lengths circulate, and which one you see changes the film.