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The Wicker Man is a series of two horror films directed by British author and director Robin Hardy. The films are not directly linked to one another, but all deal with the theme of paganism in the modern world.
The 2006 American remake of The Wicker Man is not a part of the series, and Hardy had dissociated himself from it.
The Wicker Man was released in 1973. The film was directed by Robin Hardy and written by Anthony Shaffer, who based his screenplay loosely on the David Pinner novel Ritual .
The story follows a Scottish police officer, Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward), who visits the isolated island of Summerisle in the search for a missing girl named Rowan Morrison. The inhabitants of Summerisle all follow a form of Celtic paganism, which shocks and appalls the devoutly Christian sergeant. Howie discovers that the pagans, led by their laird, Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), are planning a virgin sacrifice in the hopes that it will appease the gods and restore their crops. Believing that Rowan Morrison will be sacrificed, Howie strives to rescue her, only to discover that her supposed disappearance was just a ploy to lure him to the island. The pagans imprison Howie in a wicker man and set it ablaze, burning him to death.
The Wicker Man is generally very highly regarded by critics. Film magazine Cinefantastique described it as "The Citizen Kane of Horror Movies", and in 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Wicker Man the sixth greatest British film of all time. It also won the 1978 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. A scene from this film was #45 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments .
In 2006, Robin Hardy published a follow-up novel to The Wicker Man storyline entitled Cowboys for Christ . It follows two young Americans, Beth and Steve, who leave Texas to spread Christianity in Tressock, Scotland. They are welcomed by Sir Lachlan Morrison and his wife, Delia Morrison; unbeknown to Beth and Steve, they are in grave danger from a Celtic pagan community in the village.
A film adaptation, entitled The Wicker Tree , was produced in 2009, with Hardy directing from his own screenplay. It had a film festival showing in 2011. [1] A limited theatrical release occurred in January 2012 in the U.S., [2] followed by a DVD release in April 2012. It was the second highest ordered DVD on Amazon for the first three months after its release, a fact that director Robin Hardy was very proud of. [3]
The Wrath of the Gods was a planned romantic black comedy film written and to have been directed by Hardy, and based on Twilight of the Gods , the final part of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. In this film, "the gods get their comeuppance." [4] Hardy announced plans for a trilogy in a 2007 interview with The Guardian newspaper, [5] though the first film in the trilogy, The Wicker Man , was originally made in 1973, 34 years before. The third film was originally intended to be set primarily in Iceland; however, Hardy decided that filming there would be too impractical, and rewrote the script, re-setting the story in Shetland, with some scenes to be shot in Los Angeles. Since Shetland has a largely Scandinavian folklore rather than Celtic, this allows the story to remain focused on Norse mythology. [6] Production status of the third film in the trilogy is unknown given Hardy's death on 1 July 2016. [7]
 | This section may be confusing or unclear to readers.(June 2012) |
The film is divided into two parts. The protagonists are a young couple, Siegfried and Brynne. Siegfried is handsome but "incredibly stupid", and he has been overtaken by his own hubris and sporting ability. Brynne loves him despite his flaws, and she succeeds in teaching him to make love in a "triumphal moment". [8] Hardy said that the film is ultimately about "what happens to the gods, not just to the people who are offering sacrifices to them. The gods themselves get sucked into the mêlée in the third film. I looked for a suitable carapace to put that in and the last act of the Ring cycle seems to work very well – and it allows me to mix full-blast Wagner." [8]
Another of the film's key characters is Brynne's father, a chief of police. He has a tragic romance with a middle-aged woman, who has been accused of murder in Canada. Hardy stated that the chief of police will have to turn her in because he is an honourable man. [8]
The main antagonist of The Wrath of the Gods is Mr Odin, a one-eyed Hollywood studio executive who decides to create a theme park based on the Norse sagas which originated in Iceland. [8]
The Wrath of the Gods was originally intended to begin shooting in 2011, [9] but was delayed. Filming was then intended to start in June or July 2012. [10] The film was planned to be shot on 35mm film. [11] Once the film's production was complete, Hardy planned for the sets to become a tourist attraction. [8]
According to Hardy's 2011 casting announcements, Brynne would have been played by Icelandic actress Hatla Williams. [12] Mr Odin would have been played by James Mapes, the actor who played Reverend Moriarty in Hardy's previous film, The Wicker Tree. [13] Hardy intended to cast French actress Juliette Binoche as the murder suspect. [8]
In a 2013 Q&A session at the University of Hertfordshire, at a special screening of The Wicker Man, Hardy confirmed that he intended to begin shooting in the middle of 2013. [14]
In an interview the same year with ScreenDaily.com, ahead of the release of The Wicker Man: The Final Cut, Hardy stated that he was in the opening stages of financing the third film, and hoped to make it the following year. [15]
The film's score was written by Scottish composer Keith Easdale, and was inspired by Richard Wagner's compositions. [16] Hardy wanted to find amusing ways to implement music in the film. Each of the characters will have their own theme: for example, Brynne will have a light melodic motif. Hardy compared this to Leonard Bernstein's work on West Side Story , where variations on a single melody were used to create many musical themes. [8] Hardy was also inspired by the music of Shetland's Up Helly Aa fire festivals. [10]
The Wicker Man is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt, and Christopher Lee. The screenplay is by Anthony Shaffer, inspired by David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual, and Paul Giovanni composed the film score.
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was an English actor and singer. In a long career which spanned over 60 years, Lee often portrayed villains, and appeared as Count Dracula in seven Hammer Horror films, ultimately playing the role nine times. His other film roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Count Dooku in several Star Wars films (2002–2008), and Saruman in both the Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and the Hobbit film trilogy (2012–2014).
