A horrible abomination of a film. I had very low expectations for this film but this is much worse than I ever thought it could possibly be. In fact, in its own way, it is one of the very worst films I have ever seen.
I appreciate that Robin Hardy is now an old gentleman and his faculties must be somewhat impaired but how could he agree to decimate the legacy that he built up with the original "Wicker Man" by producing this mess? ( yes I know really, it was the money! ) The narrative is a garbled piece of nonsense and the film seems to move forward as if it was assembled from 4 or 5 different stories. The motivations of the characters make no sense. For example two young American evangelists go on a high profile visit to Scotland, including media interviews etc, but very quickly allow themselves to completely change their schedule and go to some sleepy rural village. The Leader of the Cult isn't even convinced of what his group are doing but still blunders ahead with murders etc. The young male evangelist has a vow of celibacy but a quick glimpse of local lady "Lolly" ( about whom there is much more to follow) displaying her thimble chested form in a river and 3 minutes later he has committed the evil deed with her. The pagan group ( who look like a bunch of middle class chumps straight from the Glastonbury Festival ) wander away for the main female character "Beth Boothby" completely ignoring the fact that they have captured her and yet 5 minutes later they are ensnaring her again for their rite. Promising characters, such as "Lady Delia Morrison", wander in and out of the film and appear to serve no purpose and are omitted from scenes in which they would be expected to appear The acting is truly, truly awful. Whereas in the original "Wicker Man" the female temptation to Edward Woodward's Christian innocent was provided by beautiful, ripe, alluring beauties such as Britt Ekland, Ingrid Pitt and Diane Cilento the temptress in this film, "Lolly", is played by a minor TV actress who rejoices in the name Honeysuckle Weeks, and who looks like a not very convincing gender reassignment case. I'm afraid she would certainly tempt no-one from the path of celibacy! Her delivery of her dialogue is so bad that at one stage they have to subtitle the girl even though she is speaking English! Clive Russell as "Beame" does his usual comedy relief but his character and performance is completely out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the film. Poor Christopher Lee turns up in flashback acting opposite some ugly kid who must be the son of one of the producers because the stilted delivery of his dialogue is sub primary school play standard. The two American evangelists are flat and dull too. Henry Garrett as cowboy Steve has the charisma of a cardboard box and Britannia Nichol as "Beth Boothby", looks a bit like Katie Holmes in a blond wig and a comedy pig nose and changes her characterisation from scene to scene. Poor kids must have thought this was their big break! The photography is horrible. The light keeps changing throughout individual scenes so that we go from morning to early evening light in about a minute. At certain points it appears that some sort of filter is being used but it could just be that the camera is out of focus.
The magic and wonder of the original "Wicker Man" came from a genuinely convincing creation of a rural pagan world. The setting of the original, on an island as opposed to some anonymous border village as in this film, served to reinforce the plausibility of such a world existing. However in this film it is never explained why this one village has evolved in this way compared with neighbouring villages? The appearance of the "Wicker Man" at the end of that film was a truly horrifying event, but one that is entirely consistent with where the narrative of the story leads. However "the Wicker Tree" itself serves absolutely no purpose in the film other than to provide a ridiculous twist featuring the Sir Lachlan Morrison character. What was the purpose of the "Wicker Tree"? The viewer is left with no idea at all other than to assume that it was just stuck in there as an afterthought to try and create some sort of link with the original film.
The "shocking" conclusion of the film sees Beth Boothby reduced to a wax works display and fully on view. Which Pagan tradition features turning sacrifices into wax works statues? What did the creation of a wax work dummy from the May Queen achieve? The offering of Edward Woodward to the Wicker Man in the first film was entirely consistent and plausible within the traditions and situation created. And honestly, if you had murdered a high profile visitor would you put them on display as a wax works model? In this film the end was simply a horribly stupid conceit that made no sense whatsoever.
The film ends up looking like it had been conceived in 37 seconds by a bunch of film executive dummies in suits rather than 37 years in the making by the creator of the original "Wicker Man". I see that they are trying to present it as a "black comedy" and Robin Hardy has said that "it's okay to laugh". Well it's okay to laugh WITH a film but surely not AT a film! Extremely poor and ultimately very sad.
