The Wicker Man

Note: This review was partially written in July, when I screened The Wicker Man for the press junket, and partially on Friday, Sept. 1, after paying to view the movie again to see if anything had changed. There will be spoilers in this review.

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The Wicker Man is arguably one of the most controversial genre remakes of recent years. In my opinion, the 1973 original suffers from an exceedingly slow first half, cluttered with flowery folk songs and peppered with random nudity set to musical numbers that are straight out of an x-rated fetish-fantasy as imagined by Walt Disney. However, it does have excellent, if somewhat stiff, performances by Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward. And of course the shocking, bleak ending will always be indelible.

Since I do not hold the original in a place of reverence, the fact that Neil LaBute is a director known for static, dialogue-driven films based on plays and not at all for horror and suspense, didn't faze me a bit. In fact, I thought he might bring a wholly different and innovative view to the table. The fact that he's never directed a music video was an added bonus. I also heard there wouldn't be any silly songs or a proliferation of pulchritude in The Wicker Man remake — so far, so good.

Then I saw the movie.

The Wicker Mangled… er, The Wicker Man starts off by showing us a strange and horrifying incident involving a little girl that completely reshapes the psyche of Officer Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage). Sometime later he is still paralyzed by what happened, hooked on pills, plagued by hallucinations, and teetering on the precipice of unemployment. Then a letter comes, addressed to him but not postmarked, from an old girlfriend named Willow (Kate Beahan) who jilted him at the altar years ago. Her letter is a desperate plea for him to find her missing daughter — in this letter he sees the opportunity to rectify past events and save a little girl's life.

The letter leads him to the remote and primitive island of Summersisle, where a colony of people live in old-fashioned bliss with no motor vehicles, no telephones, no TV, and no visitors from the outside world. So when Edward shows up looking for the little girl called Rowan, he's met with closed arms and even more closed mouths.

When the locals do talk to him, they deny the existence of the child and imply that Willow's whacky. Some things are obviously wrong at a glance — there's a great imbalance of the sexes, with women quite overtly running the show. Dressed in 19th century clothing, devoid of makeup and wearing their hair in long, flat plaits, the ladies range from foxy (Leelee Sobiesky as Sister Honey) to frumpy (Diane Delano as Sister Beech). They all love hives and honey. As luck would have it, Edward is allergic to the buzzy things, and he likes his tea sweet. In short, the bee spells t-r-o-u-b-l-e for the defective detective. Talk about a buzz kill.

Enter the local school marm, Sister Rose (Molly Parker) whose tongue is almost as sharp as her pointer. When questioned by Edward to whether she ever had a student named Rowan, Sister Rose shows only her thorns. In case you don’t get it, there is a snake wrapped around an egg on the front door of the country school room; phallic symbols abound, and there is William Blake poetry on the blackboard. Following an animal-cruelty scene similar to the one in the original (but not as effective), Edward runs off and looks for another brick wall to question.

As it turns out, these ladies are evil pagans, and they are all busily preparing for May Day, where they will don masks and animal costumes and offer up a sacrifice to the Goddess — a frantic Edward becomes convinced it is Rowan who will burn for their sins.

Cage, an actor I honestly do admire, is like a bull in a china shop here; imagine Bruce Campbell in a Broken Lizard production of The Glass Menagerie, and you've got the tip of the iceberg. The Malus character is maddeningly unfocused; by turns he seems shy and ill-at-ease, then suddenly barks a smart ass remark out of left field. In one scene, he stops his urgent investigation to help some men load logs onto a wagon. He accidentally upsets the load, spilling logs everywhere, then just runs off and goes somewhere else. The character does things like that throughout the entire flick; my brow was so furrowed after seeing this movie, I felt the need to get Botox.

There is one hilarious scene in the tavern in which he asks Sister Beech if she can "swing that?" To which she replies, "What's that? Some kind of city talk?" Then she offers him a drink. "What's in it?" he snaps. She smiles and drawls, "Mead, honey, herbs… and… whatnot."

My favorite scene has got to be between Cage and Parker when, as Edward unknowingly is headed for the weenie-roast, he commandeers her bicycle. "Step away from the bike!" he commands. She staunchly holds her banana seat. He insists, forcefully taking the vehicle. He sees her May Day bird mask in the basket, and tosses it at her as he pedals away, "And take your stupid mask!" he sneers.

No, wait. My favorite scene has got to be when Edward steals a big Fozzie Bear suit, puts it on and runs across the fields yelling at the "Bitches!" and screaming, "This won't bring your honey back!"

The only actors who really come out unscathed here are Ellen Burstyn as the queen bee, Sister Summersisle, and Lee Sobieski as the "ingénue." Somehow, these two rise above it all, stingers intact. Every other actor, even those without lines, fluctuate wildly from cardboard flat to air-raid shrill.

I must say, I was confounded the first time I saw The Wicker Man. I am aware LaBute is exceedingly bright and has a dark, subversive sense of humor, so I thought maybe the movie was supposed to be funny…? After that, I interviewed him and Cage, and tried to joke around a bit, but they definitely were not taking that bait. They both stated unequivocally that they set out to make a serious, scary movie (Cage is a producer).

They got it right here and there — the doctor's (Frances Conroy) house of horrors is creepy, and there are some ghoulish graveyard scenes — and the movie could have been thought-provoking, had the core of the original film not been discarded and PG-13ed down. So granted, there are some genuine moments of suspense here and some good boo scares, but they are undermined by the alarmingly fake dialogue and bizarre brawl scenes. (When Edward starts kicking the crap out of the womenfolk — throwing punches and roundhouse kicking like Ike Turner on a bender, it's better than finding vintage Sonny Chiba at 3 a.m. When the DVD comes out, probably next week, I'm cribbing that scene and putting it on MySpace!)

It's hardly the bee's knees, but I daresay I enjoyed The Wicker Man remake immensely. For all the wrong reasons, yes, but it is highly entertaining. To me, the original also had some unintentional humor and the remake ramps that up to Fahrenheit 451 — it is certainly faster-paced and more fun than it was in 1973. I definitely want to see it again.

A word to the wise: look for a cameo from James Franco, who starred in Cage's directorial debut, Sonny.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson