Monday, September 4, 2006
Occult Classic
The thematic daring and genre-bending perversity of the original Wicker Man by Graham Fuller. Whatever the fate of Neil LaBute's Yank remake of The Wicker Man—which Warner Bros. is releasing this Friday (without advance press screenings) —it's unlikely to generate the enduring passion and rancor inspired by the 1973 occult classic.
Other British films, such as Peeping Tom, The Devils, Straw Dogs, and A Clockwork Orange, steeped in violence and sexual sadism, have been more controversial; Get Carter, lionized by the '90s lad fad, has similarly gained in retrospective glory.
But The Wicker Man's genre-bending, thematic daring, and tortuous history have made it the U.K.'s definitive cult movie. Equally admired by witchcraft geeks and cineastes, though critically neglected, it has spawned two books, three documentaries, websites, and fan conventions.
village voice > film > by Graham Fuller
