Much of the film is given to illustrating the residents’ beliefs, and those textures are woven deeply into the aesthetic fabric of the film.
It seems to be a place that is simultaneously very much of 1960s Britain and of a time long, long past. One striking element of The Wicker Man is that the island’s ancient religion is not treated as a negative or oppressive force, but rather as a legitimate and complex way of life. With the approval of community leader Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), Howie conducts his investigation regardless, gradually becoming convinced that Rowan’s disappearance is connected with the island’s pagan religion and upcoming May Day festival. When he arrives, he finds the residents unhelpful they haven’t reported the girl missing, and Howie has no definitive answer as to where Rowan is. The film begins with Christian police detective Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) travelling to the Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl named Rowan Morrison (Gerry Cowper). The Wicker Man is both contemporary and ancient, immediate and primal, baffling and deeply disturbing – and the shock waves it caused are still felt in horror cinema today. It is the strangest combination of elements: a horror film conducted almost entirely in daylight, with no blood or gore or acts of extreme violence, no monsters or supernaturalism, and driven so much by its score that it feels at times like a kind of musical. Buried by its studio on initial release but now revered as one of the finest British horror films ever made, it pushes the boundaries of the genre in the most exquisite ways while breaking all its rules at the same time. It’s in no way an exaggeration to say that there is no other film like Robin Hardy’s 1973 masterpiece The Wicker Man.
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