The Wicker Man

Thanks to my buddy Paul I finally got to see the genre classic the Wicker Man. I enjoyed it quite a lot. It is not at all anything I expected it to be. For one thing its barely a Horror film. There is an overwhelming sense of dread the accompanies the film but other than that much of the standard genre motifs are absent. Filling those holes are musical numbers. Yes, the film is a musical. At first I was taken aback by the sudden shift from standard movie to muscially choreographed song and dance. But the feeling I had also was that of a loss of control. I no longer had a grasp on what the film was going to do and that began to scare me.

The film also deals with some very complex themes. Namely religion and a highly sexual society. On the island that the story unfolds, Christianity has been usurped for the "old gods", Celtic gods of nature and the harvest. While we the audience get schooled in the significance if the May Pole, our hero police officer is dilligently praying for the souls of those he is meant to protect and serve. An interesting dynamic.

The Wicker Man does have a few hole in its plot that aren't delt with which only bothered me after the film had ended. But I did notice them or wasn't cncerned with them because I was tightly wound around the mystery, its feeling of dread, and I was caught in the hopes for resolution. When things are resloved, they're too terrifying to believe.

Grade: B+