The film's haunting soundtrack, too, is derived from traditional folk songs. But on Summerisle, the Old Gods have been reintroduced to motivate the islanders. As the pantheon of rural gods and goddesses was replaced by a single deity, annual pagan festivals were displaced by Christian equivalents (for example, winter solstice eventually became Christmas). In his screenplay, Anthony Shaffer (author of stage thriller Sleuth, filmed the same year) incorporated details of early Britons' fertility worship, drawing on sources such as Frazer's The Golden Bough. In further contravention of horror's usual moral code, it is chastity, not promiscuity, which is punished. Summerisle and his fellow-islanders believe that their apple harvest is sustained by 'Old Gods', and the film is punctuated by colourful scenes of ritual and superstition in which Howie's escalating moral outrage is humourously evident. It also tackles a very unfamiliar subject for British horror: paganism.Īt its heart is a clash of beliefs between Neil Howie ( Edward Woodward), a priggish 'Christian copper' from the mainland, and the suave heathen Lord Summerisle ( Christopher Lee, clearly relishing his newfound freedom from playing vampires). It flouts horror-movie conventions by having no unambigously 'good' or 'evil' characters and no supernatural elements. Robin Hardy, 1973) is a genre misfit, equally resembling a detective thriller, a religious allegory, even a musical. Show full synopsisĪlthough marketed as a horror film, The Wicker Man (d. Investigating the disappearance of a 12-year-old girl, a police sergeant goes to a Scottish island, an isolated community whose ancient religious beliefs run totally counter to his strongly-held Christian faith.
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