And maybe I'm just a sucker for holy fools and mummers' dances, but I loved it.
I'm a sucker for Christopher Lee and naked women, so I loved it too.
I do not think The Wicker Man is a horror film.
I regard it as horror, and my favourite kind, where a strange external terror resonates internally for the protagonist in a personal way, his own flaws intimate with his bizarre downfall. I'm not sure I found the movie scary, though I felt very bad for Sergeant Howie.
I might still want a copy of my own.* Oh, cinema. Why are you making me so broke?
Oy, tell me about it. I'll tell you about it--WARNING: the following is kind of stupid;
Yesterday, being Thursday, I had to be out of the house for a while. I went to the mall and thought I might maybe buy myself a ten dollar movie (I started yesterday with fifty dollars). First I picked up Aliens, which I for some reason neglected to buy for a very long time. Thinking of you, dear Sonya, and remembering you'd written a post about The Wicker Man(this one) I hadn't yet read, I decided to look for that film and also found it for only ten dollars. So, twenty dollars and two good DVD acquisitions, or so I thought.
I came back here to find I was going to be forced out of the house for another three hours, a depressing prospect as already the smothering hot day and lack of sleep had just about cremated me. But I sat down a moment to remove the cellophane from the DVDs and to have an uncharacteristic moment of uncertainty as to whether I should throw away the receipt. Scoffing at my own mysterious misgivings, I put things in the trash and started reading your post; "I watched the 99-minute cut of The Wicker Man (1973) tonight," and suddenly I had a sinking feeling--looking at my new DVD I found, yes, I only had the 88-minute cut. A quick scouring of the reviews told me that this was indeed A Bad Thing. I dug through the trash for the receipt, only to find one cannot return an opened DVD.
So off I went, across town to another place with a cheap, bigger DVD selection and I found the two disk version with the 99-minute cut for fifteen dollars. And for ten dollars, I also found Young Sherlock Holmes, which greygirlbeast had recommended to me. Sad prudence took over and I bought only the latter film--which I had wanted to see, but I don't like being thwarted, you understand.
After gasoline for the car, breakfast and coffee for me, I was down to six dollars and two hours to kill. So I drove all over town looking for that Red Fire Bar you talked about (go right ahead and laugh) and spent five dollars ninety-nine cents on it.
Then I got home and my aunt suddenly gave me a hundred dollars for taking care of her cats. So I saw the 99-minute cut after all, and was very tired at the end of the day.
What started as a ten dollar lark turned out to be something of a holy crusade for you, dear internet friend, Lady Sonya, and if you choose to be creeped out now, by all means do so. It'll fit in with my story about how the candy bar allowed me to taste through your mouth. It was good.
Nor did the climax leave me stunned—from the title, I'd have been far more disappointed if a sacrificial year-king hadn't surfaced at some point.
I knew Howie was going to get it, but not until about fifteen minutes in. There aren't enough books in my experience to clue me into the year-king thing, there was just a sort of strange dread about how the townspeople were talking about Rowan and how coolly they kept changing their story. Also, your analogy about a standard horror movie's "promiscuous blonde" occurred to me also.
what might otherwise have been a flaky folk revival in the Hebrides instead came across as both otherworldly and very practically rooted,
I completely agree, though at times I was reminded of a Strangers with Candy episode I recently saw that poked fun at religious cults.
but as a late Victorian syncretism it's more than believable
I loved that idea. It really did give it an extra layer of credibility.
no subject
I'm a sucker for Christopher Lee and naked women, so I loved it too.
I do not think The Wicker Man is a horror film.
I regard it as horror, and my favourite kind, where a strange external terror resonates internally for the protagonist in a personal way, his own flaws intimate with his bizarre downfall. I'm not sure I found the movie scary, though I felt very bad for Sergeant Howie.
I might still want a copy of my own.* Oh, cinema. Why are you making me so broke?
Oy, tell me about it. I'll tell you about it--WARNING: the following is kind of stupid;
Yesterday, being Thursday, I had to be out of the house for a while. I went to the mall and thought I might maybe buy myself a ten dollar movie (I started yesterday with fifty dollars). First I picked up Aliens, which I for some reason neglected to buy for a very long time. Thinking of you, dear Sonya, and remembering you'd written a post about The Wicker Man(this one) I hadn't yet read, I decided to look for that film and also found it for only ten dollars. So, twenty dollars and two good DVD acquisitions, or so I thought.
I came back here to find I was going to be forced out of the house for another three hours, a depressing prospect as already the smothering hot day and lack of sleep had just about cremated me. But I sat down a moment to remove the cellophane from the DVDs and to have an uncharacteristic moment of uncertainty as to whether I should throw away the receipt. Scoffing at my own mysterious misgivings, I put things in the trash and started reading your post; "I watched the 99-minute cut of The Wicker Man (1973) tonight," and suddenly I had a sinking feeling--looking at my new DVD I found, yes, I only had the 88-minute cut. A quick scouring of the reviews told me that this was indeed A Bad Thing. I dug through the trash for the receipt, only to find one cannot return an opened DVD.
So off I went, across town to another place with a cheap, bigger DVD selection and I found the two disk version with the 99-minute cut for fifteen dollars. And for ten dollars, I also found Young Sherlock Holmes, which
After gasoline for the car, breakfast and coffee for me, I was down to six dollars and two hours to kill. So I drove all over town looking for that Red Fire Bar you talked about (go right ahead and laugh) and spent five dollars ninety-nine cents on it.
Then I got home and my aunt suddenly gave me a hundred dollars for taking care of her cats. So I saw the 99-minute cut after all, and was very tired at the end of the day.
What started as a ten dollar lark turned out to be something of a holy crusade for you, dear internet friend, Lady Sonya, and if you choose to be creeped out now, by all means do so. It'll fit in with my story about how the candy bar allowed me to taste through your mouth. It was good.
Nor did the climax leave me stunned—from the title, I'd have been far more disappointed if a sacrificial year-king hadn't surfaced at some point.
I knew Howie was going to get it, but not until about fifteen minutes in. There aren't enough books in my experience to clue me into the year-king thing, there was just a sort of strange dread about how the townspeople were talking about Rowan and how coolly they kept changing their story. Also, your analogy about a standard horror movie's "promiscuous blonde" occurred to me also.
what might otherwise have been a flaky folk revival in the Hebrides instead came across as both otherworldly and very practically rooted,
I completely agree, though at times I was reminded of a Strangers with Candy episode I recently saw that poked fun at religious cults.
but as a late Victorian syncretism it's more than believable
I loved that idea. It really did give it an extra layer of credibility.