The Wicker Man Enigma

The Wicker Man is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee. The screenplay is by Anthony Shaffer, inspired by David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual, and Paul Giovanni composed the film score. The plot centres on the visit of a police officer, Sergeant Neil Howie, to the fictional, isolated Scottish island of Summerisle in search of a missing girl. Howie, a devout Christian, is appalled to find that the inhabitants of the island have abandoned Christianity and now practise a form of Celtic paganism. Released in 1973, The Wicker Man was met with mixed reviews at the time of its release, though it earned multiple nominations at the 6th Saturn Awards in the United States, where it won the award for Best Horror Film. The film garnered critical praise in the years following its release, and was deemed by the film magazine Cinefantastique as "The Citizen Kane of horror movies". In 2004, Total Film magazine named it the sixth-greatest British film of all time. The film also introduced the subject of the wicker man, a druid effigy, into modern popular culture. In 1989, Shaffer wrote a script treatment for The Loathsome Lambton Worm, a direct sequel with fantasy elements. Hardy had no interest in the project, and it went unproduced. In 2006, a poorly received American remake starring Nicolas Cage was released, from which Hardy and others involved with the original have dissociated themselves. In 2011, a spiritual sequel written and directed by Hardy, The Wicker Tree, was released; it featured Lee in a cameo appearance. In 2013, the original U.S. theatrical version of The Wicker Man was digitally restored and released. Another sequel, Wrath of the Gods, directed by Robin Hardy's son Justin Hardy, was released in August 2026.