I appreciate that Robin Hardy is now an old gentleman and his faculties must be somewhat impaired but how could he agree to decimate the legacy that he built up with the original "Wicker Man" by producing this mess? ( yes I know really, it was the money! ) The narrative is a garbled piece of nonsense and the film seems to move forward as if it was assembled from 4 or 5 different stories. The motivations of the characters make no sense. For example two young American evangelists go on a high profile visit to Scotland, including media interviews etc, but very quickly allow themselves to completely change their schedule and go to some sleepy rural village. The Leader of the Cult isn't even convinced of what his group are doing but still blunders ahead with murders etc. The young male evangelist has a vow of celibacy but a quick glimpse of local lady "Lolly" ( about whom there is much more to follow) displaying her thimble chested form in a river and 3 minutes later he has committed the evil deed with her. The pagan group ( who look like a bunch of middle class chumps straight from the Glastonbury Festival ) wander away for the main female character "Beth Boothby" completely ignoring the fact that they have captured her and yet 5 minutes later they are ensnaring her again for their rite. Promising characters, such as "Lady Delia Morrison", wander in and out of the film and appear to serve no purpose and are omitted from scenes in which they would be expected to appear The acting is truly, truly awful. Whereas in the original "Wicker Man" the female temptation to Edward Woodward's Christian innocent was provided by beautiful, ripe, alluring beauties such as Britt Ekland, Ingrid Pitt and Diane Cilento the temptress in this film, "Lolly", is played by a minor TV actress who rejoices in the name Honeysuckle Weeks, and who looks like a not very convincing gender reassignment case. I'm afraid she would certainly tempt no-one from the path of celibacy! Her delivery of her dialogue is so bad that at one stage they have to subtitle the girl even though she is speaking English! Clive Russell as "Beame" does his usual comedy relief but his character and performance is completely out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the film. Poor Christopher Lee turns up in flashback acting opposite some ugly kid who must be the son of one of the producers because the stilted delivery of his dialogue is sub primary school play standard. The two American evangelists are flat and dull too. Henry Garrett as cowboy Steve has the charisma of a cardboard box and Britannia Nichol as "Beth Boothby", looks a bit like Katie Holmes in a blond wig and a comedy pig nose and changes her characterisation from scene to scene. Poor kids must have thought this was their big break! The photography is horrible. The light keeps changing throughout individual scenes so that we go from morning to early evening light in about a minute. At certain points it appears that some sort of filter is being used but it could just be that the camera is out of focus.
The magic and wonder of the original "Wicker Man" came from a genuinely convincing creation of a rural pagan world. The setting of the original, on an island as opposed to some anonymous border village as in this film, served to reinforce the plausibility of such a world existing. However in this film it is never explained why this one village has evolved in this way compared with neighbouring villages? The appearance of the "Wicker Man" at the end of that film was a truly horrifying event, but one that is entirely consistent with where the narrative of the story leads. However "the Wicker Tree" itself serves absolutely no purpose in the film other than to provide a ridiculous twist featuring the Sir Lachlan Morrison character. What was the purpose of the "Wicker Tree"? The viewer is left with no idea at all other than to assume that it was just stuck in there as an afterthought to try and create some sort of link with the original film.
The "shocking" conclusion of the film sees Beth Boothby reduced to a wax works display and fully on view. Which Pagan tradition features turning sacrifices into wax works statues? What did the creation of a wax work dummy from the May Queen achieve? The offering of Edward Woodward to the Wicker Man in the first film was entirely consistent and plausible within the traditions and situation created. And honestly, if you had murdered a high profile visitor would you put them on display as a wax works model? In this film the end was simply a horribly stupid conceit that made no sense whatsoever.
The film ends up looking like it had been conceived in 37 seconds by a bunch of film executive dummies in suits rather than 37 years in the making by the creator of the original "Wicker Man". I see that they are trying to present it as a "black comedy" and Robin Hardy has said that "it's okay to laugh". Well it's okay to laugh WITH a film but surely not AT a film! Extremely poor and ultimately very sad.