Britt Ekland is a Swedish actress, model and singer. She appeared in numerous films in her heyday throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including roles in The Double Man (1967), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), Machine Gun McCain (1969), Stiletto (1969) and the British crime film Get Carter (1971), which established her as a sex symbol. She also starred in several horror films, including The Wicker Man (1973), and appeared as a Bond girl in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
The Summer Isles are an archipelago lying in the mouth of Loch Broom, in the Highland region of Scotland.
A wicker man was purportedly a large wicker statue in which the druids sacrificed humans and animals by burning. The main evidence for this practice is a sentence by Roman general Julius Caesar in his Commentary on the Gallic War, which modern scholarship has linked to an earlier Greek writer, Poseidonius.
The Wicker Man is the soundtrack to the 1973 film of the same name. Composed, arranged and recorded by Paul Giovanni and Magnet, it contains folk songs performed by characters in the film. For example, Lesley Mackie, who plays the character of Daisy in the film, sings the opening song, and various others in the CD Soundtrack.
Ancient Celtic religion, commonly known as Celtic paganism, was the religion of the ancient Celtic peoples of Europe. Because there are no extant native records of their beliefs, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts, and literature from the early Christian period. Celtic paganism was one of a larger group of Iron Age polytheistic religions of Europe. It varied by region and over time, but underlying this were broad similarities and "a basic religious homogeneity" among the Celtic peoples.
The Norse mythology, preserved in such ancient Icelandic texts as the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and other lays and sagas, was little known outside Scandinavia until the 19th century. With the widespread publication of Norse myths and legends at this time, references to the Norse gods and heroes spread into European literary culture, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain. In the later 20th century, references to Norse mythology became common in science fiction and fantasy literature, role-playing games, and eventually other cultural products such as Japanese animation. Storytelling was an important aspect of Norse mythology and centuries later, with the rediscovery of the myth, Norse mythology once again relies on the impacts of storytelling to spread its agenda.
Keith Graham Warwick is a Scottish actor and musician. Warwick received his master's degree in Classical and Contemporary Text from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2015. He is best known for the role of Trent Clements in the Royal Television Society award-winning series My Parents Are Aliens. He has toured the world as a musician and has lived in both Paris and New York.
The Wicker Man is a 2006 horror film written and directed by Neil LaBute and starring Nicolas Cage. It is a remake and reimagining of the 1973 British film The Wicker Man, but also draws from its source material, David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual. The film concerns police officer Edward Malus, whose ex-fiancée Willow Woodward informs him that her daughter Rowan has disappeared and asks for his help in her search. When he arrives at the island in the Pacific Northwest where Rowan was last seen, he suspects something sinister about the neo-pagans who live there. The film received negative reviews on Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus calls it unintentionally funny. The film also flopped at the box office, grossing $38.8 million on a $40 million production budget.
Robin St. Clair Rimington Hardy was an English author and film director. His most famous directorial work is The Wicker Man, and his last project was a film adaptation of his novel Cowboys for Christ, which was retitled The Wicker Tree.
"Willow's Song" is a ballad by American composer Paul Giovanni for the 1973 film The Wicker Man
Cowboys for Christ: On May Day is a novel written by Robin Hardy, first published in 2006 by Luath Press. It is a partial sequel of Hardy's previous film The Wicker Man (1973), dealing with many of the same themes and ideas, namely the clash between paganism and Christianity. There are also similarities with the plot of Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon.
Noomi Rapace is a Swedish actress. She achieved international fame with her portrayal of Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish film adaptations of the Millennium series (2009): The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. For her performance in the Millennium series, Rapace won amongst others two Nymphe d'Ors, a Guldbagge Award, and a Satellite Award as Best Actress, and was nominated for a BAFTA Award, an International Emmy Award and a European Film Award. Following the success of the Millennium series, Rapace has gone on to star in American movies.
The Wicker Tree is a 2011 British horror film written and directed by Robin Hardy. It contains many direct parallels and allusions to the 1973 film The Wicker Man, which was also directed by Hardy, and is intended as a companion piece which explores the same themes. The film premiered at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal, Canada, July 2011 and was released on Blu-ray in the UK on 30 April 2012.
The Wicker Man is a 1978 horror novel written by Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer. It was based on the 1973 cult horror film The Wicker Man, directed by Hardy and written by Shaffer. The novel includes a foreword by Allan Brown. The film itself is loosely based on the 1967 novel Ritual by the actor and novelist David Pinner.
Ritual is a horror novel by British actor and author David Pinner, first published in 1967.
Lesley Mackie is a British actress, known for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Judy Garland in the original London cast of Judy. She is also known for her role as Daisy in the horror films The Wicker Man and The Wicker Tree.
Maria Elena Alexander is an American writer of horror and dark fantasy stories and poetry, best known for her award-winning novels Mr. Wicker and Snowed.
Folk horror is a subgenre of horror film and horror fiction that uses elements of folklore to invoke fear and foreboding. Typical elements include a rural setting, isolation, and themes of superstition, folk religion, paganism, sacrifice and the dark aspects of nature. Although related to supernatural horror film, folk horror usually focuses on the beliefs and actions of people rather than the supernatural, and often deals with naïve outsiders coming up against these. The British films Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), The Wicker Man (1973) and Witchfinder General (1968) are regarded as pioneers of the genre, while the 2019 film Midsommar sparked renewed interest in folk horror. Southeast Asian cinema also commonly features folk horror.