THE WICKER MAN
2006

"Something bad is happening here... I can feel it"

When police officer Edward Malus (Cage) receives a letter from his ex-fiancé telling him that her daughter is missing, he heads north to Summers Isle of the coast of Washington State to investigate. Here he finds an isolated community ran by women, who practice pagan rituals to nature to bring forth a good harvest. As he looks for Willow's (Beahan) daughter around the island he discovers that the harvest rituals might actually be sacrifices and little Rowan's (Gair) disappearance is at the same time as their next ritual.

Why oh why does Hollywood insist on remaking horror movies from the 70s but never make then better than the original and 'The Wicker Man' is the worst example you will ever see!

Hollywood is becoming more and more desperate for a hit but instead of investing in finding something new they continue to remake classics. Jealous of the fact that the British horror movie is making a come back with hits like '28 Days Later', 'Dog Soldiers', 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'The Decent', they have decided to remake a movie that is considered to be the best horror movie that Great Britain has ever produced, 'The Wicker Man'. Made in 1973 and starring Christopher Lee, Edward Woodward and Britt Ekland, the original film was set on an island off the coast of Northern Scotland, where a strange community of pagan worshippers produced an orange harvest by performing rituals to nature itself. The story mixed horror with religion, as investigator Sergeant Howie discovered the strange practices of Summer Isle as he looked for a missing girl. The mixture hit home with British audiences and horror fans around the work, making it a cult classic in the genre and a movie that really didn't need to be remade.

The problem is that Hollywood studios do not see this. They think that modern audiences will not watch a movie made in the 70s with a small budget and set in Scotland but they think they will watch if it is set in America and it has a big name Hollywood actor as its star. So once again instead of looking for new, creative scripts that could breath some fresh air into a stagnant genre, they dust off a classic and 'reimagine it' for the new millennium. Like 'The Fog', 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and the numerous other 70s horror remakes that the studios seem to be bombarding us with every year, these are usually remakes of movies that are rightly considered classics of the genre and for fans and aficionados of horror it is considered a crime against cinema to even think about reimagining them. The Wicker Man remake should now be shown as the reason why these classics should not be remade.

As usual, the tale of pagan rituals and sacrifice is transported to America and onto a remote island off the north pacific coast of Washington State. Sergeant Howie turns into Edward Malus, a California police office who travels up to Summers Isle to help his former fiancé find her missing daughter. All well and good you may think but as soon as he gets to the island the film starts to descend into travesty. The island is now ran by women who follow their pagan ways to produce a better honey harvest but instead of a clash of religious beliefs we have a tale that falls into farce. The film quickly becomes unintentionally funny, as Edward rushes around the island, holding up women for their bicycles, falling asleep on the dockside and killing bees because he's allergic.

The biggest shock in the movie is that Oscar winner Nicolas Cage is involved with it. While his career has always been a little mixed, the actor is always watchable but his performance in this remake is almost farcical. He tries to stay serious throughout but his performance just becomes more and more over the top as the film processes. His supporting cast don't fair much better either with most of looking like they are actually reading their lines from an autocue. Even horror veteran Ellen Burstyn can't make up for the film's acting shortcomings. You should also be expecting a lot more from writer/director Neil LaBute, who is known for his character driven looks at the darker side of the human condition with films like 'In the Company of Men' and 'Your Friends & Neighbours' and 'The Shape of Things'. This just goes to show that even accomplished and critically acclaimed actors can't always bring something new to the horror genre.

'The Wicker Man' is the worst remake of any movie and should finally get Hollywood to notice that they do not need reimagine classics of the horror genre. Unintentionally funny and with a PG-13 rating in the US and a 12A rating in the UK, this can hardly be called a horror movie because the only frightening thing is that you have to pay money to see this travesty.