The Wicker Man (2006 film)

Plot

Policeman Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) receives news from his ex-fiancée, Willow Woodward (Kate Beahan), that her daughter, Rowan (Erika Shaye Gair), is missing. He travels to the Western United States and takes a ship cruise to a coastal area where he gets a pilot (Matthew Walker) to take him to an island off the coast of Washington State where a group of neo-pagans live.

The island is led by Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn), an elderly woman who supposedly represents the goddess they worship. Sister Summersisle explains to Edward that her ancestors had left England to avoid persecution, only to settle near Salem and find renewed persecution in the Salem witch trials, before arriving on the island. Sister Summersisle explains that their population is predominantly female as they choose the strongest stock—evading Edward's concern about the birth of unwanted males. The economy of the island relies on the production of local honey, which Edward learns has declined recently.

Edward asks the villagers about Rowan, but they give him evasive answers. He later sees two men carrying a large bag that appears to be dripping blood, and then he finds a fresh, unmarked grave in the churchyard. The grave turns out to contain only a burned doll, but Edward finds Rowan's sweater in the churchyard.

At the village school, teacher Sister Rose (Molly Parker) tries to prevent Edward from seeing the class register. When he sees that Rowan's name has been crossed out he becomes enraged at the teacher's and Rowan's classmates' lies. Rose demands Edward talk outside and, after a short discussion of the island people's view of death, Rose explains that Rowan is "letting it snow". Edward asks how Rowan died and Sister Rose tells him first that "She'll burn to death". When Edward catches the tense she used, Sister Rose corrects herself quickly, saying, "She burned to death", and rushes back to her class.

When Edward questions Willow about the grave, she reveals that Rowan is his daughter.

As Edward searches through the island for clues and answers, he eventually grows to realise the community is a matriarchal dystopian society.

On the day of the fertility rite, Edward frantically searches the village for Rowan. He attacks Sister Beech (Diane Delano), who has a bear costume for the ritual. Edward incapacitates Sister Honey (Leelee Sobieski), dons the bear suit, and joins the parade led by Sister Summersisle.

The parade ends at the site of the festival. Rowan is tied to a large tree, about to be burned. Edward rescues Rowan and they run away through the woods, but Rowan leads him back to Sister Summersisle. Sister Summersisle thanks Rowan for her help, and Edward realizes that the search for Rowan was a trap. Sister Willow is Sister Summersisle's daughter, and his fate was sealed many years ago, when Sister Willow chose him. The villagers attack Edward and overpower him, viciously breaking his legs with a mallet to prevent him from escaping. They then place a cage-like helmet on his head, and pour live bees into it, which sting him unmercifully. Throughout all this, he keeps asking how can he be a good sacrifice if he does not believe in their religion. The women carry him to a giant wicker man and shut him inside. Rowan sets fire to the wicker man and Edward is sacrificed amid his screams and a giant blaze. The crowd chants "The drone must die!", believing that Edward's sacrifice will restore their honey production.

Six months later, Sisters Willow and Honey enter a bar and start talking with two off-duty police officers (James Franco and Jason Ritter). The women invite them to go home with them, presumably in hopes of using them as they used Edward. The buzzing of bees and screaming from Edward Malus can be heard over Sister Honey as the film fades to black.

Production

Universal Pictures had been planning a remake of the 1973 film of the same name since the 1990s. The British film had been in the licensing library of Canal+, which was optioned by producer JoAnne Sellar to Universal. In March 2002 it was revealed that Neil LaBute was writing and directing The Wicker Man for Universal and Nicolas Cage's production company Saturn Films. Around the same time, the original film's director Robin Hardy and star Christopher Lee were preparing a semi-remake of their 1973 film, titled The Riding of the Laddie, with Vanessa Redgrave and Lee's Lord of the Rings co-star Sean Astin attached. Hardy stated Lee would not play the villain as he did in the original Wicker Man, but instead a door-to-door born again Christian preacher who comes to Scotland along with his wife (Redgrave) as they are introduced to the neo-pagan cult. Hardy hoped for filming to begin in Glasgow, Scotland in 2003, but The Riding of the Laddie would not materialize until years later, when it had undergone many changes to become the film The Wicker Tree. Universal's remake with LaBute moved forward, who changed the Scots setting to contemporary America. The remake rights eventually moved from Universal to Millennium Films. Filming began in Vancouver, Canada in July 2005.

Critical reception

Upon release the film received mainly negative reviews from film critics. The film holds a 15% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 106 reviews, with a weighted average score of 3.5/10. The site's consensus says, "Puzzlingly misguided, Neil LaBute's update The Wicker Man struggles against unintentional comedy and fails." On Metacritic, the film has a normalized score of 36% from 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". CinemaScore gave it rating of "F" based on surveys from general audiences. On At the Movies, the film received two thumbs down from Richard Roeper and Aisha Tyler, although they both said the film was "entertainingly bad". The film was not without its positive reviews, however, as film critic Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, saw the film in a more positive light, with Gleiberman saying that director Neil LaBute brought some "innovation" over the original film.

The original film's director, Robin Hardy, had expressed skepticism over the Hollywood remake, and had his lawyers make Warner Bros. remove his name from the remake's promotional material. According to Hardy, he was given writing credit for the screenplay, when he had not received any for the original. Christopher Lee, who played Lord Summerisle in the original film, commented: "I don't believe in remakes. You can make a follow up to a film, but to remake a movie with such history and success just doesn't make sense to me."

Cage himself acknowledged that the film was "absurd". He remarked in 2010: "There is a mischievous mind at work on The Wicker Man, you know? You know what I mean? And I finally kind of said, 'I might have known that the movie was meant to be absurd.' But saying that now after the fact is OK, but to say it before the fact is not, because you have to let the movie have its own life." In February 2012, Cage gave a live webchat with fans to promote Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. When asked what roles from his career he would most like to revisit, Cage responded, "I would like to hook up with one of the great Japanese filmmakers, like the master that made Ringu, and I would like to take The Wicker Man to Japan, except this time he's a ghost.

Since the films release the scene where Nicolas Cage's character gets tortured by bees as well as the scene where he discovered the burned doll have become internet memes.

Box office

The Wicker Man opened on September 1, 2006 in 2,784 venues and earned $9,610,204 in its opening weekend, ranking third in the domestic box office. The film closed on November 16, 2006 after eleven weeks of release, grossing $23,649,127 domestically and $15,105,946 overseas for a worldwide total of $38,755,073. Based on a $40 million budget, the film was a box office bomb.

Accolades

The film garnered five Golden Raspberry Award nominations:

Home media

The film was released on DVD on December 19, 2006, with an unrated alternate ending included. The film continues in the same way as the theatrical version, except the credits begin after the wicker man's burning head falls off, omitting the "6 months later" scene. A Blu-ray of the film was released on January 30, 2007.