Firebeetle's Reviews: Beware the Wicker Man!

[Morrus]

(It's not just a cult classic, the British seem to consider it one of the greatest movies ever produced)

We do?!?!

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I think the movie may suffer today for a lack of novetly, 30+ years later, that it did possess when it was released.

In the last three decades movie elements like; surprisingly plot twists, strange aspects to a story, the "good guy" snuffing it at the end, cults being presented as something other than totemically evil, and sex have all become more or less common in many movies. In the early 70s,

Spoiler

burning up

a devout, Christian law officer - that champion of civilization - would have been quite the kick. Now it is almost passe.

I mean, compare Wicker Man to Jacob's Labber; lots of strange things going on, sex, and the good guy

Spoiler

dies in the end

.

Time makes everything sad and silly.

 

[Huw]

I'm going to use the rules from Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns.

I actually want my barony to be pretty quirky, like the Northern Exposure TV series, since my players are all fairly whimsical types. Plus, you know, ancient horrors that want to destroy the planet and all that.

You might like The League of Gentlemen then. No ancient horrors, but you have got Papa Lazarou.

 

[JoeGKushner]

We do?!?!

From Wikepdia. "In 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Wicker Man the sixth greatest British film of all time."

So, yeah.

 

[trancejeremy]

#96 on the Top 100 British films according to the British Film Institute. Which make not sound like much, but "A Clockwork Orange" was only in the #80s.

 

[Huw]

From Wikepdia. "In 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Wicker Man the sixth greatest British film of all time."

So, yeah.

So no. Sixth greatest BRITISH MADE film, not sixth film considered greatest by British.

Now, if you want a good British horror film, go watch The Descent.

 

[Simplicity]

I think the movie may suffer today for a lack of novetly, 30+ years later, that it did possess when it was released.

In the last three decades movie elements like; surprisingly plot twists, strange aspects to a story, the "good guy" snuffing it at the end, cults being presented as something other than totemically evil, and sex have all become more or less common in many movies. In the early 70s,

Spoiler

burning up

a devout, Christian law officer - that champion of civilization - would have been quite the kick. Now it is almost passe.

I mean, compare Wicker Man to Jacob's Labber; lots of strange things going on, sex, and the good guy

Spoiler

dies in the end

.

Time makes everything sad and silly.

These aspects of horror movies are not as novel as you seem to believe. Psycho, for example, had one of the biggest plot twists around. There's a reason M. Night Shyamalan gets compared to Hitchcock.

Any "haunting" movie has "strange aspects"... because that's basically all a building can do to you to spook you. See the Amityville Horror (Arg! There's flies on the window!), the Exorcist (Arg! She's peeing at my social gathering!), the Shining (Arg! Twins!). Okay, some of these are older than the Wickerman, but they're easy examples. All ghost movies are the same.

Good guy snuffing it is another classic Hitchcock trait. Especially in Alfred Hitchcock presents. You never knew who was going to make it, and it's one of the things that made the show great. But you also saw good guys snuffing it in the Twilight Zone, the Outer Limits, etc. I guess the short format was just good for that. (It's a cookbook!)

 

[Simplicity]

From Wikepdia. "In 2004 the magazine Total Film named The Wicker Man the sixth greatest British film of all time."

So, yeah.

This is a sad statement about the quality of British films.

I can't believe it to be true. Terry Gilliam movies probably occupy the top 5 slots then...
28 Days Later should be up there. Heck, Shaun of the Dead is way better than the Wicker Man, and I don't consider it to be a paragon of the craft of filmmaking.

 

[trancejeremy]

According to

http://www.mindjack.com/film/2004/10/best-british-films.html

The 5 better are:

Get Carter
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067128/
A Matter of Life and Death
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038733/
Trainspotting
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/
The 3rd Man
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041959/
Life of Brian
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/

 

[Villano]

So far, the remake is only scoring a 3.7 on IMDB and a 12% positive at Rotten Tomatoes (42 critic reviews, only 5 positive, with a reviewer average of 3.4 out of 10). I doubt this one is going to make anyone's top 10 list.