The Wicker Man

I believe in the life eternal, as promised to us by our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Mainland Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) flies off to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a 12 year old girl. What he finds is a culture steeped in Paganism, presided over by Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee). Meeting static and indifference wherever he goes - and being driven to anger by the assault on his Christian beliefs - Howie is very much a man alone and most likely in grave danger?

Directed by Robin Hardy and adapted to screen by Anthony Shaffer from David P...

Well the cinema was packed as we all sat though what seemed like an interminable preamble of interviews with those connected with the film - including Britt Ekland - before it all started. Was it worth it? Well, I didn't really think so. Policeman "Howie" (Edward Woodward) arrives on a remote Scottish island after reports that a girl has gone missing. He is perplexed by the seemingly indifferent attitude of the locals who claim that she never existed or her mother who claims that she is six feet under in the graveyard. He becomes even more bemused by the general attitude of the villagers - led...

Here Edward Woodward stars as Sgt. Howie, a Christian Scottish policeman sent to the remote island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl.

The horror of the Wicker Man is not the obvious kind that hits you in the face with a hammer, but quietly creeps up on you. The way the pagan villagers act indifferently or defensively to the supposed disappearance or murder of a child is disturbing, especially as everyone seems to be hiding something, including the girl's classmates.

One criticism of the various heavily cut versions of the film is that not quite enough time i...

There is something wonderfully perverse about *The Wicker Man* spending so much of its time refusing to look frightening.

Summerisle is bright, musical, fertile and apparently having an excellent time. People sing in the pub, copulate enthusiastically on the grass and decorate the place with enough fertility symbolism to make Sergeant Howie’s blood pressure a genuine secondary plot. Yet almost everybody he meets already knows exactly what is going to happen to him. That is where the horror really sits.

Howie arrives believing he is investigating the disappearance of Rowan Morrison, but...