The Wicker Man: The Final Cut

Robin Hardy, UK, 1973, DCP, 1.85, colour, 93′

FRI September 19 / 21.00 / Kinodvor

After receiving an anonymous letter about a missing 12-year-old girl, devoutly Christian and sexually oppressed copper, sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward), travels to a remote Scottish island to investigate. But the islanders welcome neither his badge nor religious devotion, for laird of the isle Christopher Lee and his devoted followers (including the innkeeper’s lascivious daughter: nude Britt Ekland in her memorable mating dance sequence) worship only the pagan gods of old – and those gods demand a sacrifice.

The low-budget (oc)cult British horror classic The Wicker Man, the brainchild of actor Christopher Lee (wanting to break from the Hammer films’ Dracula typecasting), independent producer Peter Snell of British Lion and writer Anthony Shaffer (of Hitchcock’s Sleuth and Frenzy), was originally released in UK as an 87-minute B feature to Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 Don’t Look Now. A film print of Hardy’s “long version” (displaced by Roger Corman as the legend goes) is most likely lost forever. The digitally restored “final cut” was created based on a 35mm “middle version” release print recently found at Harvard Film Archives.

“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 … 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…”
– Graham Fuller, The Village Voice